Mike, I agree, I definitely prefer to look first and then worry about whether the guy doesn’t have a personality.

In my experience match.com can be a meat market, but it works. There’s also the law of averages, where match.com is the busiest site (at least where I am looking). Yahoo tends to attract, well, a different demographic - like for instance, I don’t tend to see as many professionals on Yahoo.

And eharmony is worthless - especially when there are no photos or when the photos are hidden.

It sounds like Yahoo is trying a gimmick to ape a little of what eharmony does. I don’t expect any real advantage for Yahoo from this.

http://advision.webevents.yaho.....index.html

They recently introduced a WHO VIEWED ME feature.
Appealing to the Narcisist in everyone

( hmmm…..similar in fact to the MyBlogLog feature )

Mike,

I think that most dating sites are using features that most don’t give a crap about. I think we’ll see more sites that push “Looks” first and foremost soon. Although I will say that MySpace is heavily used for the type who are browsing based solely on appearance. The holiday seasons big winner.
http://www.iRegift.com

Yahoo just has too many No.1 sites.
Maybe this feature could make users to submit more detailed information, which is very important for the online dating service.

Tech Tutorials: http://www.hotcoding.com

Hey…I am on net looking for a date…I am in a great hurry….this thing is taking too long…please short curcuit this everlasting wait…..just what we need for better long term relationships…

http://www.jollyjo.org

I have found Yahoo to have TONS of fake profiles which makes the site incredibly annoying to use, whereas Match seems to do a better job of weeding them out. I wonder if all the FAKE profiles are seperated out if Yahoo would still be the No. 1 site.

Good looking people generally tend to have good personalities as well. This is cool.

People who use Personals are LOSERS.

Online dating is as successful as offline — it’s a mixed bag, and as long as people “fluff their stuff” and hide their baggage and issues, it will always be a pain in the a$$.

These days, people change relationships like clothes — few seem to value themselves or a quality and long-term relationship. I have no sympathy for folks who engage in the misery known as dating.

Enhancing user experience will absolute encourage us to use a particular site or service. Users want more in less time. Hats off to those who understand and implement strategies to fulfill our wants.

I actually met my wife on Yahoo Personals, way, way back in 1999.

We were both just looking for smart folk who shared some philosophical ideas. Turned out she lived about 3 miles away.

The longer the web is around, the more the fact that we met online becomes a cute story and not a weird one.

I have used yahoo and match since my divorce. I’ve met gobs of women on these things….none of which have lead to anything really long term, incidentally.

A couple important points.

Match.com just went through a re-design last week and its universally hated by users (i’ve been taking an informal poll). There was some additional functionality added but, no one that I’ve asked really cares.

Yahoo is *infamous* (or notorious) for “fake people” to bolster the volume of results and entice additional signups.

I’ve written about yahoo in the past, see:

http://unbonhomme.blogspot.com.....ngles.html

http://unbonhomme.blogspot.com.....-more.html

(screen shots included of duplicate users in the second post)

@ jay have you been to L.A.?! It’s actually hard to find anybody who is good looking with a personality, let alone a bad or good one

I think the legacy players in this space have needed to make changes for a long time but are probably doing it moreso because the competition has the features and they’re worried about losing marketshare, not necessarily because they want to improve the user experience . I think what appeals to end users (photos or profiles, etc.) depends more on the age of the audience - HotOrNot’s younger, something like match.com might be an older crowd, etc. so it could just depend but a streamlined experience, though, is good on any site so kudos to Yahoo for making it happen.

With music, you can just rate 10 or 15 songs and they have a pretty good idea of your taste.

eHarmony is great, those questions really do help find someone you will like, but the research psychologist behind the site needs to have a MARKETING person force them to cut the initial size of the list of questions WAY down.

Patricia - No personality? That’s even better. LOL I was just kidding. Haven’t been to LA yet. I live in Stamford, CT… people here can be super stuck up and air-heady - regardless of how they look.

Good people are harder and harder to find these days, I guess the Internets and and these search improvements is helping make the process easier.

Just so long as those that end up getting together through these sites don’t end up procreating, we will have nothing to worry about.

