Many man and women have met and fallen in love through the process called by many 'mail order bride'. As times change the question has been asked 'Are marriage agencies becoming antiquated'?

I was thinking about this issue recently and made some conclusions of my own.

1) We need to decide what we mean by 'agency' because as we already know there are several different models and a whole gamut of services ranging from communication portals such as Hot Russian Brides or Elena's Models that aggregate thousands of profiles from hundreds of smaller, local agencies right through to those small, local agencies that, when they can, want to provide fairly individual service and handholding.

2) Many people prefer to use intermediaries in one way or another. People trying to use Mamba.ru, Facebook or Odnoklassniki are all using an intermediary and so the difference between them and those who use Russian Love Match / HRB, Elena's Models or one of their feeder agencies directly is actually pretty small.

3) A site such as Hot Russian Brides and some of their similar competitors are, in essence, social sites that focus upon a particular niche of people.

A client is paying for two things in addition to that which Vkontakte or Facebook can offer:

a) focused social sites provide filtering, there is a decent chance that the clients are actually looking for a romantic/marriage/dating relationship of some kind. Facebook et al simply provide access to 'the world' and so time and effort is expended in finding people who are even interested in dating/relationships/marriage.

b) focused social sites offer a modicum of security for both parties to a nascent relationship. If there are problems they can be resolved within the context of the business offering.

Try moaning about a woman who is not into you to Facebook or Odnoklassniki!

In addition clients of relationship focused social sites can expect, and usually get, a good deal of privacy and some assurances as to safety of communication. This is not really possible without some kind of intermediary and sites such as Facebook have as their business model the breaking down of normal privacy barriers.

I can not imagine a sensible person using Facebook for honest, open and real online dating or partner search knowing, as I do, the opportunities for my data to become shared into places I simply do not want it shared. A user on Hot Russian Brides or Elena's Models is pretty well guaranteed privacy and certainly no real chance of data from the personal and private realm of life ending up in the business or public realm of life. This simply not true for anyone using a generally focused social site in an open and honest manner!

4) Local agencies provide on the ground support and resources. Not many people seeking a bride fromt he Former SOviet Union (FSU) would be able to arrange to travel to or live in most cities in the FSU without the support of some kind of agency, whether that agency is focused upon travel and ground support or upon the marketing of women and the required ground support for their incoming male clients. That will not change until such time as the majority of incomers have learned to speak Russian fluently and travel confidently.

5) Over time market demands change and with them businesses, if they are to remain profitable, must also change. Those that do not will close up leaving their remaining clients in the lurch. So, the general answer to the general question is, I think, that 'agencies' are here to stay, indeed, just as in the domestic US market, they will grow apace - look at Match.com, Friendfinder, PlentyofFish etc. These are ALL agencies and intermediaries and their business is booming.

It is my belief that as borders in the FSU become more open that there will be a resurgence of people moving country for 'love' or relationships. We are moving into an era where communication is of good quality and very inexpensive.

Within the EU only around 1% of the EU citizens permanently lives in a different EU country to the one where they were born. This is likely to increase and so will the movement of women AND men from the FSU.

What is likely to change rapidly is the notion that women from the FSU marry old Americans in order to have a more secure life; that model is already outdated. IMHO, we will see an increase in younger guys looking to marry for the first time and for men, as well as women from the FSU to seek partners from outside their borders but not for economic or social reasons.

I also think we will see an increase in two way traffic where folks like me move to countries for live and love.

Agencies are not becoming antiquated, demand for their services from paying clients is growing. Some agencies that are unable to recognize business, legal and social threats and adapt to them WILL become antiquated and fail, but this is true of any and all businesses in all fields of endeavour.