The Year 2008 – in Dating

What´s new?

Well, not too much – mankind is the same as 2007, and they still have the same wishes and expectations. Dear Ladies out there: You can not find a good man without searching for one. I read some of those “funny“ articles, blog entries and books about “dating“ written by ladies. You better forget about them and remember Grandfather´s advice: No pain, no gain.

Growth of the Market

The market is still going strong, but it seems, there is not to much room for startups, especially when you think about standard services without partner test like neu.de or friendscout24.de. On the other hand, there ist still a lot of money to gain (and to spend) in the matchmaking market based on partner tests, such as the German parship or elite-partner. The winner this year in gaining customers is sure be2, a strong competitor, and partner.de. Both companies have a somewhat different marketing concept which seems to be very successful.

Although there is still hope for only speed-dating, the problem might remain that very few people will spend money for such things – and earnings are urgently needed.
Fun is not Enough

Dating can be fun – but “only to have fun“ will not match couples – think of T-Shirt Dating and other stuff, including electronic devices which seem to beep or hum, when an interested person of the other sex passes by. Thumbs down.

Web 2.0 and social networks

Social networks claimed to change the ways of dating completely – which they didn´t, because dating is just different, and “social“ networks just claim to be “social“ – which they aren´t. If someone offers them a better place to play their games, they will play them there – except for the three or four networks that make sense – but not for dating. Web 2.0 failed in dating.

Adult Dating

Adult or casual dating is growing – but don´t expect to much: The number of ladies doing ONS just for fun is limited, and shady fortune hunters are everywhere. The question “what percentage of women do they have“? Is no longer important. The main question in future will be: “What do the woman expect ?“ I leave the answer to you – and I hope we will discuss the matter in the blog later on.

Clowns, Cheaters and Criminals

A German prosecutor accused a number of German businessmen to abuse telecommunication services such as “paid SMS“ on dating sites. Its the first time that a German prosecutor fights this sort of people. I really don´t know the English word for it. In Germany, its “SMS-Abzocke“ – making money by pretending to be a girl looking for love to whom you can send overpriced SMS.

Some articles in the press about abuse or even murder regarding online-dating is mostly nonsense. The women victims used flirt-services and went straight to chat contacts, made no backup checks and not even the usual telephone calls.

We learned that some boys in Ghana cheat on “older white men“ claiming to be cute girls – they do not even think they are criminals – they claim to play a game, earning a huge amount of money.

Science Produces lots of Garbage

Every day you wake up, the garbage of science is already in the newspapers. They claim to have found the DNA for matching, the smell for matching, the face type, the face expression, the right hips and more. Does it make sense for matching or for marriage? No, it doesn´t. The only benefit is that those scientists are in the news – for a very short time, because next week there will be new scientists claiming new things.

In most of the cases, they didn´t wait with their results until their guinea pigs married or had children – they just said, that their student ladies “would prefer“ a certain person she has been shown on photos.

So far “science“ – and so far the retro perspective view on 2008 in English.