THE PARADIGM SHIFT -- Sep 28 -- At the European iDate lots of companies where trying to sell mobile dating, but every owner I talked to said they thought mobile dating was a joke and would never amount to much. The basic problem is that there is no such thing as mobile dating. Sure you can put up profiles and make it look like a dating site but no one actually uses it. People who use "mobile dating" are mostly under the age of 24 and are looking to chat with others. Mobile dating as it stands today is nothing more then a chat line, and most of the mobile "dating" users don't even have computers. Online daters are age 30 to 40 and looking for longer messages and serious conversations. Mobile daters are mostly looking to kill time and to chat for entertainment. When trying to create a mobile dating site your existing brand is meaningless, the only thing that matters is being on deck at a carrier as it is the only way to get users. It is strange that all these mobile companies are pitching mobile dating as an extension of online dating. They all know full well and admit in private that "mobile dating" and online dating are completely different markets with different demographics that don't overlap.
The full article was originally published at The Paradigm Shift, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Markus cuts to the chase once more. That's the situation right now. The moneymakers are flirty chat applications, but that's because the mobile dating apps suck and are below critical mass. But, it's going to change. Mobile dating will eventually overtake internet dating. Why? Because mobile computing will eventually overtake fixed computer (PC/laptop) usage. Laptops will morph into palmtops and be unified with cell phones and mp3 players (time to invest in Apple ;-) ). I'm talking ten years out, but I see this as inevitable. Keyboardless voice activated sexy (a la Apple) palmtops will make mobile computing more compelling. Location based services and video dating will make mobile dating more compelling. A couple of mobile enabler services are working on video dating right now. Your comments please.
