Audience Anylasis & Statistics
The participants of online dating websites tend to be more middle age. This can easily be defined by the fact that younger people are more willing to go out and date and enter a social setting, intern interacting with possible, suitable mates.
“In 2003, at least 29 million Americans (two out of five singles) used an online dating service (Gershberg, 2004); in 2004, on average, there were 40 million unique visitors to online dating sites each month in the U.S. (CBC News, 2004). In fact, the online personals category is one of the most lucrative forms of paid content on the web in the United States (Egan, 2003) and the online dating market is expected to reach $642 million in 2008 (Greenspan, 2003).” (Quoted in Ellison…) What do these shockingly high statistics mean for the future of conventional dating?
I think there are two distinct audiences of people that are coming to these online dating sites. One would be people that are looking for someone restricted to these online communities, or people that are looking to actually take the relations they have over the internet to an actual personal meeting(s).
I think there is a certain level of assurance for the people strictly wanting to talk to people just over the computer. Althought risque information can be swapped there is still a large degree of anonymity. To my the danger grows people people that meet through electronic profile views of eachother decide to meet. It is almost sad that we live in a world that this kind of scrutiny can be placed on strangers but it is a truth of modern day society.
