Internet Dating
Using the internet to form relationships has existed since the inception of the internet but the first official online dating service is said to be a combination of kiss.com and match.com. These sites were registered in 1994 and 1995 respectively but by 1996, Yahoo! was able to find 16 other dating sites. In the early days, there was a stigma attached to it that maintained only desperate people used dating services. However, after the 1998 movie “Sleepless in Seattle”, the use of the internet to form relationships became more acceptable. This movie starred Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and portrayed an internet relationship in a positive light. Soon after, match.com and oneandonly.com were purchased by Ticketmaster Online-City Search and major internet companies like Yahoo! and AOL began to develop their personals sections.
The events of September 11th, 2001 spurred on the use of online dating sites like DateAgency.com since people became more aware of the important things in life like family and love. From 2001 to 2002 there was a more than triplicate increase in the number of people using online dating sites in the United States. Also in 2002, social networking sites Friendster and MySpace were launched which allowed users to meet new people over the internet without having to subscribe to an online dating site. This allowed people looking for relationships to find them over the internet without having to deal with the stigma associated with it.
Nowadays, the online dating industry is second only to pornography on the internet. It is now being directed to people over 50 though because of the popularity of social networking with the 18-25 year old group.
