Why just sit idly on the bus when you could be browsing for love on your cellphone? Toronto-based dating service Lavalife introduced mobile dating to its roster of services last year, enabling busy yuppies to chat each other up on the way home from work.

‘All of our services are designed to cater to people who are too busy,’ explains Lori Miller, Lavalife’s brand manager. ‘No matter how busy you are, you can use [mobile dating] at your convenience…from standing in line to being stuck in traffic.’

But, are come-on lines less effective on SMS? Not for today’s ultra-busy singles with no time for proper spelling and grammar. ‘One of the benefits of SMS is that it forces you to cut down on the verbage,’ says Mike Brown, director of marketing at MyThum Interactive, Lavalife’s mobile partner.

‘People are too busy to type the word ‘be.’ Now it’s just ‘B.” Brown notes that mobile dating, and SMS-based applications in general, are a great way to appease impatient consumers since they generate instant responses: ‘[Consumers today] are busy and impatient…’I want what I want when I want it.”