Mobile Dating Report

Mobile Dates – hot right now

Going on mobile dates, it’s safe to say, is hot right now. We’re talking about in hipster tech-savvy places such as New York and London. But then again, everything to do with dating is hot in those places, because they’re full of young people who go there from all over the world in an effort to make their fortune. The question is, is mobile dating just a fad there, and will it be a fad in other places as well?

The answer may unfortunately be rather complex. While there has been plenty of buzz about mobile dating over the last couple of years in places such the US, UK and Australia, there is yet to be really strong evidence that it is taking any market share from traditional internet dating sites, which are at this point pretty obviously still the elephant in the dating room. It could be that all the hype and media around these services won’t lead to all that much. This is because the key to success for mobile dating is, unfortunately, success.

The fact is that mobile dating, particularly the kinds of service that matche people who are already geographically co-located, is only useful and attractive if there are lots of members. If a new member signs up only to find that there aren’t sufficient other members, then they are likely to discontinue their use of the service rather quickly, and maybe go back to services such as regular internet dating. This kind of ‘critical mass required’ effect can be seen in almost all other types of social media. For example, social networking site Facebook went from niche to mainstream massive overnight. Why? Because it reached a critical mass level of membership, which then convinced the masses that joining up was in their best interests. When half of your friends suddenly start talking about something, it’s natural to want to be a part of it too.

Even so, mobile dates will probably still succeed in the abovementioned cities such as New York and London, because there are so many potential users there that a mobile dating service (once a clear market leader is established), will be  able to maintain sufficient running membership that signing up is a good proposition for as-yet uninvolved young singles. It remains to be seen whether the same can be said for less populous cities that don’t attract migration like these cities do.

But what about other parts of the world? Interestingly, there is some evidence that mobile dating is set to take off in places such as India and South America. Why? Well first of all, in the poorer parts of India and South America there isn’t yet developed broadband infrastructure, and PC ownership is low, so reliable internet access for competitor services such as internet dating is not so readily available. Cell phone usage on the other hand, which is all you need for mobile dating, is huge in these places just like everywhere else. It’s entirely possible that what we’ll see in the future is a bifurcated world where mobile dating is big in isolated cities in the West, big in some poorer countries, but relatively unknown elsewhere.

Tags: mobile dates, mobile dating

This entry was posted on Friday, June 5th, 2009 at 10:12 am and is filed under Mobile Dating Popularity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.