If there is one activity the Internet is ideally suited to, it is exploiting an occasion. We have barely come through the pre-Christmas blitz, and the latest hype has been unleashed on Valentine's Day.

The head of steam building around the annual event is almost palpable. Practically every website with any kind of a significant following has come up with a way to mark the occasion, and while they're at it attract another few thousand eyeballs to the site.

This Valentine's Day is expected to be the biggest day yet in the history of the electronic greeting card industry, with millions of people sending their love via the Internet's many digital greetings sites. Of course in true Internet fashion, some of the ideas are not only innovative but downright schmaltzy to say the least. Take the example of Hotbar.com which takes the idea of sending a loved one a digital greeting card one step further by allowing people customise their own web browsers. Described as "browser skins", Hotbar is inviting people to either choose or customise a romantic skin and e-mail it to the object of their affections.

The graphical overlays sit on top of the browser interface and can feature photos or artwork denoting the sender's love for the recipient. According to Hotbar.com co-founder and president, Ms Gabriella Karni: "What better way to show your love than putting a skin with a photo of that special someone right on your Web browser, where you can see it all day long?"

Sufferers of unrequited love take note, this is not likely to be an ideal gift for unsuspecting victims. In some cases it may even cause the recipient to take fright.

Then there's the option to have your personal message of love displayed in lights on the Nescafe Piccadilly Circus video sign on Valentine's Day. Lovers everywhere who can stand being party to an elaborate ad campaign just have to send a Valentine's message and photo to the recently launched Nescafe UK website (www.nescafe.co.uk). The best messages will be displayed in Piccadilly Circus on the special day, and winners unable to physically make the event, can view their message at a virtual Piccadilly Circus on the website.

Who says Valentine's Day is just for lovers when it can be more gainfully employed for a spot of profile building? Take the example of singer and songwriter Eric Carmen, best known for his classic love song, All By Myself.

He is making his latest musical work available only over the Internet, where it can be downloaded free from ByteAudio.com, as a special Valentine's Day promotion. Fans can send an electronic greeting card featuring a minute of I Was Born to Love You and can then download the full version at ByteAudio's music portal.

Carmen's song is not currently available in record stores, making it a "must have" for Carmen fans everywhere. Mind you it's probably a good idea to ascertain the musical tastes of the intended recipient beforehand, unless you want to be left all by yourself on the day in question.

Then there's the website designed to appeal to even the most frugal of lovers. Ebates.com allows those sensible types who insist Valentine's Day is a purely commercial play, to get a little value of their own from the occasion. At ebates.com consumers are rewarded for shopping at some of the Web's most popular retail sites.

This year prospective romantics can avail of cash back deals for buying flowers, wine, spa treatments and other gifts online. To mark Valentine's Day the site is running a limited promotion that doubles rebates for shoppers at selected online retail sites.

The values of the rebates range from 12 to 50 per cent, and apply to Valentine's Day themed products, including flowers, chocolates, wine, and spa treatments.

Site membership is free and the amount of the available rebate is clearly marked on the goods on offer. Once an eligible item is purchased, it is automatically applied to the ebates.com member's account and a rebate cheque is issued to the member every quarter.

Closer to home, a NorthernIreland based site (www.springvale.demon.co.uk/ valentine/valentines.html) is hoping to make a commercial gain from the Valentine's messages of Northern men and women everywhere. Springvale Training, a cross-community training centre, has set up a site dedicated to romantics wishing to propose on Valentine's Day. For a fee of £5 the site will post pages dedicated to loved ones, featuring poems, greetings, pictures and the occasional proposal.

A similar option is available free from The Irish Times website (www.ireland.com). The first 100 romantics with the bottle to propose online will be rewarded with a box of Cadbury's chocolates.

For those who face the prospect of yet another loveless Valentine's Day help is also at hand. Remember the success Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan had in the blockbuster film You've Got Mail when they struck up an online friendship. The Internet's most popular - and most expensive - matchmaking site, Match.com, claims more than 650 marriages, 25 babies and a host of engagements and relationships. It recently launched a UK arm to its site.

More than two million people have registered and placed profiles with the service since it began operating on the Web nearly five years ago. Match.com attracts a fairly evenly distributed 45 per cent females and 55 per cent males, with the typical member aged between 25 and 45, college-educated and working.

A seven-day trial of the service is free, while membership is $16.95 a month, with a discount for anyone who - it has to be said, rather pessimistically - signs up for a year ($99.95).

Other sites worth checking out, include the rather hip, and free, Swoon.com Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) is also big on romance at the moment, where its personals section includes around 250,000 ads. Free searches can be conducted by age, sex and nationality.

At the higher end of the scale, if you're searching for that Blue Chip partner, take a visit to Webpersonals (www.webpersonals.com), where the typical member is older than 30 and earns $50,000 or more.

Finally www.kmpinternet.com/ valentine/ offers visitors a selection of electronic Valentines cards, and a very handy list of chat-up lines guaranteed to generate a response, even if it might border on the abusive. Examples include: "If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put U and I together", or "Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?"