Oz Dating

Yet another intriguing niche dating state has been created. This one is for virgins to meet other virgins.

Not surprisingly, some of the articles about it do have a somewhat cynical tone. Take this one, in which the writer says that even though the site is intended for those with pure intentions, "I confess to having a crisis of confidence in the purity of everyone who might sign up".

In an interesting development the Australian dating site Oasis Active has now been rated as even more popular than the huge and long running RSVP. What's really notable about it is that Oasis Active is completely free to use, while RSVP is not.

I suspect there might be a few more cases like this, but there will be a limit to the trend. One of the main ways free dating sites make money is by serving ads; ads for paid dating sites. So, the situation is a little bit like a miniature version of what occurs in capitalist societies. That is, if they get too generous with their welfare, and people prefer the dole to working, the economy suffers hugely. The government has to tighten the purse strings eventually and reward business instead.

So, unless things change radically and the free sites find completely new and very reliable ways of making money from their traffic, paid dating will always be around.

UPDATE: Commentor Fred below has real insights into the marketing of big dating sites. It seems that content ads not working now as a means of generating profit for free sites. The landscape is clearly changing. So, it will be interesting to see what happens.

Paid dating sites are still going strong, but they certainly aren't the cash cows they used to be. This is due in major part to the great profusion of totally free to use dating sites - some of which have so many members now that they rival some of the big paid sites in size. Then there is the massive popularity of social networking sites, which many single people use to meet others like them.

This situation has given rise to predictions that the paid dating site model is outdated, and that sites such as Match will eventually disappear. But I don't think that this will happen. These sites will just make a few adjustments. They'll tailor their marketing to people who are serious about meeting others for love, relationships or casual arrangements; people who want to keep their love and sex lives separate from their social lives. These people will always be prepared to pay for such services, thereby keeping quality paid dating sites in business

Facebook is getting a lot of bad publicity lately. A lot of these complaints relate to how the social networking site negatively affects intimate relationships.

So, if you're already involved with someone, you should probably be very careful how you use it. Whatever you do or say on it could easily get passed around your Facebook "friends" and get back to someone close to you in real life, potentially causing them grief.

However, this aspect of having so many people knowing so much about you via direct and indirect online contacts could also be a bonus for people who are single, and hoping to meet others like them. Which is why it's not surprising that a new dating site is combining several of Facebook's characteristics into its own structure.

As this article states, "the idea behind this site is that everyone on it shares their single friends".

Every week there seems to be yet another horror story related to people who met online. There are murders, rapes, abductions, thefts and other terrible events. And while at the moment social networking sites seem to be more of a magnet for this kind of activity, online dating isn't far behind.

That's why anyone who is using such sites should not only follow sensible precautions, they might also want to check out who they are communicating with online before they actually meet them in person. Here are some good tips on how to do this.

As I've written before on this blog there are niche dating sites popping up everywhere. But what usually happens is that they start up independently. Sometimes, however, they come as an offshoot of some other site that already caters to a specific niche.

The dating site being launched by Here is the City is a good example.

I've been posting about various niche dating sites on this blog for a while now. Abd they keep on coming. Here's a list of some of the stranger ones out there.

Another strange development in the online dating industry: Now, busy professionals are paying people to browse online dating sites for them, then get in touch with suitable members, and set up first dates.

It's bizarre that people would want to do things this way. And needless to say it looks pretty dishonest, since it involves some deception of the members who are chosen for contact.

That said, there's definitely a market for it. And there is good money to be made, since companies offering these services are charging in the thousands of dollars. All quite ironic, since the main attraction of online dating is that it's ua low cost alternative to meeting people at pubs, clubs and events.

The defrauding of people via online dating sites has become so commonplace in Britain that the Serious Organized Crime Agency is now investigating the problem. 

While there have been reports of Australians being duped in such a way, the problem here doesn't seem to have reached such a critical mass. However it may well happen in time.

One thing I have noticed when I look at my stats is that there are usually a few visitors coming from Ghana and Nigeria each day looking for Aussie dating sites. These are the two countries where most of these scams originate, so clearly a fair proportion of these visitors are fraudsters looking for sites to target.

Users of dating sites will be aware that there are a lot of acronyms that members often use in their messages. Here is a comprehensive list of them.