I survived the South Boston St. Patrick’s Day parade and can only imagine how much fun people are having at SXSW in Austin right now.
Lots of discussion surrounding Plenty of Fish charging for special profile bling. There is even a video comment (more please). Much discussion surrounding the legality of PlentyofFish claiming to be free when in fact it may not be anymore based on the launch of a paid tier of service called Serious Member badges.
Flickr user kga245 has a a good example of how to ask for an upgrade. Where PlentyOfFish could have announced the Serious Member badges.
I see that there is a new badge titled VIP member. I have to agree with the commenters, using the phrase VIP is even more problematic, especially if there isn’t any additional features associated with the upgrade.
Related Posts
Is PlentyofFish Truly Free?PlentyofFish Launches Serious Member Badges
PlentyOfFish Starts Charging Premium Membership Fees
OKCupid Launches the A-List
Yahoo Updates Dating Platform, Profile Photos
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I was discussing this with a few coworkers. One had a good point. He said that to have this on your profile reeks of desperation. As in – I’m ugly, my profile is dull, I can’t get a date but I’m serious about letting you know how much I suck.
Ryan, your site (still?) offers all sorts of bells and whistles to help people stand out from the crowd. Why are you hating on Markus for doing something your company does/did for years?
I had been browsing some profiles at PlentyofFish (USA & Canada) and noticed the adoption rate of the “Serious Member Upgrade” is far higher in women than men.
It seems
1 every 100 women adopted the seal
and
1 every 2,000 men adopted the seal
so
only 1 men per 20 women.
Perhaps the “VIP upgrade” seal was invented more for men than women.
Anyway I saw those women with the “Serious Member Upgrade” seal like women_desperate_for_men.
The “Serious Member Upgrade” / “VIP upgrade” seal are only virtual gifts some users buy for themselves.
————————————————————-
I do not like video comments at all.
Some commenters will sound like if they were chewing their own teeth while speaking.
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Ha, guilty – we aren’t short on bells and whistles. It’s a three ring circus over here, but buying a label is different than buying a label with functionality. All our membership levels are packaged with functionality. I really don’t mean to cap on anyone, but I’m sure everyone is thinking the same thing right? Where’s the functionality, what are they getting for their money? If it’s just a label then will that label result in that user getting more activity? Has this ever worked for other dating sites?
All I can do is speak from my perspective and as a man and I would see a red flag. Why isn’t this chick getting activity? I imagine that a women would feel like a guy with this was a serial dater, or some kind of player. Having this label broadcasts that they aren’t able to get into serious relationships. That’s the point right?
I know the argument that it shows that someone is serious and replies to members who contact them. If that’s part of the goal then I much prefer the way OkCupid does it. As you pointed out, they use red/yellow/green lights to show how active members are. That’s something I would pay for, that’s real functionality.
It would be nice to see if it works. I’m sure it will generate revenue.
The functionality needs to happen, I’m sure Markus is working on that right now.
Disagree about profile bling signifying that a person is a player. The idea of the badge is to self-identify as a serious dater, not the opposite.
I don’t like how POF lists “women who have not received an email in 24 hours. There is transparency and there is TMI.
I’m a big fan of red/yellow/green, great concept and solid execution.
Until PlentyOfFish improves their interface to show/add the following, I wouldn’t spend a penny on their so-called “Upgraded Service”:
(1) Display bigger photo thumbprints in all search results with hugely better resolution. Half the photo thumbrints on POF are indistinguishable blobs!
(2) When no photo is displayed, the user id & their “looking for” (Dating/Long-Term etc.) is displayed – why is this not shown when a photo IS displayed? This is still very relevant information even when there is a photo (IMHO).
(3) Improve capability to filter out profiles with no photo’s, from ALL searches.
(4) Improve/add capability to filter out profiles of users who have not been active within x number of days. Half the people that show up in search lists either don’t have photo’s, or haven’t been active in the past month – I don’t want to have to waste my time looking at these profiles.
(5) There is no general capability of flagging profiles so that they don’t show up in future search results. I don’t want to have to contact an ex/past mistake from another life/dating site in order to then be able to block his profile from showing up in my searches!
1- yes the photos are not displayed well and the mouseover exploded view, ugh.
2- I’m always confused when looking at profiles, the lack of information architecture really kills the experience.
3- Yes, that is a quick fix, but think about the downside to the site operator. For everything we want to fix, there is often a reaction that the owner must take into consideration. If your recommendation results in less traffic, it’s not going to be implemented.
4- stale profiles stink. On some sites, if you have logged in within two years you are considered current!
