Web Date Info

So I revisited Match.com which has become a household name and online dating powerhouse.  They have commercials on all day on pretty much every channel, tons of banner advertisements, and magazine ads as well.

For this review I went with a with a paid membership.  First off, your payment options are decent.  You can get the price down to less than $19.99 month, but you do have to buy 3-6 months up front.  I think this seems pretty reasonable for one of the biggest, most widely known, and socially acceptable dating sites on the web.

Creating your profile isn’t too bad.  They don’t seem to have one of those annoying quizzes that never seems to end.  You do the typical about you and your date then it’s picture time.  I noticed later that it’s not uncommon to find members with 20+ pictures on their profile.  My profile didn’t take very long to get approved.  I’d say less than 2 hours, given I didn’t put a whole lot of info on it.

I was pretty impressed by the number of members within 10 miles of my house.  Keep in mind I live in one of the 10 biggest cities in the US.  You should be able to find plenty of members from 20-50.  The search feature will allow you to drill down on some specifics, but you’ll find that most profiles are very general so that probably won’t do that much good.

I will say that after being on the site for almost 2 weeks I’ve gotten a lot of “matches” from Match.com sent to me.  They’re usually based on 3 similarities that I’m not sure are very relevant.  For example, “you are both the youngest child in your family”, or “you both like dogs”.  I guess it’s a start.

After my profile was live and I started searching and viewing my matches, “winks” started to appear.  And then the occasional email message.  The site does work and there are plenty of members to get to know.  Within the first week I had started to get to know several members though messages, and then eventually cell phone texts and phone calls.  By the end of week 2 I had already met 3 people face-to-face for what I guess you could call the only blind dates of my life.  One was an absolute disaster, one was decent, and the 3rd and most recent was pretty fun.

So there’s the proof.  The site works and there are many members serious about finding somebody willing to get to know each other and give it a shot.  I’m not sure how long I’ll keep my profile because it feels like I have a new Facebook account to keep up with, but we’ll see.  So all in all I say give it a shot if you’re looking for a significant other, or to speed up your dating life.  If you’re looking for hookups I’d probably suggest you spend you time and money elsewhere.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Plentyoffish.com is a free online dating website that has been around for several years. They have a lot of members and the site has been steadily improving. I posted an ad here to see what the site’s all about and it seems decent for being completely free.

Their slogan is “100% Free. Put away your credit card.” And that’s true. At no point will you be asked to upgrade to a paying membership. The option isn’t even available. The profile can be pretty lengthy if you choose to fill out a couple of their questionnaires. I would recommend that you do if you are serious about finding someone for a serious relationship. If you are after casual dates, than it might not be necessary to spend all that time.

The first survey you are asked to fill out is the 50 question “Chemistry Predictor.” It isn’t too lengthy and will most likely help you in your search for possible matches. The other assessment is very lengthy and time consuming. It’s a 100 question, “Needs Assessment.” I would block off 30 minutes to go through this part.

After you’ve made your profile and filled out the necessary assessments, you are ready to start finding your matches. You can search PlentyofFish profiles by compatibility, location, and several other options. Plentyoffish has tons of members so don’t be afraid to be a tough screener. Once you find likely candidates you can IM them if they’re online, or send messages. As far as I can tell you aren’t limited on how many messages you can send or receive per day. Within the first 10 minutes of having my profile up I already had 2 responses and I hadn’t even put up a picture yet! That’s a good sign and lets you know that the site has members who are actively searching other profiles.

I always like to check out how much traffic dating sites get by looking at Alexa rankings. The lower the number the better. Keep in mind that Google’s Global Alexa ranking is 2 and US Alexa ranking is 1.

Technorati Tags: plentyoffish.com, plentyoffish

Popularity: 5% [?]

WooMe.com is a new video dating website that is getting a lot of attention. This site is like Facebook with webcams. It is labeled as a dating website but seems more like a social hangout. Woome has some pretty cool features and is picking up tons of hits. I first noticed WooMe when I saw their banner advertisement on Facebook.

Woome definitely has a new cool spin on online dating/video dating/social networking. It hardly takes any time at all to make a profile and it’s free as far as I can tell so far. The only real setbacks are that you’ll need a webcam and microphone on your computer to be able to use the features of the site. If you don’t have the proper equipment, you really won’t be able to enjoy all the site has to offer.

So how does WooMe work? It’s very simple. After you create a profile you do a quick test to check for your webcam and microphone. Once that is detected you are ready to start enjoying the video/voice features of the site. The next step would most likely be to do search for the type of people you are looking for. Once you have your search results you can check out users profiles and see what they’re all about. Users create what are called “sessions” which is really a scheduled time to be online and on their webcam. You can join these sessions and interact with other members live via webcam and microphone. It really is pretty cool. Sessions can be private or include multiple users. You can also create a session for yourself and invite others to join, or wait for them to find it and join on their own.

I really think that this site has a lot of potential. There obviously is a huge demand for internet users to meet and communicate online and WooMe.com has a great way of doing it. Again, the only setback is having access to a computer with a microphone and webcam. But with technology moving so fast, those are included on many laptops today and can be purchased for a reasonable price at many electronic stores.

For being so new, I have to say that WooMe.com has some pretty good traffic stats on Alexa. Here are where they place in terms of Alexa traffic rankings.

Global: 19,508

US: 4,657

If you look at their traffic over the past 3 months, you’ll see that their internet user reach has increased by 72% and they have jumped about 14,000 spots on their global ranking.

Technorati Tags: WooMe.com, woome

Popularity: 2% [?]