July 25, 2005
Hey, baby, want a date?
For those of you still warming to the idea of online dating, get over it. Mobile dating is the next big leap in online socializing. The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
With advances in cell phone technology and wireless networks, users can browse truncated profiles, view photos of possible dates and exchange cheesy lines via text messaging.
The technology has advanced to the point where a person can turn a cell phone into a sort of homing device to find a date just a short distance away. SmallPlanet, a mobile social networking company, has come up with a way for its compatible users to be alerted when they are within range of each other, in most cases about 30 feet for now.
One promising technology is location-based dating, in which users can be alerted to a potential match just down the street or somewhere in their ZIP code.
"I can go to a club, and the phone becomes a transponder," said Joe Brennan Jr., vice president of Webdate, the industry leader with 5 million users. "I can find someone I match up with, and that facilitates a meeting."
While location-based services are yet to be introduced, some companies are touting proximity dating using Bluetooth-enabled phones, which are equipped to transmit and receive short-range wireless signals.
"You could have Bluetooth running and then when you walk into a bar, it's automatically sensing and using the program and serving up pictures and profiles, and if someone meets your criteria, they can meet you." said Hunter Heaney, chief executive officer of SmallPlanet. "It's about getting past that point of pain of going up to talk to someone at a bar."
With fewer than 6 million users in the United States, mobile dating is small compared with the estimated 40 million users of traditional computer- based online dating services."
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