Thursday, November 30, 2006

Too old for "modern romance"

Myabe I'm just getting old and can no longer keep up with the new ways of communication. I understand that teenagers and people outside of the U.S. use text messaging much more than the rest of us. While I understand that texting is very convenient, I can't imagine carrying on meaningful conversations. How do you accont for intonation, sarcasm... emotion to set the tone? This is when I wonder how much I lack in social skills.

I can see how a technology like this would be convenient for friends. It would be nice to know there and then that I could say "hi" to someone a rarely get to see rather than find out days later than we missed running into each other by 10 minutes.

I heard about the growing idea of mobile romance before. At first, it seems so odd to set up your phone to alert you when a potential date is nearby. Then again, since I hate the impersonalness of the Internet, it seems like a nice way to test chemistry right away. It can't hurt to say "hello" and chat for a few minutes - kind of like a speed date.

One concern, based on my observations of online dating, what if you match what they're looking for but they don't match what you want? There are plenty of people who's preferences are quite different and yet they still try to make contact. I don't really want to meet the guy who's 48, smokes, is divorced with two kids. Nothing wrong with the person, just not anywhere in my target range. Now there's an awkward moment or more, especially if friends are present. Those possible meetings would discourage me from trying such an offering. On second thought, I suppose it would be nice to have the backup in case the guy is weird, and there'd be people to laugh with afterwards.

If I could be assured the alerts were from a mutual match, then it might be interesting. And, it would be nice to have a summary of the man's profile before they approach just to be able to double check and have a conversation starter.

Then again... I don't really go to bars or clubs these days so I guess I'm not the appropriate demographic for this new trend. ;)

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Modern romance: Get texted when love is near
By Grace Wong
Special to CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Online dating is so last year. Now, if you're thinking romance, look to your mobile phone.

Match-making companies are creating new services that allow people to post their dating profile online and then automatically receive a text message on a GPS-enabled phone when a match is nearby, say, at a coffee shop around the corner.

The phenomenon, also known as "mobile romance," already has arrived in China, home to some 430 million mobile phone users. Most Chinese wireless service providers offer dating services to drive text message usage, which in turn creates revenue, according to Liu Bin, an analyst with BDA China Ltd., a Beijing-based telecommunications consulting firm.

Similar services are also cropping up in the United States. Dodgeball, which Google bought last year, alerts people to the locations of their friends and potential dates via text messages on their cell phone.

Socialight, another application for the mobile phone, works more like a tagging service. It lets users create virtual "sticky notes" wherever they are with their cell phone. If you're at a music concert, for instance, you can create a note. Then if your friends approach your location, they're notified on their phone. (A new version of Socialight is under development and the service will be unavailable until that version is launched.)

Dodgeball doesn't use GPS to track its users' locations. Instead, when a user goes to a bar, they "check in" with Dodgeball by sending a text message. Dodgeball then relays their location to the friends in their network, also via a text message.

Daniel Doubrovkine, 30, a heavy Dodgeball user in New York, said he uses the service to connect with friends, not romantic partners.

"It's a convenient way to tell all my friends where I am without bothering them," he said. "I use Dodgeball from work, home, wherever."

Leading online dating site Match.com offers a mobile service that allows members to look for romance on-the-go. They can send text messages to people who match their profile, but there isn't a location-based feature that alerts them when someone is nearby.

Mobile dating is such a new trend that the size of its user base isn't even closely followed. In a survey of online dating users conducted by Jupiter Research, barely a fraction of them said they use mobile platforms in search of romance, according to Nate Elliott, a Jupiter Research analyst.

Elliott thinks the Internet, not GPS-enabled mobile phones, will continue to dominate the hi-tech ways people seek romance in the United States. "For the foreseeable future, mobile's best use is as a channel to drive consumers back to Web sites," he said.

But younger generations more comfortable with newer technologies could change how people connect. The attitude of today's youth toward cell phones and technology is vastly different from that of adults, said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research.

Younger mobile users have moved well beyond voice when it comes to their phones, he said. For instance, more than three in four of them use text messaging (versus one in four adults) and nearly half of them use their phones to instant message.

These so-called "tech natives" have grown up with a variety of different communication methods. "They have more tools at their disposal and aren't intimidated by technology itself," Golvin said.

But for now, some users are skeptical about the ability of services like Dodgeball to spark real romance.

Doubrovkine, the Dodgeball user, said people don't need Dodgeball to find dates. (A feature of the service lets you designate "crushes" online -- they're then alerted to your location when you're nearby.)

"People hook up in bars all the time. You don't need text messaging to do that," he said.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

woah, that's kinda crazy. i think it's a really cool idea for friends, but i think it'd be kinda awkward for dating. one of the advantages of email/online is you're not put on the spot right away; you can think and craft an response :) whereas this mobile service tells you the guy is around the corner ... i don't know; i think it just makes it more awkward for everybody involved