There was a time when British personals were looked upon as a last resort. This was the era of computer dating that only effectively came to an end when Net dating came to prominence and established itself in the mind of British as a legitimate and "regular" way to meet new people.

Newspaper personals may have been looked upon as a last resort by British up until Net dating came on to the scene, but in fact large numbers of people who could not meet others in any other way -- such as through their jobs -- were making use of this pre-Net service.

When personals moved on line, therefore, there was already a large population of British ready to make the move on line and make full use of Net British personals. And boy, did personals take-off on line! Fuelled by Hollywood movies such as 'You've Got Mail' starring Tom Hanks, on line personals quickly established themselves as regular Net activity with none of the stigma that used to be associated with newspaper personals.

By the year 2005 the British and international personals industry had become a 500 million pounds a year business. This rapid growth was tied in to the massive growth of the Net itself across America and the world. But such incredible growth cannot go on forever. Inevitably, as people buy computers and go on line, the numbers of people remaining who do not yet own a computer starts to go down.

In 2002 the growth of the British and international personals industry was reported as 73 percent. However, by 2004 that growth had slowed to 19 percent, and in 2005 growth slowed further to only 10 percent. This was entirely to be expected for the reasons given above. The saturation of the British market for computers as well as a similar saturation in other countries is inevitably to blame.

One response to this by the British personals industry has been a movement of gearing on line web sites towards increasing interactivity so that visitors stay longer on these web sites and so are more likely to purchase subscription services. Another response has been specialization of Net personals web sites, individual web sites concentrating on niche markets within the wonder personals field.

As computer ownership and Net usage reaches a saturation point throughout the world, the personals industry will reach a state of equilibrium and growth will maintain at a regular annual rate. There is no doubt that Net personals in general, and British personals in particular are here to stay and will always form a significant part of Net activity.