Matrimonial advertising has evolved rapidly since then. First came the era of matrimonial ads in the Sunday newspapers. Then, matrimonial advertising went online. Last week, I observed in Boston what could be the next big idea for meeting a mate: a speed-dating event for South Asians. It’s simple: Singles congregate at a local restaurant. Each person gets to meet a number of people for a short time-period, between three to 10 minutes. People quickly introduce themselves and size each other up. Then, you pick and choose those you would like to get to know better.

Speed dating has evolved from Internet personals advertising. People found that they could find other people on the Net but, often, they exaggerated their virtues and sometimes, safety issues arose from meeting strangers. Aish HaTorah, an international Jewish educational network, came up with the idea — it owns the service mark SpeedDating — of organising a real-life event for people seeking partners on the Net. Soon, several dotcoms jumped into the fray: Fastdates.com, Minidates.com, 3minutedates.com, 7datesin60minutes.com, and of course, Boston-based 8minuteDating.com.

Last fortnight, 8minuteDating.com organised a speed-dating event exclusively for South Asians at a downtown nightclub. Most of the people who registered were 25-35 year old American Born Confused Desis — torn between the travails of arranged marriages and the pangs of loneliness. All were well-educated, smart, professionals seeking lasting relationships. Everyone felt awkward with the idea of talking to eight complete strangers for eight minutes each — but, by the time four dates got over, there was a huge buzz in the room.

No one was allowed to reveal their personal contact information during the event; every participant used first names and a code number. At the end of the evening, all of them went back to the website and recorded the names of those they would like to meet again. If the ones they chose also showed an interest in meeting them, the website automatically matched them up and sent them each other’s contact information.

You know what I really liked about the idea? The fact that the website didn’t have anything more to do with it. Since a local franchisee organised the event, the dotcom didn’t incur any expenses other than the costs of training him — in terms of revenues, each participant registered for around $30. The event took place on a slow work-night, so the restaurant was happy to lend its venue for free. Everyone bought his or her own drinks.

As the evening wore on, it looked like a win-win all around. The bartenders grinned at the brisk business on a Monday night, participants milled around excitedly chatting up new people. And 8minuteDating.com was hardly visible, no signage, no interventions, nothing. The dotcom simply faded into the background — like all good matchmakers.

The dotcom thus created a platform for its users, and allowed them to fulfill their needs themselves. And that’s the core of a successful business model. Says Tom Jaffee, founder of 8minuteDating.com: “Our business has grown over ten-fold this year. We’re hiring more people, just moved into a larger office and preparing for continued strong growth next year. We’ve built a sophisticated Web-based system that automates the many aspects of the business, and this, along with our over 100 event organisers, enables us to run events now in 30 cities in the US.”