You've heard the story before. You've witnessed it on the big screen. In Hollywood flicks, like You've Got Mail and Must Love Dogs, the leading man and his female counterpart meet online and they fall in love. Virtual romance blossoms everywhere.
This whole online dating, online personals thing was in the making for years. With the dawning of the internet age and the invasion of emails and instant messaging, online dating was but a natural progression.
And while in its infancy taking out online personals and hooking up with strangers across the ether was looked upon as, well, weird, today it's a norm. Millions of people, young and old, across the world, are joining up and logging in to find their true love connection through the world wide web.
Whoever came up with the idea to charge for the service, to cover for allowing people to scroll through personal profiles and connect, must have been a genius, because today these sites have become virtual gold mines.
Online dating really became popular in the early 2000s. That's when services like Match.com, eHarmony, and Yahoo Personals first cropped up and took off with a skyward trajectory. In August of 2003 alone, online personals drew over 40 million unique visitors in the United States. In terms of traffic, that's a huge number.
If you aren't up to speed with this world of online personals, it may seem like a complete mystery. But its actually pretty simple, and it makes sense. Personals are simply profiles. If you have a profile on a social networking site like Facebook or Bebo, then you already have a grasp of online personals. These are slightly more tailored than regular profiles, however. They include info about your physical characteristics, your weight, your hair color, your ethnicity, your lifestyle choices, your social background, your religion and even your eating and drinking and partying habits. Users usually include a quick description of themselves and they also jot down something about what they are looking for in a mate.
Users contact and connect via site based messaging. Most online personal sites also have a system in place for users to express interest without actually saying anything concrete, e.g. winking or poking. The idea is that users can browse through profiles, find someone that tickles their fancy, contact them and eventually meet up, face to face, for a real date.
Most online daters will attest that they like online dating better than dating in meatspace. Online personals are much simpler. They are more specific, more discerning. In the offline world, you're limited to people you meet in your town. Online you can meet people from all over the globe. And you can filter out those people who don't fit your idea of a match and concentrate on profiles that actually do seem appealing.
Just maybe your soul mate is looking right at you from behind your monitor.
Of course the online dating scene isn't without its pitfalls. Many people tend to fib. They exaggerate their physical characteristics. They put down phony birth dates, they lower their weight, they make themselves taller, blonder, tanner than they really are. Some people even post fake pictures.
However, it's often easy to weed out the liars and find true love. - 31877
This whole online dating, online personals thing was in the making for years. With the dawning of the internet age and the invasion of emails and instant messaging, online dating was but a natural progression.
And while in its infancy taking out online personals and hooking up with strangers across the ether was looked upon as, well, weird, today it's a norm. Millions of people, young and old, across the world, are joining up and logging in to find their true love connection through the world wide web.
Whoever came up with the idea to charge for the service, to cover for allowing people to scroll through personal profiles and connect, must have been a genius, because today these sites have become virtual gold mines.
Online dating really became popular in the early 2000s. That's when services like Match.com, eHarmony, and Yahoo Personals first cropped up and took off with a skyward trajectory. In August of 2003 alone, online personals drew over 40 million unique visitors in the United States. In terms of traffic, that's a huge number.
If you aren't up to speed with this world of online personals, it may seem like a complete mystery. But its actually pretty simple, and it makes sense. Personals are simply profiles. If you have a profile on a social networking site like Facebook or Bebo, then you already have a grasp of online personals. These are slightly more tailored than regular profiles, however. They include info about your physical characteristics, your weight, your hair color, your ethnicity, your lifestyle choices, your social background, your religion and even your eating and drinking and partying habits. Users usually include a quick description of themselves and they also jot down something about what they are looking for in a mate.
Users contact and connect via site based messaging. Most online personal sites also have a system in place for users to express interest without actually saying anything concrete, e.g. winking or poking. The idea is that users can browse through profiles, find someone that tickles their fancy, contact them and eventually meet up, face to face, for a real date.
Most online daters will attest that they like online dating better than dating in meatspace. Online personals are much simpler. They are more specific, more discerning. In the offline world, you're limited to people you meet in your town. Online you can meet people from all over the globe. And you can filter out those people who don't fit your idea of a match and concentrate on profiles that actually do seem appealing.
Just maybe your soul mate is looking right at you from behind your monitor.
Of course the online dating scene isn't without its pitfalls. Many people tend to fib. They exaggerate their physical characteristics. They put down phony birth dates, they lower their weight, they make themselves taller, blonder, tanner than they really are. Some people even post fake pictures.
However, it's often easy to weed out the liars and find true love. - 31877
About the Author:
With online personals on the rise, it pays for people to inform themselves with the industry before jumping in. Jayde Johanssen offers free online dating information to help people on their way.
