Of course social networking is incredibly popular now, but I remember when Match.com had a social network feature, which they removed right before Friendster started taking off. Talk about unlucky timing!

I use the phrase discovery because that is mostly what the Internet is about. We are constantly discovering videos, friends, dates, cheap couches and airfare on the net, and to me, at least most days, dating is an interesting corner of the net.

I track the online dating pretty industry closely, especially when innovation is in the air, which is not as often as I would like. Compared to my silicon valley clients, dating companies appear glacial, slow to react to just about everthing. But things are starting to change. Smart, driven upstarts are coming in and turning the traditional idea of online dating on it’s head and new sites are always popping up to challenge the big guns like eHarmony and Match.com.

As for innovation, it looks like dating sites are now starting to discover the benefits of marketing on YouTube. Which is what I’m trying to get to here.
Anyone who thinks that videosharing sites and services like YouTube and Brightcove aren’t usurping a good deal of tv time away from the major networks had their head in the sand. but I’m sure you knew that already, or you probably wouldn’t be reading this blog.
I have a set of friends who are in a band that tours around the US and EU often. Most of them don’t have cable, since they live on a bus for weeks and months every year. When they are back in town to decompress for a while, their entertainment often comes in the form of YouTube. Why give Comcast $1k a year when YouTube has the easily-digestible short videos that my friends voraciously devour upon return to home base?

Back to online dating innovation. In the past few months, online dating companies and producers of dating-related content have begun to wholeheartedly embraced YouTube as a wholesale distribution channel.

Case in point, Jackson West at NewTeeVee says:

Brandon Fletcher of New York QFVCVQLVCAEgained some notoriety by publicly asking YouTube to feature him on the front page, even flying across the country and visiting their offices. The effort, “Can YouTube Hear Me,� did get him a chat, but no promise of feature status. That hasn’t deterred the 20-year-old music and video producer, who has now put together his own reality show, “Date: Unknown.�

According to the site’s about page, there will be new episode each Monday and other short clips throughout the week. You can subscribe via YouTube, iTunes or RSS. Fletcher is paying for the dates, and invites couples near New York City who’ve been chatting but haven’t met yet to be on the show.

Let’s get something straight. A few million views on YouTube these days is a reasonable success. My friend Dave at Oddcast told me that their avatar system just won a Webby Award for best viral marketing of 2006, with over 100 million impressions! Now that’s a lot of eyeballs, and it’s just a silly interactive monkey.

Match.com, True and other dating sites have loads of videos on YouTube and you can’t load a Myspace page without seeing a co-ed staring back at you in a pseudo-videochat. Myspace and YouTube marketing is incredibly viral and.

Imagine when viral campaigns get past subservient chickens and on to more serious things like Darfur or climate change. I still like talking monkeys and awkward first dates on YouTube.