Yahoo isn’t first.. Match.com is first in terms of revenue with over 300 million, then eharmony, then yahoo and american singles.

Yahoo has sold of nearly all its international divisions to match.com or meetic. I’ve heard constant rumors that yahoo is shopping around its dating division in the us, maybe this is a last ditched attempt to reclaim what they lost?

I agree with Sean, if people are just interested in looks they will use myspace, but if they are looking for a real relationship looking to myspace, hotornot, etc. will leave much to be desired. The real problem with online dating in the total lack of innovation by the “big guys”, and the little guys who have the best features are trying their darnedest to get noticed… sounds just like dating

Michael has failed to mention my site, though it gets more traffic then many of the sites he mentions in his previous post: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006.....find-love/

I hope he will take a look someday. Hint Hint

I prefer the “real world” but internet is the biggest opportunity…

so, what is real?

Pedro Sardinha
http://pedrosardinha.com

Its the tags people! Goto verbdate.com and search by tag, this is way more intuitive than an SQL record! Try the tags, designer, or Blues, or something else. Just added Youtube vids to the mix and so it won’t be long before people start uploading video introductions of themselves, this would be more fun to watch than reading personality traits. So far most are putting up their favorite music vids but I have found a great band I never heard of YoW!

http://www.verbdate.com/about/becky

Hey Mike how about being the first to upload a video of yourself smoking a cigar and lighting it with a $20 bill? Don’t let Om beat you!
cheers and I live zip.ca too!

Wow, actually, something like this would probably make sense for myspace to roll out. gah.

Someone mentioned Myspace. I think it’s telling that people find ways on Yahoo Personals to reference that they are on myspace and how to find them on there. Myspace gives a better picture of the whole person and their social group than any of the dating sites I’ve ever looked. I think there’s a level of casualness and lowering of boundaries on Myspace which you don’t find on Match.com or Yahoo Personals profiles.

I didn’t know that you were cofounder of Zip.ca
Personally I never used it, I still prefer filmonline.ca, you can book your movie online, just pick it up and if you see it in a 4 hours range, you only pay 1$!
regular rates for 1 day are not bad also: 4$

One site that completely sucks but apparently is a financial windfall is plentyoffish.com. It looks like an idiot slapped it togethor in 2000. According to rumor the guys pulls in $15M a year from it. He runs the whole operation on server costs that are below $15k a month. Lol. Crazy
http://www.roofcontractor.com

AFAIK outside of the US ICQ is the biggest dating network.

I think TechCrunch is the best place to find chiks. After all, this is where I met Natali

Michael, your title asks “Does This Stuff Work?” - are you referring to the features introduced and/or dating sites in general?

Paid dating sites are used by singles who are motivated to meet a match. For most people dates don’t fall out of the sky. By being proactive and joining dating sites people increase their chances of getting dates and hopefully finding a match. Singles will continue dropping money for such opportunities.

While the emergence of social entertainment networks have contributed to the dating industry’s slowing growth, there is a silver lining; dating operators are now forced to focus more on providing quality and a better service to their members (hence more experimenting and out of the box thinking). This is ultimately Great news for millions of singles looking to dating sites for the opportunity to meet a soulmate.

Life is good.

No No No anything you have to pay for especially “Dating Sites ” Sucks! not only are the prices out rageous but like the person above said its Fake!! over 50% of the profiles on them are fake and why bother when these clowns think paying for a service that dont work like yahoo personals , match, and what others out there… People!! there are FREE yes i said FREE of charge ways to meet people of the opposite sex dont waste your money to the Web sites like the personals and get no where fast besides broke!! Save your cash for a nice dinner… Heres a few clues… Most Chat rooms are FREE…. MY SPACE is FREE there is a Chat room there , WEB DATE. com last i checked is FREE…. if you look hard enough you will find FREE sites to mingle and find Single companions!!!

i recall reading recently (from a credible source) that last year some 14% of marriages in the usa were between couples that met via the internet.

sad? scary? surreal? or simply a reflection of changing times? i have no idea, but it clearly works (for an increasing ’some’) and next year’s % stats should be interesting reading …

I’ve tried some of these when I moved to London (thinking it’s a great way to make new friends quickly). It works ‘ok’ but without trying to sound rude, it felt like a lemon market. I think these things probably work best if you use it sparingly to augment an otherwise social (aka real-world) experience.

