Online Matchmaking

Online Matchmaking examines the joys, fears, and disappointments of hooking up with people in cyberspace. Unlike many other books in the field, this collection includes studies by experts from a range of disciplines including Communications, Cultural Studies, Health, Journalism, Psychology, Rhetoric, and Sociology.

You’ve successfully set up your friends with their perfect partners and have become the “go-to person” when pals need a new relationship. That may just seem like a fun way to help those you love, but it might be a great career opportunity, too. Don’t just play matchmaker…really become one! It’s simple, with this professional course created by the authorities at the Matchmaking Institute. Here are proven techniques for signing clients, interviewing effectively, getting publicity, and more. The guide walks you through the basics of starting a business, and even provides answers to commonly asked questions. So don’t wait until the next time someone says, “You should do this for a living.” The time to make a move is now.

The book recognizes the importance of adaptability in the rapidly changing digital world. It covers traditional methods like freelance writing, graphic design, and virtual assistance, but also explores emerging trends such as influencer marketing, podcasting, and dropshipping. By encompassing a wide range of possibilities, readers are encouraged to identify the approaches that resonate with their skills, passions, and goals. Emphasizing the significance of building a personal brand, the guide delves into the nuances of establishing a strong online presence. From creating a compelling website and leveraging social media to optimizing content for search engines, readers are guided on how to amplify their visibility and credibility in the digital space. The guide also addresses the crucial aspect of financial management, shedding light on topics such as budgeting, taxation, and diversification of income streams. Readers are encouraged to adopt a strategic and sustainable approach, ensuring long-term success and resilience in the dynamic online marketplace.

Internet Dating deals primarily with the experiences of UK and Australian daters, examining their online accounts to see what kinds of narratives, norms, emotions and ‘chemistry’ shape their dating. Has the emergence and growth of internet dating changed the dating landscape for the better? Most commentators, popular and academic, ask whether online dating is more efficient for individuals than offline dating. We prefer a socio-political perspective. In particular, the book illustrates the extent to which internet dating can advance gender and sexual equality. Drawing on the voices of internet daters themselves, we show that internet dating reveals how social change often arises in the unassuming, everyday and familiar. We also pay attention to often ignored older daters and include consideration of daters in Africa, Scandinavia, South America, Asia and the Middle East. Throughout, we explore the pitfalls and pleasures of men and women daters navigating unconventional directions towards more equitable social relations.

Based on a study using online ethnography as the major research method, this book explains why and how men in Hong Kong use QQ—an online instant messenger—to “chase” women in mainland China, especially in the neighboring city of Shenzhen. Chasing women through QQ is a reciprocal exchange process during which the resources to be exchanged in the interaction are not negotiated. Rather, the men provide resources to the women, hoping for rewards in return that are not guaranteed. This characteristic of the exchange makes men who chase women through QQ very strategic in their action. They try to maximize the rewards and minimize the costs by adopting myriad strategies, such as constructing an attractive online identity by strategic self-presentation. The role of emotions in the exchange process is also examined. Men learn the emotional norms through the online forum, but sometimes it is difficult for them to control their emotions; some men fall in love when they are not supposed to. As it happens, they have failed to calculate the costs and rewards rationally in that they may provide too many resources to the women without getting enough rewards in return. This book provides original insights into the thought processes, motivations, desires, anxieties and risks of Hong Kong men seeking short-term sexual relations with women on the mainland. These insights are highly relevant to our understanding of the quickly evolving use of social media, a phenomenon of worldwide importance and deep implications.

Electronic negotiations concern transactions on the basis of electronic media, such as the Internet. Platforms have been developed to aid participants in electronic markets during the agreement phase. The key activity in this is the matching of offers and requests, for which we need a ranking of the alternatives. In this book the author defines a framework in which a ranking can be generated in order to acquire an optimal decision for a desired transaction - this process is called matchmaking. The author introduces a generic framework for multidimensional, multiattribute matchmaking, its implementation, and an analysis of it. The genericity of the author’s approach means that the implementation, realized as a multiagent system, can represent both offering and requesting agents, and the framework can be applied to a huge variety of applications. The use cases in the book are derived from the human resources domain, and thus involve quite complex matchmaking. The author’s presentation is thorough and self-contained. He provides definitions of the relevant business and computer science terms, and detailed explanations of the underlying mathematical tools and software implementations.

"This book provides an overview of the major questions that researchers and practitioners in this area are addressing at this time and by outlining the possible future directions for theory development and empirical research on social networking and eDating"--Provided by publisher.