Comments on: State of the Blogosphere, Part 2: Posting Volume

By: Dave Evans

Dave Evans — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 00:56:44 +0000

How are stagnant profiles with the same headline, same photos, same opening line good?

Dating services are created so that people rush through the profile creation process, leaving questions unanswered, bad photo selection, essay questions poorly worded.

How is this good?

By: Fernando Ardenghi

Fernando Ardenghi — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 22:18:33 +0000

” the fact that 98% of all profiles REMAIN the same for months at a time.”
Good news!!! That is because the persons do not and cannot change their “personality” nor their fingerprints. Frank Sinatra used to sing “I did it my way”. Every person has his/her own way.

“I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way”

Different would be if 98% of all profiles LOOK the same for months at a time. That will be a great problem.

Kindest Regards,

Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com

By: Dave Evans

Dave Evans — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 20:55:11 +0000

Dating sites need to make it easier to update profiles.
How difficult is it to send out an email with your headline and essay in a textbox, ready for editing and all you have to do is hit the Submit button?

Drop-dead easy, so why is no-one doing it?

Perhaps there is a scaled-down blog, easy to update and maintain. Consumating.com is close, they email out new questions each week, your answers show up under your photo, nice way to keep things dynamic and fresh without much trouble.

As the founder of ProfileDoctor, I’m well aware of the generic sameness of profiles. I read 3,500 profiles a few summers ago, some interesting trends emerged, including the fact that 98% of all profiles remain the same for months at a time.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:40:34 +0000

Tagging (folksonomy) is somewhat interesting, but it has problems that need to be fixed before it can be useful. If I search for “North Shore” tagged people, I’ll get Bostonians, Hawaiians, Long Islanders, and Minnesota folk. Chances are that I’m only interested in one of these geographic areas. And, searching for “North Shore” would miss all those people that I would have been interested in but who’ve tagged themselves “Salem”, “Gloucester”, or “Newburyport” instead. And, is the tag spelled “northshore”, “north_shore”, or “n_shore”? Try performing actual searches on consumating.com and you’ll see some of these problems in action.

One alternative is to create standardized tags. However, this has its own set of problems (e.g., I see baseball and football, but where are the tags for my sports, BASE jumping and canine freestyle dancing?).

By: lg1964

lg1964 — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 01:04:17 +0000

Nice concept Dave but stop and read a few of the profiles on dating sites. As a matter of fact read most of them. I bet you that 98 percent of them haven’t had their picture or text updated since the day they were created.

Is there any chance that an average online dater is going to maintain a blog?

I think this is a COOL concept — and I would do it. I just do NOT think the average casual online dater is going to spend the time. Most people create one profile, try the service for 30 days and the go quietly into the night. What’s left is the hardcore undateable people like me! We’ll try anything – even a blog.

The more profile details the better your odds of a good match. Very few online daters “get” this concept.

By: Dave Evans

Dave Evans — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 16:27:02 +0000

I think blogs are a much easier way to enhance profiles. Separate enough that they don’t interfere with existing question database, questions can be pushed out to each blog, and the user can choose to answer them or not.

Consumating.com has done this, I like to free form results, you learn a lot more about a person reading essay/blog posts than “my favorite food is spaghetti.”

Matching on interestes first, then go to blog and read up on the person, that’s one way to do it.

By: lg1964

lg1964 — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 03:55:01 +0000

If I read another online dater headline that say’s “Must Like Dogs” my head will explode. Don’t people have any imagination?

I guess it all fits in with the people who loudly proclaim themselves “great communicators” but disappear promptly and never return an email after your first meet……and the people who advertise “make me laugh” or “I love to laugh” and then you meet them and find out they’re in the running for “Sourpuss of the year” or they need a major personality transplant.

By: Randy Smtih

Randy Smtih — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 03:29:50 +0000

I’m a fan of the only compatibility test that I’ve come to believe can be trusted — the one at TRUE.com. In my view, it’s not hard to find things to connect with others on, but it is difficult to assess variables that speak to a lasting connection. Here is where TRUE is unsurpassed in the tools it offers. TRUE does not ask “extra” questions for a person’s profile, but they do have free profile coaching that I’ve found to be extremely helpful in many respects. I think compatibility and profile tools appeal to nearly all serious daters.

By: lg1964

lg1964 — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 12:46:54 +0000

Cool idea but assumes that (a) people take the effort to create a profile that is unique (how many “stay in or go out”, “dress up or dress down” phrases do we really need to index?? — 90 percent of the profiles are mindless and people are forced to search on pictures).

What dating services should do is have extra questions like PerfectMatch. I’m not a fan of these compatibility quizzes because I think that people don’t like to take the 6 hours it seems to take to fill them out — and then who even understands them fully?

I think most online daters would get a lot more out of a few pages of additional questions like “favorite movie”, “last vacation spot”, “last restaurant visited” — those are the odd things that I’ve connected with people on and it’s only because I had those in my profile — which most online daters do NOT have….

Having lots of details and specifics is important to online dating – otherwise it is all a big beauty contest.