Making Virtual Connections: Friends, Dating, Love and Business Online

Spring may be wedding season, but with Valentine’s Day, February is the month for love. And love is big business, especially online (and I’m not talking about porn – which is whole other online industry with huge profits).

Online Dating

40 million Americans use online dating services; that's about 40 percent of our entire U.S. single-people pool. You’ve probably seen the TV commercials for online dating services like Match.com and eHarmony. Just type “online dating” into Google and you’ll get 284 million results. “Christian dating” alone brings in 121 million results with sites like ChristianSingles.com, SinglesofFaith.com, and ChristianLoveNetwork.com. Whatever your passion, you're likely to find a singles group for it.

Breakin' Up is Hard to Do

What do Britney Spears and the Prime Minister of Finland have in common? According to the tabloids, they both broke up with their significant others electronically—via text message. Technology has brought wedding bells to many people’s lives, but technology also has had an impact on one of our most agonizing rites of passage: The break up (aka “e-dumping”). An estimated 48 percent of online daters report that their breakups have happened over email.

But if email or text messages are too direct, there’s a guy who advertises on Craig’s List that he’ll break up with your psychotic girlfriend for you for as little as “$50 and a 6-pack.” If you happen to live in Berlin, and have a romance you'd like to end, Bernd Dressler founded the Separation Agency to inform dumpees that their relationship is over. By the way, he’s interested in franchising to other countries.

Teen Communities

PewInternet.org reports that more than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites like MySpace, Friendster, or FaceBook. A social networking site is an online place where a user can create a profile and build a personal network that connects him or her to other users. In the past five years, such sites have rocketed from a niche activity into a phenomenon that engages tens of millions of Internet users.

These online community sites aren't just for teens. Just look at the explosion of YouTube over the past 2 years, the interest in renewing lost connections through Classmates.com, and the desire to share and compare photos at Flickr.

SNS for Profits and Nots

Social networking sites have moved into the business world with sites like LinkedIn, and Ryze. There is growing evidence to support claims that some social networking services (SNS for short) can be powerful professional allies to businesses — in particular, independent entrepreneurs and smaller companies, for whom each new personal connection is a significant business building block. Now you can start a social network on your own web site with help from services like KickApps.com and CommunityServer.org.

After more than 12 years, actor Kevin Bacon has finally submitted to the popular college game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” to create a new charitable social network, SixDegrees.org. You can join stars like Robert Duvall and Bette Midler in promoting your favorite charity or donate to one of theirs.

Albert Escalarte has put together a meta-list of social networking sites at the Social Software Weblog, where you're sure to find one that fits your interest. If not, why not start one and get listed?

For Love of Blogging

If you’re looking for a blog about love and relationships, just go to technorati and search for “love” in the blog directory and you’ll have over 140,000 to choose from; “love relationships” delivers over 1.3 million blog posts. They offer commentary on marriage, dating, family, children, hearbreak, being single, loving your job, how to love yourself, and nearly anything else you can think of to love. Today, over a million posts are referencing Valentine’s Day.

As you can see, virtual communities and cyber dating have evolved from guestbooks, email and forums to much more dynamic villages where people are introduced, get to know one another, and develop real relationships.

The Internet is a powerful force for connecting. How will you leverage that power to build your business? Whole Brain Technologies can help.

Whole Brain Technologies: Smarter solutions for business on the Web.