FAST COMPANY – Jan 26 – Author Dan Slater, who is writing a book about the online dating industry, attended the iDate Conference in Miami and took a look at the way technology is influencing the way we date online. Things are changing now that one third of America’s 90M singles date online, and it’s no longer the “unspeakable underworld” it once was. Seventeen years ago, when Gary Kremen founded Match.com, anonymity was key to success, protecting people’s privacy and allowing them to reveal their “true identity” on their own terms. In 2007, Zoosk was formed on the basis that the younger generation grew up on technology and the conventional online dating platform was of no interest to them. Zoosk “is for a social life – with dating in mind” where privacy concerns are not as rampant. New sites continue to pop up in the ever-changing industry challenge our notions of privacy and what we should expect going forward. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is right – morality may be divine, but it’s also fickle and shifts in technology make new things possible.
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