5- Match has done this for years, nobody seems to use this feature. Perhaps it’s all in the execution, manually clicking on checkboxes next to individual profiles is a nightmare.
I like the Badge idea on POF. Its baloney that a guy is a loser or desperate, I think most women would judge based on the looks and picture. Most women would know that the guy has money to pay for the badge (is not unemployed), trusts the identity of the man (he needed to use his own credit card presumably), and it shows that the man is looking for a serious relationship. Women get bombarded with e-mails, and she doesn’t want to waste time on casual players. The badge is like buying roses for a woman, it stands out from the hundreds of e-mails she gets. It will be up to guy to prove that it can work for him.
Joe,
Let’s look at that statement for a moment:
Most women would know that the guy has money to pay for the badge (is not unemployed): In reality, this only demonstrates he had access at that exact moment to a credit/debit card. It does not demonstrate he is employed, stable, serious or even interested in dating you. After all, with unemployment where it currently is globally today he may have just gotten his unemployment check deposited. A recurring charge that occurs once per month would be a better demonstrator of stability. Let is say how many months he has been a serious member to show he can pay his bills each month.
A member can buy the badge of honor and say tht proves they are serious, but what will really prove they are serious is the time put into the profile and e-mails that they send out. If a guy buys the badge for a YEAR and then posts 2 sentences on his profile, how serious is he? I’d say he’s serious about being on the site, but not much more. You would be surprised what each site catches in it’s spam/scam software filters from members who swear they are serious about finding love.
As far as the bad being like roses for a woman, yes it stands out but it gives nothing to the woman. Perhaps if the members who purchased these upgraded packages had to be approved as serious members by completing questionaires and such it would mean more, currently it simply lacks in features.
I would like to see profile bling earned, not bought. Lots of forums give reputation points based on the number of posts and comments. If someone replies to emails quickly, they have lots of photos and their profile is thorough and updated often, they are an active member on a dating site. That means a lot to people and is not very difficult to implement.
Tying profile bling with earning potential is a bit of a stretch, don’t you think? Everyone is hurting these days.
Quite understand that web-site operators are trying to boost traffic / visits / profile views etc. etc.
However, if using their web-site(s) is painful/frustrating and too time-consuming, ultimately they will get LESS traffic / visits / profile views because users will quit using their site & move on to others that offer better functionality.
Right now, IMHO the only thing POF has going for it is that it’s free and has a pretty large user base. OKCupid is a million times better in terms of user interface, overall functionality, search capabilities and more, IMHO.
I don’t know the exact stats, but I believe OKC has a smaller user base than POF, but it is growing very rapidly.
POF better watch out – OKC is going to be biting the Fish’s tail pretty soon … :)
Robyn, the two sites are at opposite ends of the free dating spectrum. POF gets 35 million monthly visits, orders of magnitude more than most other dating sites, free or paid. Now POF has to add paid features, which they are doing.
Agree about interface and functionality, have been saying that for years.
Hey Jack,
Its easy to overly gripe and complain about everything. But the badge WILL let you stand out and get you a 2 minute look when you might have been ignored. I did mention that the guys has to follow through with a good profile, good pictures to get somewhere and show that he is in fact looking for something more than a fling. Besides there are active daters who may or may not be players, but they are the Most Active on POF and that is what Marcus wants, to encourage the active daters from the once a month POF daters. Members don’t want to waste time sending e-mails to non-existent women and men who never log in. Those that have badges know they will likely send and receive messages from other badge members.
Well, a lot of people are unemployed, but its a nice gesture to show that you are willing to pay for a badge and probably pay for dinner and treat a woman like a princess. Some women like that. IF a guy posts on the POF forums, then a woman will know how serious he is and what his personality is.
The POF forum acts like a questionairre and you can easily track everyone’s posts.
Basically, the badge is a way to increase traffic and usage from POF members. You separate your active users from the zombie profiles and its win-win for Marcus (who gets paid) and for the dater who gets to see which women will more likely respond to his well-crafted e-mails, or likely ignore him and haven’t checked her profile in a year and is likely married by now.
I’ve been doing POF for years and have had my share of women with it. There’s NO WAY I would want that lame badge on my profile. Reeks of desperation, and the women I’ve talked to agree. In fact, one girl I know from there was so upset that she got a “free trial” badge that the last time I spoke with her she’d asked to have it removed, they didn’t respond quick enough for her liking, and so she deleted that profile and started another.
Another thing, if a girl has 16 photos of herself up, she looks like a complete narcissist. 8 is more than enough, and most people only have 4 or so, so as not to look like they’re totally into themselves.
Altogether a bad idea for POF. No value to users, and makes Marcus look like a hypocrite.