Sprint Offers Mobile Dating Services
(onlinedatingmagazine.com -
February 23, 2005) Looking for love? Sprint is offering
its customers access to mobile dating services. Mobile
dating services are similar to online dating services,
enabling singles to create a profile, search profiles
and communicate one-on-one via text messaging. With
mobile dating, singles on the go can browse profiles
and chat anytime and anywhere they have their mobile
phones with them.
According to Yankee Group research, active users of
mobile interactive, entertainment and community applications,
which include premium chat, flirting and dating services,
are forecasted to grow from 960,000 in 2003 to 16.3
million in 2008, for a cumulative annual growth rate
of 76.3 percent.
"As mobile users become more familiar with the
myriad of data applications available on their handsets,
they will increasingly look for those that mirror or
extend popular online services," said Linda Barrabee,
senior analyst, Yankee Group. "Chat, dating and
flirting opportunities are among the interactive services
forecasted to experience a dramatic growth in users."
Two mobile dating services are available today to
Sprint customers with select Sprint PCS Vision(SM)
handsets: Match.com Mobile and SMS.ac.
Match.com Mobile
With Match.com Mobile, powered by Enpocket's Eden dating
engine, users can sign up, explore and find matches
for free. When users decide to communicate with their
matches, they will be asked to subscribe for $4.99
a month for unlimited usage. To get started, users
create a profile or transfer their Match.com Web profile.
SMS.ac
Sprint is the first wireless provider in the United
States to offer SMS.ac, a fast-growing worldwide
mobile community. SMS.ac offers three services:
- Flirt - Users can search profiles and find a date
for $0.25 per text message sent and received.
- Clubs - Users can join mobile communities to chat
on any topic with only one message to many users. A
user starts a conversation with other club members
by sending the club a message. Then members of the
club can reply with messages about their thoughts and
comments. A user can send a message for free and pays
$0.25 per message received. Users can choose how many
messages they want to receive per day.
- Channels - Users can choose to receive the latest
news, horoscopes, celebrity gossip and more for $.25
per text message received.
Lavalife Mobile
Coming soon, Sprint will offer access to dating services
from LavaLife. Lavalife
Mobile offers three ways for members to communicate:
- Voice - Users dial #25425 (CLICK) to listen to voice
greetings, trade instant voice messages or connect
live for $0.79 per minute plus airtime.
- Text Messaging - Users text message the word JOIN
to 25425 (CLICK) then search, read profiles and check
their Inbox for messages or instant text message with
other singles for $0.50 per message.
- Browsing - With Lavalife Mobile's txt2CLICK subscription
service, Sprint customers can browse and search picture
profiles and send and receive messages from their private
Inbox for $4.99 per month.
Casual data-usage rates of $0.01 per kilobyte apply
to all browsing and registration aspects of the mobile
dating services for Sprint customers not on a Sprint
PCS Vision plan.
To explore these dating services, Sprint PCS Vision
customers can go to the Web on their Sprint PCS Vision
Phone, select "messaging" and then "chat”.
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