Trilibis said it has noticed an increase in interest in mobile dating, with a 23 percent surge in Webdate Mobile subscribers in the past year, for a total of nearly 92,000 registered users.

Meanwhile, analysts at Frost & Sullivan put the revenues for global mobile dating services at $31 million in 2005, a number that is expected to grow to $215 million in 2009. Visiongain, a market research firm in London and San Francisco, said that about 13 percent of all U.S. dating service members were accessing Web sites through their mobile phones.

As a sign of mobile dating's popularity, carriers such as Sprint Nextel and AT&T Inc.'s wireless unit (formerly Cingular Wireless) are supporting mobile dating with faster wireless data rates, easy text-messaging connections and subscriptions to specific mobile-capable dating services.

For example, Sprint offers a Webdate Mobile subscription for $3.99 per month. Sprint also offers Jumbuck Island from Jumbuck Corp. for $3.99 per month, giving users the ability to create an avatar to meet and chat with others via cellular in a virtual world.

For its part, Jumbuck Island announced this week that it has upgraded its Fast Flirting service, making it available to carriers globally. About 40,000 unique visitors per day use the Fast Flirting service over various carriers worldwide, the company said.