One that’s unique to the UK is mysinglefriend.com. I only did Match for one month then unsubscribed. A friend signed me up to this other site and there are decent people on there… in other words, the type that wouldn’t sign themselves up for an internet dating site!

In general though, many of my friends - male and female - are trying online personals and it’s working very well for a lot of them!

Carl,

It’s not sad at all that people are marrying partners that they’ve met online. At the end of the day, it’s not how people meet, but instead, how they connect.

I think that the paid dating sites days aren’t exactly numbered. I have a friend who when I asked why she was paying $25.00 for her Yahoo! dating account, her answer was: “I want someone to be willing to pay to talk to me.” I kind of get her point. The number of free sites will continue to climb, you can build one pretty easily. Amassing a large membership well that’s a different story. However we’ve got a couple readers on the board here who know a thing or two about getting new members on a site, with or without their knowledge. Of course that’s just rumor. Jabs aside…

The other coin to this is that every year more and more people come to a point in their life (age, desperation, frustration with meeting quality people, sexual exuberance etc.) when they decide they’re going to try the online dating thing. There’s many types; Analytical - the serious type. Paid dating sites. eHarmony rules this demo. Doesn’t want to waste time and not looking for casual (or semi-casual) sex. Religion is also a factor. Free Spirit - not serious. Mostly young. Not really looking for long term. These types will join not only three or four free dating sites, but they’ll also join some paid sites although they might not be the type to become a “paid” conversion. More than likely this type also has a MySpace profile, unless their 40+. Then the Average - A lot of people fall into this category. M & F ages 23-45 Divorced, Never Married, Few Failed Relationships etc. The older end of the crowd will use the paid sites, men will mostly pay (men who are really desperate will have accounts on Yahoo!, eHarmony until they figure it out, Match.com etc) some women will be paid member converts once they start to get a lot of emails. Some will have some free accounts, but many will be entirely new to this and might have hesitation about free dating sites & security. (which is absurd, it really doesn’t matter)
Then you have the dozens of smaller niche sites that cater to specifics. Sexual orientation, Race, Religion, Sexual Connections, Fetish etc. The point is, no one particular model will take over. Free, paid or niche. We all have specific things we’re looking for, and we’ll discover them in a variety of ways. You can argue that the paid model is taking a hit, but the same has happened with the free model sites thanks to “social networking”. In my mind there will always be an ebb and flow to it. All things in this world are cyclical, that rule even applies to something as silly as online dating.

-Sean

Best Non Dating Sites on the Net!
PixelShrink.com
http://www.iRegift.com
http://www.RoofContractor.com

Since we’re on the topic, any ladies up for a nice dinner date tonight?

what about plentyoffish.com ….are they a fair competitor?

“what about plentyoffish.com ….are they a fair competitor?”

Markus probably has some thoughts, but from what I can tell, they are a minor, minor competitor in the US right now. I can say from experience, you simply can’t find enough quality on plentyoffish in a major US city, compared to something like Match. There’s not nearly the volume, and as well as Markus is doing, I can’t imagine he’s making the money that true growth would require. But it would be great if Match and Yahoo got crushed by free sites.

ronald - absolutely. i wasn’t wishing to infer it was sad, that would be patronising.

i am just aware that a large number of people do perceive it that way. it’s certainly changing society dynamics in a way we can’t assess properly at the moment as it’s all too close right now.

I miss the good ole days, when you could surf the personals without a lot of what I consider to be intrusions. However I wish nothing but the best to Yahoo.

What’s Hot Today.com
http://www.whatshottoday.com

Guys.. Yahoo is also invested in India’s Largest Matrimony Portal, BharatMatrimony.com. Not sure about the size of the company, but in a nation with the worlds second largest population.. Yahoo is all set to rock. I am not sure about the future plans of Yahoo.. But definitely localising match making based on culture and leaving the leaders do the job is a fantastic approach.

