about What exactly it is, and how can it be carried out online.

What is it? Believe it or not, speed dating was started in the late 1990's by an orthodox rabbi as a way for young

Jewish people to meet other jews and therefore keep them from marrying outside of their religion. These singles could meet

acceptable Jewish marriage mates in a supervised setting. The idea worked without fail and was

so well thought of that the secular community latched on to it, and a movement of sorts was born.

In regular speed dating, prospects gather at a pub or caf?, often on weekdays during dinner hour, and each is given a

name tag and a tally sheet. Couples are matched up, and the ?game? begins. Everybody joins with their first

prospect and five to seven minutes of conversation ensue. A buzzer is rung when time is up, each

dater marks on their card whether they found this person to be somebody whom they wish to meet again, and the men move on to

the next table, to meet the next lady. Later, if both people are interested, the organisers of the

session give out phone numbers. Generally everyone make ten contacts during a speed

date, and about 50 per cent of all members participating walk away with at least one phone number.

So How can this be done online? There are at least two straight forward ways that a form of speed dating can be done online. The first involves using e-mail or private messaging through your favourite dating site, the second involves live chat rooms. Both

require a little bit of energy spent setting them up so that they go smoothly.

E-mail
For e-mail/PM speed dating, you would contact nine or eleven other singles, an even mix of men and women, with the leftover

person being the opposite gender from yourself (if you're not participating, use an even number of singles, for example, five men, five women).

Set up the guidelines as follows:
?Allot five days for completion of the ?speed dates?.
?All men would be given the e-mail or PM address of all of the participating women, and vice versa.
?Each person agrees to send a message to each of their potential partners within

three days, asking a set number of questions (decide the number before inviting participants!) which they consider to be ?must knows?

about people they are considering meeting.
?Participants agree to answer those questions within two days of receiving them.
?After the five days have elapsed, each dater sends the organiser the list of their five or six contacts,

along with a note beside each name of whether they wish to talk more with that person or not. The organiser sends notes back to each

dater with the list of their potential partners who have indicated a mutual interest. From there,

it's up to each dater to continue contact or not.

Chat room
Chat rooms are in real time, so a day and a time would need to be planned, along with determining which singles you plan to invite. Keep the group small, no

more than ten to twelve couples, and if you plan to participate, make sure there is an odd number, with the oddball being the opposite gender from yourself.

Some free australian sites allow groups that can be set up just for this purpose: An online speed date might work something like this:
?Decide the length of the speed dates. Five, six, or seven minutes are most common.
?You MUST plan out the order of the pairings in advance. For example, Woman Number One meets with Man One, Man Two, Man Three, Man Four, and Man Five,

in that order.
?Everybody gathers in the chat room at the appointed time, and the dates begin. At the organiser's signal, each couple goes to private messaging for

the duration of the five to seven minute date.
?When the allotted time has passed, each person private messages the organiser with a yes or a no for the person they've just met with. At the

organiser's signal, the entire group then move on to a private message session with the next person on their list.
?At the end of the speed date, the organiser privately lets each participant know who expressed a mutual interest in getting to know them better,

giving each person the e-mail information for their potential future dates. It's as easy as that!

Why do this?
For online daters whose lives are busy and who find themselves without much time to meet many other daters, speed dating is a great way to establish a wider pool of people to choose from, in a short amount of time. Using one of the online versions

of speed dating in conjunction with your favourite dating site, you can dig a little bit deeper than personal profiles show and get a better idea of whether

these people are interesting enough to look into further. And besides which? it's fun and may net you some new friends!