“Love blooms in times of gloom” by NYT

Recently read an interesting local news article titled: “Love blooms in times of gloom”. Here are some highlights of the article:

In times of gloom, love blooms and both online and offline matchmakers in US are reporting a surge in dating interest.
In particular, for the case of online dating industries, they see an increase in traffic, some examples like:
- Match.com – despite being a US$34.99-a-month fee to join site, is apparently not deterring new members: The site’s North American membership grew 17 per cent in December;
- Speeddate.com – a free online dating site, was averaging about 80,000 virtual encounters a day in October, today traffic is up 60 percent, with an average of 130,000 daily encounters;
- Perfectmatch.com – had a 51 percent increase in new members in the fourth quarters of 2008 compared with 2007;
- Plentyoffish.com – a free site, has visitors increased 77 per cent from December 2007 to December 2008, and 32 per cent increase over the last three months.
One of the main reasons for the terrific growth being during this gloom time, unemployed and underemployed people have more time on their hands to surf the Web, and online dating is a relatively inexpensive way to meet people.
Also, “during recession people stay at home more, they don’t want to pay and go to bars. They’re going online to meet each other (i.e. make friends online),” says Markus Frind, the chief executive of Plentyoffish.com.

Well this is an interesting situation happening in US, but for sure it is also happening anywhere in the world, right?

‘Valentines Day, which falls on every February may be a once-in-a-year event, but to some, everyday is ‘Valentines day’, and best wishes to all who are making friends online!

Image: Filomena Scalise / FreeDigitalPhotos.net