I’ve been wanting one of the major players to offer a feature like this for the last few years. It’s not pefect, but it is a step in the right direction. I have no doubt that this will make my time using Yahoo Personals much more productive. I hope that there is more innovation along these lines from more of the major players.

On the matter of looks, they matter A LOT. There’s no point reading profiles and sending messages just to find out that there is no physical attraction. This is the major weakness of eHarmony and why they suck so bad.

I didn’t see a mention of OKCupid.com which is a bit more interesting than the Yahoo personals and whatnot. Basically, on OKCupid you answer a long list of questions (many of which are user-submitted) with a rating from “doesn’t matter to me” to “really matters to me” (paraphrase, that’s not the actual text) and then their algorithm calculates your matches based on the number of questions and the importance of those questions to both you and your matches. It’s free, and is conceptually different from a number of other sites I’ve seen. I ended up dating my #1 match for a short period of time, and it was sometimes spooky that we seemed to think/believe so similarly. However, in the end, we really weren’t that similar/congruous.

My remaining matches on OKCupid either have kids (which I’m just not cut out for), are not easy on the eyes (that’s politely understated), or are well… odd (literally dress up like Pandas and hang out in trees [I'm not making that up]). What does that say about me? Honestly, I think it says very little about me personally, and much more about the lack of volume of quality people there. Mileage varies, but it turned useless for me after the first week or so.

I paid to use Yahoo Personals a while back, and that’s not a mistake I’ll be making again. A majority of the ads which were “real” never seemed to log on to check messages, etc. It was absolutely non-productive and pointless. My former boss met his wife through Yahoo personals though, and they’re still together (~ 5 years later) and seem to be doing well.

My experience with Craigslist yielded mixed results, I met some nice people (and one wacko) but nobody that “sparked.” The deal-breaker is usually the picture exchange. I had numerous women not write me back afterwards (I don’t have a third arm growing out of my forehead, nor am I __insert_random_beefcake_guy_name_here__), even after a nice, lengthy e-mail exchange. Respect or interest in at least being polite or cordial seems very irrelevant to people using these services. I actually had one woman “attack me” (via IM) because I didn’t meet her expectations. The particular ad that I’d posted was terse, so she had one a lot of fabrication and was obviously someone I’d want to avoid.

I went to coffee with a few women though their pictures suggested that I wouldn’t be physically attracted to them. I figure that there are a lot of folks who aren’t actually photogenic, but have dynamic personalities which actually do make them physically attractive, though they may not seem so based solely on some crappy cell phone picture their friend took. Pictures are useful for things like “oh, half of her face is tattooed with swastikas… maybe not the girl for me” but I think it’s rather shallow to base one’s impression solely on the picture.

One woman I ended up going to lunch with told me that she’d posted an ad on Craigslist and had gotten over 200 responses, many of which were professions of “undying, unyielding, immediate unconditional love” from men she’d never written a single word to, some of whom also sent pictures of their genitals. I asked her why she’d responded to my ad if she’d gotten so many responses from hers, and she said “there’s a serious lack of quality in the responses, your ad was interesting.” There wasn’t anything particularly interesting to me about that woman in person. I knew after the first question (which was “oh, that’s a cool PDA… what OS does it use?” “uh, I don’t know, I just use it to play solitaire”) that we were a non-match.

Think the women-to-men is so absurdly skewed towards women in the Bay Area that they just don’t even bother or care to be polite, which is a goddamn pisser when you’ve just spent a half hour writing a real response to someone’s ad. They can’t even muster up the courtesy to politely respond with “Oh, you seem very nice, but I don’t think we’d be a good fit. Thanks for taking the time to respond to my ad, and good luck with your search!” You’d think that a cogent, several-paragraph reply to ad would merit at least a polite two-sentence response. I guess I’m bemoaning the fact that if you have a vagina and live in the Bay Area, you can be as picky as you want to be and basic etiquette is irrelevant.

I personally think that the internet dating scene is a lot of noise with very little substance but it’s probably easier to find a gem online than it is in a bar, where there’s certainly far less substance.