Dating Sites Need to Pay Attention to the Surge in Mobile Internet Use

Online, March 22, 2010 (Newswire.com) - For the most part, Internet daters are still bound to the pc not due to choice but instead, Internet dating firms have largely ignored mobile and its applications to Internet dating. However, with the proliferation of the Smartphone, Internet use is increasingly going mobile so it is only a matter of time before online dating and becomes at least in part, mobile dating. However, the trick for dating sites is to extend the pc experience to mobile.

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt in his recent keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona said the company had shifted its focus from desktops to mobile.

"Now our programmers are doing work on mobile first, and that is in fact a change ... our top programmers want to work on those mobile apps," and "Mobile web adoption is proceeding at eight times faster than the equivalent point 10 years ago for the desktop," said Schmidt.

Schmidt went on to say "Half the new internet connections are for mobile devices. From a Google perspective, there are more Google searches on mobile than on desktop in emerging countries like Indonesia.

In recent study on Mobile Internet by Morgan Stanley they found Mobile Internet is growing rapidly and will be bigger than desktop Internet due to social adoption trends, social networking, 3G networks and new mobile device technology. Voice usage is declining at about 2% per year where data usage is growing quickly.

Brendan O'Kane CEO of messmo, a leading developer of mobile solutions for the Internet dating industry stated, "Schmidt is right - the pace of mobile growth is astonishing. It's like the Genie is out of the bottle. The greatest challenge for dating site owners is to leverage the twin assets of memberships and existing infrastructure into revenue on mobile. A mobile is personal and all about timely quick information. Extending dating sites to mobile by simple mobile relevant experiences such as messaging, notifications and mobile payments is the key."

Despite the incredible growth of Mobile Internet, it will never completely replace the desktop Internet experience. However, Internet dating sites need to capitalize now as the use of mobile becomes a mainstream Internet access habit, particularly amongst the younger age demographic. For Internet dating sites this clearly presents an obvious opportunity to monetize the member base. Dating sites should seriously consider augmenting their site with mobile features that will at least facilitate search, messaging and possibly basic site registration. Not to mention the next generation of online daters will be mobile Internet savvy and so there will be an "expectation" that dating sites will have some form of mobile access.

If you would like a copy of the Morgan Stanley Report on Mobile Internet please email Mike Baldock at mbaldock(at)courtlandbrooks(dot)com.