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Dig around first
Many sites try to differentiate themselves in some way, just as smaller holiday tour operators provide a more personal
service than larger ones. So before you sign, have a really good look round. Click on a dozen different sites. See
what features they offer. One difficulty in assessing sites is that they do not tell you before you pay about any of
the negative points, like the fact that they time you out if you go and make a cup of tea. However, I have included
a few of these negative features in my list below. You will at least know when you find one that other sites may be
better. So here are some of the features - good and bad.
How much information do you have to provide?
Ask any five Internet daters and you will have at least six answers. Some of us think it intrusive when we are asked for
personal information about our habits, weight or religion. Funny thing is that those same people like to assess that same
information as fully as possible in others. So let me start right there. All of us want information. The more information
we have, the better informed will be the choices we make. So, if you want people to read your profile, give them all the
information! (There is more later about how best to use a site). The point I make is that your search is easier on a website
which ask plenty of questions.
Visual information is important too - that is photos. None of us can resist looking at the photos first. All sites tell
you, you will have ten times the response to a profile with a photo. That is true. Anyway, it is far more fun to have a
picture of the person you are in touch with, than just hoping he / she looks like the person in your dreams.
Free sites
It costs money to operate a web site, particularly one with heavy bandwidth used for communications of any sort. So no-one is going to spend £50k setting up a website and then letting you and me operate it free of charge. So how does a free dating service cover its costs and make a profit? Easy - they sell your data. Of course, the most respectable sites do occasionally provide freebies based on their marketing plan or to entice a large number of new joiners, or by agreement with some club or organisation. So it is possible to find free membership occasionally. But if the site is permanently free, be warned!
How much privacy? Who sees your profile?
This is a thorny question. The fact is that prospective new members coming to a site are enticed in by the prospect of meeting many people. As a result, they has developed a tendency to show visitors more and more of the profile detail in the hope that they will join, then eventually pay to commincate. There are a few sites that show nothing until you have actually paid, but they have few members. Your best bet is to find a site which holds back any sensitive profile information for members only.
Some affiliates simply provide recommendations and adverts; others dress the product in their own
livery. Yahoo became a major affiliate of one service, but found it so profitable that it now runs
its own dating service (though this may still be operated on an affiliate basis by a specialist).
Photographs can be particularly sensitive, teacher, doctors and politicians may not want their children, patients and constituents to see their face smiling seductively out of a web page. The best sites deal with this by allowing the member control over who sees the photos. In this way the advantage of photos is largely preserved, but so is an element of privacy.
Searching
Obviously central to any dating service is the search facility. Some operators allow you to search with any criteria you choose, others limit you severely. If your search criteria are limited to say age, gender, and country, that means the net is wide, so you are presented with a large number of choices. You have to wade through all these. It may take hours. On some sites, the criteria change slightly each time you log on, so you cannot avoid starting afresh every time. The first time you are confronted by this enormous list of possible partners, your adrenalin will really flow, but a week later, you may decide that you really have to get to bed before midnight.
On the other hand, if a site allows you to filter your search by specifying criteria, you may make it so narrow as to find no results at all. Let me show you. Suppose you are a woman looking for a man -
| there are 60,000,000 people in the UK |
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| 50% are male, that gives you |
30,000,000 |
| 5% might be looking for a new partner, that gives |
1,500,000 |
| 2% might use your web site, that gives |
30,000 |
| 10% might be in your age group, that gives |
3,000 |
| 10% might satisfy your physical requirements, that gives |
300 |
| 5% might live within striking distance |
15 |
| 10% might be right in culture and interests |
1.5 |
So how do rate your chances of finding those one and a half people? My advice here is to find a site that gives you some choice, but then you yourself be flexible.
Communication
You have identified a few possibles, yes? You want to contact them, yes? Communication is the first place that really sorts out the good sites from the disastrous ones. Most sites forbid disclosure of email addresses because members have the opportunity to read all info about another member before they pay. If they were allowed to publish e-mail addresses, members would transfer to e-mail to avoid membership fees. So sites use some sort of internal message system. Unfortunately, you cannot learn much about the communications system until you have paid your membership fee.
A problem on many sites is that you have to click endlessly between different messages to read the thread of a "conversation" you have had over a number of days. You will find this intensely irritating. So find a site that shows the whole thread on one page. It will save hours.
A real problem on some sites, but sadly one you will encounter only after you have paid, is lack of message space. Sometimes we want to give a load of information, sometimes we just ramble because it is two in the morning. There is nothing more irritating than suddenly finding your flowing eloquence cut short by a pop up to say "that's your lot".
Chat
"Chat" is simply real time communication, one to one - the other person is right there, on line while you are. If you are used to using chat in other ways, you may be happy to use it for dating. Of course, it is exciting to be "talking" to someone who is really there, and not just leaving a message.
In practice, however, there are few people who prefer chat to a message system, so chat is not an essential feature. Where offered, it is generally available because the marketing department thinks it is a good idea, not because it adds much to the member experience.
Notes about other members
Not many sites offer the facility for you to take notes about other members, but they can be very useful. If you are an easy going person and you are happy to communicate with just one person at once, notes are unnecessary. But if you want to get stuck in to your Internet dating experience, it is very helpful to have a few reminders of who is who. For instance, you might record when you sent messages or critical info from their profile. You avoid the embarrassment as you get someone's childrens' names or their favourite sports wrong! To be useful, notes need to be available to you at the right time. That means a separate window from other data. The whole point of notes is to have them handy when communicating or reading a profile, so if you have to click around to find them, they are as good as useless.
This site is written on behalf of www.WhereSinglesMeet.com , a World wide dating service based in the UK
Lists and favourites
Most sites allow you to designate favourites. One site has multiple lists, one of which is "favourites". It is really helpful to be able to use lists. You will find that the more active you are on a site, the more useful are your lists. Probably the most useful feature of a list is to be able to search using different criteria (locations? Ages?) Then put your selected members into labeled lists. You might have lists for:
people you want to talk to, but have no time tonight;
people you have written to but have not yet replied;
people you really fancy but feel you will have to leave until other connections expire;
people who live in a particular area;
and so on
The shops
Very few websites with a large footfall can resist sending you to their shopping mall from time to time. Of course, this is only another affiliation. You buy, they get paid. I think this is a pity because they fail to realise that when we are looking for a night partner or life partner, we are really not interested in buying a CD or a pair of trainers. More civilised sites do at least make some effort to provide you with a shopping experience relevant to dating - cards, flowers, and so on.
Time out
Because the site owner pays for band width - that is the time you or I are connected - it is not unreasonable that they should make sure we do not go away without logging off and leave a connection open all night. The trouble is that very few of us ever log off anywhere. So to protect themselves, the site will automatically switch you off after a given time has elapsed since you last reminded them you were still there. With some sites, it is as little as five minutes. On others you can have half an hour before they reckon you are not coming back. Half an hour is more convenient.
So what should it cost?
This is just a personal view. You may disagree. But I think that the value of finding someone for a personal relationship is far greater than the £50 for three months charged by the most expensive sites. After all, if you put an advertisement in a newspaper for one day only it might cost you £80 for two or three replies. However, if you are saving every penny, take the three month discount option offered by many sites. Unless you have nothing better to do with your day, you will certainly need more than one month.
This site is written on behalf of www.WhereSinglesMeet.com , a World wide dating service based in the UK
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