Online Dating now part of the furniture
One curious but interesting way to know that a niche product or services has finally join the mainstream is when every little information about the niche product or services does not make the news any more. That is what seem to have now happened to online dating. Gone are the days when each new wedding that resulted from the couple meeting online makes the news.
Some of the newsworthy reports from online dating comes from niches within online dating itself for example the recent announcement of a couple who got engaged after meeting at an online dating site setup specifically for “ugly people” even this story seem more like a PR stunt than a real success for the so call dating site for ugly people.
Despite the the fact that online dating is now the norm, the industry is still growing at a healthy rate with more people getting online and the cost of Internet access going down steadily while availability of Wi-Fi and mobile Internet becoming the norm with every smart phone. All these technology are making online dating and social media in general more accessible to people.
Another thing that has significantly help the growth of online dating is the fact that the stigma attached to meeting people online is now receding making people who will consider online dating but for the stigma have the courage to try this not so new way of meeting new partner.
Despite all the factors that counts in favour of online dating, the exponential growth predicted is not happening as analyst expected. Some of the factors blamed for that includes the fact that the curiosity factor of online dating is beginning to wear off with some people reverting to the traditional ways of meeting people coupled with the success of speed dating.
Continuous improvement in the technology of online dating is mitigating the membership decline through the lost of the curiosity factor. Technical directory of one popular dating platform was quote as follows following the introduction of a tool called the ice breaker to their dating platform
“We have never seen so many of our members logged in at one time. It’s the highest we’ve had this year and has beaten the previous record set in the last quarter of 2009 by over 15%”.
Online dating may not be growing as fast as people expected but all indication shows that it is not only here to stay but it has become part of the establishment and it is growing at a healthy rate year-on-year.