Mobile dating 'kills' online...dating

Say an attractive woman or man, or a couple (why not?), catches your eyes, but you’re too drunk or high on a feeling to go speak with her/him. Well, mobile communication can get you a date with her…and your eyes back hopefully( if you don't get your eyes back in the right place, then you've got yourself a blind date). That’s if you are ‘roaming’ in the discovery mode, searching for that child of the Bluetooth Fairy… and also if she/he meets your criteria. Some companies are already touting proximity dating using Bluetooth-enabled phones, which are equipped to transmit and receive short-range wireless signals. Isn’t that great…This seems to be one giant leap in online socializing and one small step for a man. You can also browse truncated profiles, view photos of possible dates and exchange cheesy lines via text messaging. Here’s an interesting example: SmallPlanet, a mobile social networking company, has come up with a way for its compatible users to be alerted when they are within range of each other, in most cases about 30 feet for now.
One promising technology is location-based dating, in which users can be alerted to a potential match just down the street or somewhere in their ZIP code.

I can go to a club, and the phone becomes a transponder,

said Joe Brennan Jr., vice president of Webdate, the industry leader with 5 million users.

I can find someone I match up with, and that facilitates a meeting.

With fewer than 6 million users in the United States, mobile dating is small compared with the estimated 40 million users of traditional computer- based online dating services."
[Via The San Francisco Chronicle]