Dating has come a long way, from chaperone supervised meetings in the early 15th century to today’s internet weddings.
The evolution of dating was speeded up in the 18th century with a philosophical movement called “”Romanticism””, which emphasized passion instead of logic. This philosophy had an effect on literature, art, government, music, and society in general. Dating was a natural outcome in this on-going change.
The arrival of online dating
- Internet dating started with newsgroups like soc.singles way before web browsers, the instant messengers, the social networking sites, the online dating sites, or even the WWW emerged.
- Jupiter Research forecasts that $516 million will be spent on online dating sites in 2005, and will rise to $623 million by 2008.
- comScore Networks, another research company, estimated that $214 million was spent on online personals in the first half of 2003, up from $121 million in 2002.
- Despite rumors that Online Dating was bound to fail, January 2005 alone saw well over 26 million visitors to relationship and matchmaking websites.
Types of online dating websites
There are 2 types of relationship website applications that help online dating.
- One-on-one dating website applications
- Social Networking website applications
One-on-one dating website applications
These online dating sites enable people to register and browse profiles available on the site. Most sites offer the following basic set of features:
- Registration
- Browse Profiles
- Private Messaging
- Pro/paid accounts
- Favorites
- Search Profiles
- Matchfinder
- Billing history
Most online dating websites are structured around this model. Adding features like Photo/profile rating, Live Chats, Videos, pay-per-contact, etc can make your website more appealing to the market. There are innumerable examples of these types of sites. Here are a few high-profile dating websites:
- Match.com (also used by MSN)
- Personals.yahoo.com
- Personals.salon.com
- Love.org
- Date.com
Social Networking Website Applications
Social Networking is basically a map of relationships between individuals. It indicates ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities — friends, close friends, school mates, casual acquaintance, family, business, etc. The theory views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties . Nodes are individuals in the network while ties are the relationships between them.
There was a lot of talk on how Social Networking as a model is doomed to fail but just looking at the way they are doing is enough to know that although it may not be paying off right now, it soon will. Sites like LinkedIn, Ryze, Yahoo 360, MySpace, etc seem to be attracting customers silently. Soon, they have multiple options on what to do with the huge customer base.
As wired.com reports:
At LinkedIn, a networking site for business associates, one can look up profiles for Kelly Perdew, winner of the reality series The Apprentice 2 , or Rob Glaser, CEO of Seattle-based RealNetworks. Even Bill Gates is a member of LinkedIn, according to the company, although his listing doesn’t come up in standard searches.
On MySpace, REM lead singer Michael Stipe leads a discussion thread about the band’s latest release. And over at Friendster, users can view “”official profiles”” of film and TV characters and sign up as a fan of, say, Will Smith’s character in the film Hitch or Pamela Anderson in the upcoming Fox comedy Stacked .
At first glance, the proliferation of recognizable figures might seem to indicate that the hype lavished upon social-networking sites a year or so ago might not have been overstated. Such sites are no longer just a place where people attempt to boost meager social lives by connecting to their friends’ friends. Instead, they offer a place for movers and shakers to join up in mutual recognition of the value of online networking.
At second glance, another explanation presents itself: Social-networking sites are getting heavily involved in marketing themselves. To draw new members, they’re finding it helps to present themselves as the virtual equivalent of belonging to the “”in”” crowd.
“”It’s just like a dance club. You get a couple of rock stars to hang out in the VIP lounge, and everyone else wants to come,”” said Konstantin Guericke, vice president of marketing for LinkedIn. “”Some of those dynamics are also important in business.””
Social Networking in a non-digital way existed since the 1980s. People using a network to find jobs, exchange information, etc. Digital Social Networking sites help in many ways — socializing with existing friends, meeting new people with common interests, meeting people who are interested in a common activity, making business contacts, and so on. All sites have work in different ways. Some accept everyone who wants to sign up, some only allow those invited by an existing member, some emphasize career accomplishments, etc.
How can OOPS INFOTECH help you?
OOPS INFOTECH has been developing web applications since 1999. We follow a process oriented development methodology designed to minimize project risks and development time. If you’re searching for a dating site development company, why not try OOPS INFOTECH?
OOPS INFOTECH has experience in relationship website development and online dating application development. Please see www.Love-By-Net.com for an example of a dating site and www.iamanartist.com for an example of a Social Networking site that OOPS INFOTECH has built. iamanartist.com is more of a targetted Social Networking site catering to Artists only — Painters, Writers, Actors, Directors, etc.
We focus on business solutions that fulfill business goals, instead of merely providing technical solutions. All our applications are built on the basis of this philosophy. We have clearly defined processes for requirements capture, design, development and testing. We generate UML diagrams representing the Use Case Models, Analysis Model, Design Models, Implementation Models and Test Models.
Please take a look at our development process that minimizes project risks and development time.
