A dating site is a Web site that allows people to come into contact and to communicate in order to develop a relation (sentimental, erotic or friendly type) over a more or less long period.
The access to these sites requires personal information such as the age, the genre and the geographical place.
Dating sites work in a way like a market : you can « prospect » and « sell yourself » with the aim of finding people with whom you want to try to develop a nice relation. This space allows to publish photos and to see those of theother members. The exchanges can be made with internal telecommunication services : the messages, the chat with or without audio or video exchange (webcam). A service of matchmaking (getting in touch by affinities) can also be proposed.
Many dating sites ask for a paying monthly subscription. Some are totally free. Others are “free” but propose paying additional features (freemium). I know no girl who would go wild because a guy pays $10 to offer her virtual flowers. That is called the foot in the door : don’t let yourself be manipulated ! The paying sites are sometimes paying… only for men.
A dating site can be non-specialized or specialized for a type of relation (loving, erotic, friendly) or a type of members (religious or ethnic membership, sexual orientation, age bracket).
If the dating sites known to the general public are often non-specialized sites, the other sites, in a logic of niche strategy, are specialized in the area of cougars, swingers, unfaithful, gays, Muslims, demanding single men, bears, afro-descendants…
According to a study led by the CSA (FRENCH BROADCASTING AUTHORITY), 62 % of the people registered on sites of on-line meetings are looking for one-night stands while only 35 % are looking for a serious relationship.
Which means that more than 62 % of the subscribers on dating sites is men (very few women would say that) and even the guys sometimes want to get married. According to my estimation, subscribers’ percentage across all categories is something like 20 % women / 80 % men. It’s scary !
Alexa is an independent agency that measure audiences.
Extract from “Secrets for seducing on the Internet“