Reality TV idea?

Or maybe a David Cronenberg script. While most of us over 30 (or 40 or 50, for that matter) are still learning to text message, mobile dating has become, like, a really big deal - or at least an estimated $215 million deal by 2009. There are a bunch of players, including startups like MeetMoi and Flush and stalwarts like Match.com and Facebook. Especially popular is searching for dates in a user’s immediate area so a meeting can be set up right away, although this seems to only work when a service has lots of members. L.A.-based Helio also offers a GPS-based service that transmits a user’s location to friends - what sounds like an invitation to harassment or worse (big carriers are leery about adding the feature). Here's more from Red Herring:

To appeal to teenagers, Bellevue, Washington-based Crush or Flush lets users winnow out their “crushes” as they scroll through other users’ photos. The photos they don’t like can be deleted or “flushed.” Average use of the service is about 20 minutes twice a week, says Crush or Flush Marketing Director Josh Levine. The service, which says it has 250,000 active members, plans to charge for subscriptions and other services, and generate additional revenues from ads. Crush or Flush has backing from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Frazier Technology Ventures.

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Ultimately, some industry watchers say the success of mobile dating will depend on cell phone technology. Many phones are too slow and too small to handle rich media content. In contrast, Mark Brooks, publisher of Social Networking Watch, says devices made specifically for data transmission like the iPhone or Blackberry will become more popular with everyone, including the mobile lovelorn. “A lot of this is going to be device-driven,” he says.