Dating 2.0

The online dating world just got a bandwidth boost.

Combining the tech savvy of web video and text messaging with the modern social networking trend, new online dating sites are trying to amp up matchmaking.

"We're the antithesis of sites like Match and eHarmony," says Stephen Stokols, co-founder of speed-dating site WooMe. "It's instant gratification."

Video-centered services like SpeedDate, Say-hey-hey and WooMe reel in online speed daters by offering quick registration, free memberships and the tantalizing promise of a date within minutes. Others, like Ice Brkr and Crazy Blind Date, rely on text messaging to coordinate speedy meetings. More than 22 million people gave these services a spin this year.

WooMe allows members to create short group-video-chat sessions, while SpeedDate files a seemingly endless line of daters through your virtual door for three minute "video dates". On Say-hey-hey, users upload a YouTube-style clip of themselves, and viewers interested in a date ping the posters with intro videos of their own.

Besides catering to a new generation who grew up with computers, online dating is a growth industry that is predicted to generate more than $900 million a year in the United States by 2011.

On one hand, there is more, true interaction with the person by having video, but there are far more negative factors. The luxury of online dating is being able to interact in your underwear, and not have to be date-ready at all times. You could be browsing a website and also checking your email, or be on the phone, but once you're on video, you're locked in to only that. And if you continue down this road, you're likely to end up with people staying at home exclusively but having complete virtual interaction, which is lame - why not just go out and meet people? The benefit of online dating is to not get up in people's faces immediately and to get to know a little about them. Having a video component is nice, but the haste in churning through potential suitors as these sites are set up may end up hurting the process as quantity gets emphasis over quality.