But Ms. McDermott says she believes the number is much higher, since the only way she learns of a marriage is if members tell her. Members include Katherine and Don Winters of Napa, who met through the service two years ago. After a few e-mail exchanges, they met in person, hit it off, and began dating. He is a litigation adviser, she a work-performance coach for executives. The couple married in August.
Some Web sites offer social services of a different sort.
Bob Mayo, a computer science researcher and alumnus of UC Berkeley, says he logs on to the site mainly for personal networking and appreciates the level of intelligence in his exchanges with other members. When you have a face telling you something, it becomes warmer and your relationship takes on a new dimension. The company says that soon users will be able to use their own voices, and in a year, incorporate their own images. LifeFX has other useful applications in mind, such as virtual professors for online learning and facemail yearbooks. The naysayers may see this as another sign of offline social decay.