Almost 77.5 percent of voters in a recent poll said they think that by way of the Internet they have more chances to encounter their Mr. or Ms. "Right", according to a Research Report on Internet Friends and Love released on Monday – the Chinese Valentine's Day.

The survey was conducted by yeeyoo.com, a famous "making-friends" and online love website in China, over the past two months. More than 100,000 netizens from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou participated.

The last ten years have seen significant development of Internet use in China and Great changes have also happened to people's way of thinking. About 77.5 percent of the respondents felt optimistic about their chances of finding love on the Internet, 20.9 percent held a neutral view about online romance and only 1.6 percent were opposed to electronic dating.  

According to the report, many people "lack social activities and opportunities" to make friends. One reason for using Internet was the fact they were "too busy at work."

Many voters are prudent toward online love with 52.7 percent choosing to go on a date only after knowing someone for a few months. A sensible 47.3 percent considered love as the first element of a stable marriage, following by thinking and material conditions.

The survey shows that the main concern of people is reliability of the website. As many as 96.1 percent of participants thought it necessary to check the real identity of their Mr. or Ms. "Right" and only 3.9 percent fully trusted websites.

In order to improve its online service, yeeyoo.com along with French Meetic.com, the biggest such website in Europe, launched the Chinese version – www.meetic.com.cn – on Monday.

(China.org.cn by Wang Ke, August 2, 2006)