Speed Dating and Art of Instant Love

Speed dating, you probably heard about it in some magazine or surfed through it on internet or probably read about it somewhere. But chances are like most others you haven't had a first hand experience at it. Two years ago when I wrote about speed dating in my column it was an alien concept in India and many of my readers found it an obscure concept. In an age when Maggi - the 2 minute noodle rules the stomach, the heart too can't wait any longer. Speed thrills and love sells. Combine them both and you get a super combination of love in the last lane, speed dating.

Love at First Byte

Beneath the subliminal layers of the metro sub culture speed dating is picking up and cyberia is providing the perfect platform for souls to unite.

Straight from the horses' mouth, the inventors of Speed dating, aish.com
'Finding someone you want to date in today's hectic world can be a challenge. In an effort to help Jewish continuity and provide singles a more effective and sensitive way to meet Aish and its students created 7-minute fast-dating concept, and named it SpeedDating'.

They modified an age-old Jewish dating technique to work in today's world and literally hundreds of organizations have copied the idea to the point that it has become a worldwide phenomenon.

The SpeedDating approach works. Hundreds of singles are now happily married because they either met at a SpeedDating event and/or used the dating approach. What initially started as a Jewish (growth of minority) concept is now a major success in the US, Europe and Far East Asia.. In one of the previous columns I wrote about the huge size of dating industry, speed dating is another addition which is fuelling its growth.

Speed dating - instant love

Love has universal appeal. With life in fast track, instant love too has universal appeal. From Malaysia to Austria, from China to Australia, speed dating is a phenomenon.

Consider this article from thestar.com, a major Malaysian newspaper

'KLANG: Speed dating is set to be the trend for the Klang Hokkien Association to help single men and women tie the nuptial knot. According to association chairman Lee Yuh Soo, the group had tried conventional matchmaking methods for single men and women but they were not as successful as speed dating. With speed dating, participants were able to meet as many single men or women within a short time frame, he said recently. He added that they would indicate the person they would like to get to know further after the session and the association would fix a date for them. Lee said the association had organised three speed dating sessions since last December and found them to be successful. He added that about 60% of the 40 individuals who attended the third speed dating session had gone out on dates after that and they continued to be in touch with each other. He said the association was interested in organising such matchmaking sessions as it was concerned about the dwindling Chinese population. The Klang Hokkien Association is trying to do its part by organising safe matchmaking events for singles.'

Consider this headline from Mcmedia from Australia.
" Region warms to the speed dating concept   - The Singles of Shepparton group hailed the city's first speed dating extravaganza a huge success'

Speed dating is picking up in India too. Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai and even Delhi, probably the least cosmopolitan of the all the metros, are experimenting with this new found platform for instant love.

The Market of Instant Love

Love sells, instant love even more. According to originaldating.com, speed dating is an expanding business and is part of a market worth in excess of £600 Million. According to Marketresearch.com, dating is a little-researched market and is a now a $1.08 billion business in the US, as online dating services have skyrocketed in popularity since 2001. The Web has revolutionized this business and has brought affordable and convenient matchmaking to the masses. Dating website revenues grew 40% last year and Europe and Asia is the next untapped market.

Instant love in the age of Cyberia is in. Somebody was dead right when he said 'The quickest way to receive love is to give; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly; and the best way to keep love is to give it wings'. May speed dating help you find your soul mate.

Puneet Mehrotra is a web strategist at www.websitepromotion.in and edits www.MidnightEdition.com you can email him on ebiz333@yahoo.com.