Aproximación a la interacción virtual: el caso de la red social Badoo

many encounters and conversations now take place through social networks. badoo.com is one of the more popular ones, with 102 million users in 2010. this article focuses on communication within badoo, via chat, between 150 men and the author. the study looks the chief linguistic features of the conversations analyzed (spelling, use of capital letters, emoticons and strategies to convey courtesy or discourtesy). in doing so, it shows the chats are characteristic of oral discourse. the author also drafted five questions in the form of a survey to discover what the male respondents expected of badoo, their values and interests, if they would like to marry, and what features they value in women.