There was a time when American personals were looked upon as a last resort. This was the era of computer dating that only effectively came to an end when Internet dating came to prominence and established itself in the mind of Americans as a legitimate and "regular" way to meet new people. Newspaper personals may have been looked upon as a last resort by Americans up until Internet 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-Internet service. When personals moved online, therefore, there was already a large population of Americans ready to make the move online and make full use of Internet American personals. And boy, did personals take-off online! Fuelled by Hollywood movies such as 'You've Got Mail' starring Tom Hanks, online personals quickly established themselves as regular Internet activity with none of the stigma that used to be associated with newspaper personals. By the year 2005 the American and international personals industry had become a 500 million dollars a year business. This rapid growth was tied in to the massive growth of the Internet itself across America and the world. But such incredible growth cannot go on forever. Inevitably, as people buy computers and go online, the numbers of people remaining who do not yet own a computer starts to go down. In 2002 the growth of the American 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 American market for computers as well as a similar saturation in other countries is inevitably to blame. One response to this by the American personals industry has been a movement of gearing online sites towards increasing interactivity so that visitors stay longer on these sites and so are more likely to purchase subscription services. Another response has been specialization of Internet personals sites, individual sites concentrating on niche markets within the woder personals field. As computer ownership and Internet 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 Internet personals in general, and American personals in particular are here to stay and will always form a significant part of Internet activity.
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