No one knows online dating better than Mark Brooks, editor of a Web site called onlinepersonalswatch.com. Brooks is a modern-day Cyrano -- he's a consultant to many of the Web's largest online dating sites as well as traditional matchmaking services. Network World Senior Editor Carolyn Duffy Marsan interviewed Brooks recently about the hottest trends in online dating. Here are excerpts from their conversation:

How many online dating services are there?

Hitwise has estimated there are 800-plus. I think that's about right for the U.S. A lot of them are affiliate sites that are driving traffic to the main dating sites.

How has online dating affected traditional matchmaking services?

Internet dating has been great for the industry. It has warmed an entire generation of users to the prospect of getting help in dating and paying for that help. It's like a giant sales funnel. At the top are generic dating sites and at the bottom are expensive matchmaking services. Online dating does take time and money. If you have considerably more bucks, you can go straight to the matchmaking service and have a date with somebody who is compatible right away.

What new technologies are you seeing in online dating?

One of the biggest innovations is avatar-based instant messaging. There's a lot of talk about how Web sites like Second Life will impact online dating. I've seen statistics that 80% of people will have an online virtual identity by 2011. That seems very high to me! One site that's pioneering the use of avatars is OmniDate.com.

Another emerging technology is iovation, which helps online dating sites battle fraud. One problem that keeps online dating executives up at night is scammers. With iovation's Reputation Manager, one dating site can flag a person as abusive and throw them out and then let other sites in the online dating community know about it. Then others can quarantine that person or at least keep an eye on them.

How has online dating technology changed in recent years?

Actually, online dating is in about the same place that it has been in for the last three years. One of the things I'd like to see is more technology being applied to personality profiling. In this area there are four companies worth mentioning: Perfectmatch.com; eHarmony.com; Chemistry.com; and True.com.

Have social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace cut into online dating traffic?

The numbers show that less people are coming to Internet dating sites. ComScore said that the number of people who came to Internet dating sites in December 2007 was down 10% over the prior year. But I don't think it's the end of online dating. I think the lookilous have gone away.

What are the hottest trends in online dating?

One is the rise in Baby Boomers as customers of the top dating sites. Around 30% of the nation's 80 million Baby Boomers are single, and they have money. Yahoo Personals and eHarmony report double-digit growth in the 50-plus market.

Another trend is the rise in free dating sites, such as Plentyoffish.com, DateHookUp.com, OkCupid.com, Matchdoctor.com, Bookofmatches.com, Smooth.com and CrazyBlindDate.com. I'm not sure how all of these sites are going to make money.

What do you see as the future of online dating?

It's difficult to enter the market and be a large generic dating site at this stage. You have to have at least $10 million in the bank to get a credible level of critical mass and to build a database big enough to convert to revenues. ERomance is for sale. It's a great domain name, but it can't get traction. The only thing you can build today is a niche dating site, and even niches are hard to build.

That's why we're seeing the rise of a bunch of companies that offer white-label dating services. Anybody who wants to enter the market can pick up their software and come up with their own sites. One of these companies is Whitelabeldating.com. Another is Relationship Exchange, which allows a little guy to start his own dating site with no capital and little knowledge of programming. This should allow more people to start their own online dating services.