Welcome!
Online Dating Insider delivers cutting-edge insight and commentary on all aspects of the online dating industry. Topics include industry news, site reviews, emerging trends, analysis of dating site features, discussion about safety safety, finance and other issues important to the online dating market. Don't miss our Tools & Services directory, useful to anyone running dating or social networking sites. Subscribe to the RSS feed (you can subscribe via email as well). Your comments and suggestions for stories are welcomed.
Steven tells us that Tickle Matchmaking has rebranded as Lovehappens.com.
“Welcome to LoveHappens, a new site where people help people find love through introductions and recommendations.”
I went over to take a look. Quick review.
Remember the bumper stickers in the 80’s that said “Sh*t Happens”? For some reason I thought about that several times while reviewing the site.
A cross between Engage and SpringStreet (read on), with the backing of Monster.com and millions? of members to sell into. Tickle is mainly comprised of people who get a kick out of taking tests. People who like to guess the next number in a series, or figure out which geometric shape doesn’t belong. Low-value members, in the grand scheme of things. Where’s the money coming from?
Difficult to read profile details, page doesn’t scan well. Bzzzzt!
Direct copy of two SpringStreet questions, “in my bedroom you’ll find” and “Three things I can’t live without.” Points off for lack of originality.
“Stories from friends” section looks to be for testimonials. Nice idea, but where is the incentive for members to leave testimonials?
I am tired of every site I sign up to asking me to spam my email address lists. Viral marketing is NOT spamming email lists, please stop. At least let me select the people from my 1,000+ address book that I want to tell about your site. I don’t think my grandmother is interested.
Why upset people by making it difficult not to spam your email list, hiding the “Do it later” button down below so you have to scroll off the page. Points off for not understanding good user experience.
Layout is clean yet boring, lack of solid branding, problems on Mac browsers.
Every single page has a footer for customer feedback. Better to put up a link to a single feedback form.
I signed up as a matchmaker. Somehow, I’ll be able to write stories about people. That should be fun. It’s unsettling to see a link called “See stories written about you” totally out of context.
When I went to read stories about me, I was prompted with a partially filled out form. I couldn’t use my regular username since it’s part of my email address. That’s just plain cumbersome and unnecessary.
Total disjoint moving from matchmaker to dater, no explanation about what is going on.
Members actually are prompted to take a “Vow of honesty”, again without any explanation of what that means.
Hard to believe that Monster paid $30 million for Tickle and the Matchmaking part ends up looking like this. Looks like a 1/2 baked Google Beta at the moment.
Technorati Tags: puppy
| 0.0 |
Blog reactions
2 responses so far ↓
1
Ajay (Check me out!)
// Jul 8, 2005 at 5:52 pm
Dave, must say that your comments are hillarious ..indeed. Your writing stle reminds me of [the syle of - grammar check :) ] Al Ries and Jack Trout
Great job!
late in india.. still awake - but tired - would have written more otherwise
ajay
PS:
2
jay (Check me out!)
// Jul 9, 2005 at 12:19 am
Great article. I agree being a member of Tickle Matchmaking and then one day I logged in and I find they have rebranded as Lovehappens? To be honest, I liked it as it was before?