The past, present, and future of online dating
When we talk about the past in Internet dating as a phenomenon, you will discover that the real pioneer in this area was the Match.com website, which was launched in 1995 and still operates today. The site stood at the origins of modern dating, offering users the opportunity to search for a potential partner for relationships online. Match invited people to answer the questions using questionnaires, after which the answers were entered into a general database. The system analyzed them and subsequently selected the most appropriate matches.
It was far from an ideal scheme, which took a lot of time and did not always guarantee the result. However, Match did something very important — it created a precedent after which Internet dating became a truly mass phenomenon.
2010s — the golden age of online dating
There were no major breakthroughs in the field of online dating after the advent of Match.com. The turning point was the emergence of Tinder in 2012, followed by Badoo, Bumble, and others.
The main thing that attracted users to such applications was the gamification of the process of selecting a potential partner. Things such as swipes, likes, and matches made the process of finding a soul mate much more fun and similar to a game. Additionally, the reward for the participants in such a “game” could be a long-awaited romantic relationship.
However, after a rapid rise in popularity, a rather rapid decline followed. For example, Tinder lost about 5% of its active audience in 2021; that’s a lot.
Why did this happen?
One of the main reasons is that users became bored with the online dating format. Many have realized that they are simply wasting a huge amount of time by just swiping other people’s photos and didn’t believe in the success rate for a long time. The search for a soul mate has become routine to them.
Random video chat: salvation from boredom and a real opportunity to meet your love on the Web
Video chat is no longer a new thing to us. However, it is still an extremely popular format for dating and communication. The essence of any random video chat is a video connection of random interlocutors who can communicate on any topic and spend time online the way they like.
The primary advantage of any random video chat is that you can communicate by video and not by text. You see and hear the interlocutor, and observe their gestures and behavior. Such communication allows you to know a person much faster and understand whether they are really interesting to you and whether you want to develop a relationship with them or not. If the dialogue is not set, you can switch to the next interlocutor at any time of your choice. There are no restrictions!
For our part, we can recommend you several popular video chats:
- CooMeet is a functional video chat. The main advantage is that you can chat with girls on CooMeet. It has a high-class gender filter that never fails and always connects men to ladies only. The ladies must be able to confirm personal data during registration. Additionally, CooMeet has handy mobile apps, great customer support, and an affiliate program that lets you earn real money by referring new users.
- Chatrandom is quite a classic video chat, but with one very useful feature. We are talking about thematic chat rooms. These are virtual rooms on various topics, in which like-minded people gather and freely communicate on topics of interest to them.
- Tinychat is not exactly a video chat, but rather a video streaming platform. Accordingly, the service is not best suited for face-to-face communication, but it allows you to watch streams of people you are interested in or conduct your own thematic broadcasts. If you like this format, we recommend you try it.
- Bigo Live is a real multimedia combination that has video chat, streaming features, and much more. If you want to diversify your communication, Bigo Live might just b what you need.
- Tango is another multimedia harvester with a wide range of features. Again, if you want to have more variety in your communication, this option may suit you. If you’re looking for a no-frills random video chat, you are free to consider other alternatives.
As you can see, the choice is really huge; we only listed a small part of such services. There are actually many more of them, and if the named sites or Apps do not suit you for some reason, you can always find an alternative.
We can only give a few basic recommendations for using online video chats:
- Be sure to learn how high-quality moderation is on the site you plan to use. Not all video chats can boast of quality moderation.
- Avoid free video chats if possible. Paid platforms are safer in most cases, they have a better support service, moderation, and service in general.
- Follow the basic rules of communication on the Web. Do not disclose any personal and confidential information to strangers, and do not keep documents, credit cards, and the like in a conspicuous place. Remember that there are many scammers on the Internet; live video chat is no exception.
What will dating look like in the near future?
Currently, it is rather difficult to predict how the online dating industry may change. There is a lot of talks these days about the metaverse for good reason. If they really say, “shoot,” then they may change the principles of communication of a modern person, thereby, displacing the dating sites and applications familiar to us, and with them, social networks, instant messengers, and thematic forums into other popular Internet sites. However, that seems to be a long way off. The only company moving purposefully in this direction is Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta. However, his metaverse is unlikely to be fully deployed anytime soon.
Chances are, we will continue to use classic dating apps and random video chats for years to come. These formats have proven themselves worthy, they are simple and understandable to the inhabitants of the Internet. It is easy to understand them, and most importantly, they are available to everyone, unlike the VR and AR technologies, which the metaverses are planning to rely on.
Nonetheless, we recommend that you stay tuned, do not miss interesting news on this question, and if possible, try new dating formats. We are sure that there are a lot of interesting things ahead of us. We just need to wait a little.
