The consistent growth of the web dating industry has been observed since the beginning of the 2000s when the Internet became widely available and inexpensive. One of the “pioneers” in this web dating was the Match service, which has been operating since 1993. Gradually, it began to appear in a variety of alternatives. As of today, there are about eight thousand sites for dating on the Web in the world.
Particularly, a huge recognition in the popularity of dating sites and applications in recent years has been caused by the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. The year 2020 was indicative in this regard, when strict quarantine restrictions were in effect, there was no effective vaccine yet, and people spent most of their time at home.
Simply put it this way, in 2020, online dating revenue in the US was over $600 million. In 2021, Tinder took the top spot in terms of the number of downloads, with 15 million downloads. In second place is Bumble with 8.5 million downloads. Plenty of Fish is third with 7.4 million downloads. Overall, surveys show that internet users are using online dating services 30% more before the pandemic. That’s a huge increase.
How the growing popularity of web dating has changed the approach to dating
Covid-10 provoked a surge in interest in online dating, and this surge, in turn, forced developers to actively modernize the functionality of their sites to attract more users. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, many new trends have emerged:
- Contemporaries have become more serious about their own health, and are not in a hurry to meet in real life, preferring to get to know each other better online.
- Ordinary texting is gradually becoming a thing of the past. Users are increasingly choosing to communicate by voice or video instead of forwarding messages.
- The popularity of various services for joint pastimes on the Web has grown, for example, there are sites for synchronous viewing of films and series, cooperative video games, and more.
- Some dating sites began to add vaccination status so that users can immediately see if their interlocutor has been vaccinated against a dangerous virus.
- Also, those users who usually avoided it previously and believed that this was an extreme measure, came to accept the internet dating format. Today, this is a completely normal phenomenon that does not raise any questions.
It is interesting to note that starting from 2020, random video chats began to develop more actively compared to classic dating sites and apps. It seems that many people forgot about them before 2020, and in the “pre-Covid” times, these platforms were not as popular as they are currently. However, today they are experiencing a real renaissance. Many of them have managed to increase their audience by 2-3 times or even more in just a couple of months since the start of the pandemic.
Video chats you should try
When it comes to video chats, Omegle is the first site that comes to mind. In fact, this was the first system that connected random interlocutors based on basic search settings such as language, geolocation, list of interests, etc. The Omegle website was launched in the spring of 2009 and was developed by an 18-year-old American, Leif K-Brooks.
Random Chat Omegle quickly gained popularity. Users liked the opportunity to meet and chat with random people. There was a certain excitement and the effect of surprise because you never know who will be on the other side in the next moment.
The only thing Omegle lacked at the time was video chat. However, an interesting alternative to Omegle appeared, it is known as the Chatroulette website (about it a little later), which, in addition to text chat, offered the opportunity to communicate with random interlocutors via video. This has been a real breakthrough!
The video mode in Omegle was launched in 2010 and was also warmly received by the public. However, at that time, various alternatives to Omegle began to appear more often. Many of them turned out to be more convenient, safer, and functional. Therefore, the audience gradually began to move to third-party platforms.
Next, we will look at several interesting analogs of Omegle!
Chatroulette
The website was launched in November 2009. Almost the whole world knew about it in 2010. It has been featured in Good Morning America, The New York Times, and New York Magazine. In the spring of 2010, about 1.5 million people visited the site every day.
In general, Chatroulette is an alternative to Omegle with a very difficult fate. Over time, the wave of popularity, due to terrible moderation and the lack of new breakthrough features, began to decline. The site was filled with Internet trolls, exhibitionists, scammers, and inappropriate users. As a result, when the pandemic started, Chatroulette did not have a part of its former audience. Finally, in 2020, the developer decided to take his creation seriously. An artificial intelligence system was introduced to track violators of the rules guiding the site. The site itself has been substantially redesigned.
Did this bring Chatroulette back to its former glory? This is unlikely because there are a lot of quality alternatives. However, it is quite possible to return some of the users. We will watch the situation to see what happens in the future.
OmegleAlternative.com
This is a rather non-standard Omegle alternative online, which will easily appeal to the male audience. OmegleAlternative.com has arguably been one of the most effective and accurate gender filters in existence. Moreover, when registering on the site, the girls must verify their personal data, which prevents the appearance of fakes and bots. Other benefits include:
- 9 language versions;
- built-in message translator;
- high-quality moderation and support service;
- free trial period for all new members.
If you want to meet the opposite gender for a serious relationship or a nice chat, OmegleAlternative.com can be safely recommended!
OmeTV
At first glance, OmeTV looks simpler when compared to Omegle. However, in reality, this ChatRoulette is definitely worthy of attention. OmeTV has a gender filter, unlike Omegle. It also has mobile applications for iOS and Android. However, the gender filter in OmeTV is not as accurate as that of OmegleAlternative.com, because the authenticity of the gender selection is not controlled.
OmeTV has a built-in message translator like omeglealternative.com. This is indeed a very convenient and useful feature, with this, it will be easier for you to meet and communicate with foreigners. You do not need to use a third-party translator for this. Nonetheless, keep in mind that this only applies to texting. Currently, it does not have simultaneous translation of speech.
OmeTV is a pretty good alternative to Omegle for those looking for a simple, clean, yet more functional online dating platform.
Azar
This is another alternative to Omegle, designed primarily for smartphones. Here you can communicate in real-time in video chat, watch or conduct video streams, search for potential matches in the Lounge section, use gender, and geographic filters, and replace your image with an avatar.
In fact, Azar can hardly be called an alternative to Omegle in the literal sense. It’s a type of combination of anonymous video chat and a classic dating app. On the one hand, it’s convenient, while on the other hand, its extensive functionality and a certain uncertainty of communication formats repel some users who do not need anything extra. All they need is the opportunity to comfortably communicate with new people every day. Therefore, the choice is yours.
Let’s summarize
Online dating trends are constantly changing. In 2010, a lot of people were fans of Chatroulette, in 2012 the world was flooded with Tinder and its analogs, after 2015 there was a relative lull in the world of Internet dating, and after 2019, against the backdrop of a pandemic, online dating began to beat all records again.
Today, it is very difficult to predict what path web dating will take in the coming years. One thing we can say with certainty is that humanity will never be able to give up online dating. Hopefully, we are convinced that this is a positive tendency. After all, the possibilities of such dating are much wider than offline.
