One of my favorite dating sites, OKCupid, has started offering premium services to certain members. Because I am incredibly wealthy and good looking, I received a free monthlong upgrade to the OKCupid A-List. Actually, I was invited because, among other reasons, the OKCupid Staff Robot likes me. A silicon-driven artificial intelligence deemed me worthy of being a VIP on a dating site. Pinch me.
Being A-listed lets you:
- Browse without ads
- Search for matches with new, advanced features
- Attach private photos to messages
- Give awards to other users
- And about 12 other things.
The A-List is a great for OKCupid to test out new features and get feedback from a small group of members. After a few uses, the features are growing on me, although I haven’t given out any awards yet.
Awards are kind of funny, why would a woman I don’t even know take three minutes to write something nice about me and give me an award? Are awards given to you by people who think you deserve one but don’t want to date you?
To tell the truth I didn’t notice the lack of ads. I have ad blockers in Firefox and barely pay attention to them and it was a surprise to learn that ads were indeed non-existent.
The new search features are nothing special, just the usual additional search criteria, although I appreciate how the selectors are at the top of the page. there are some neat criteria though. The “Order results by” selector starts with “Grey Goo” and ends with “Totally Random.”
No doubt people are going to abuse the unfiltered photo sharing feature, but thats an easy way to catch the weirdos and kick them off the system. Plus, I like attaching a candid photo and attaching it to emails, bed head and all, it feels more immediate and real.
Several months ago, PlentyOfFish launched it’s Serious Member paid feature. Read PlentyOfFish Starts Charging Premium Membership Fees and How to Ask For An Upgrade for the details. There was lots of backlash/discussion about the offering in the POF forums.
Same goes for the A-List forum thread at OKCupid. A user makes a great point:
it’s not features that A-List members want to pay for in the first place. The currency of online dating sites is not the ability to do things like attach photos and so forth. The currency of online dating sites is visibility.
Spot on from the users perspective and has launched a spirited debate. I need to spend more time with the A-List features but for now I’m liking almost all of them. We’ll see if it actually affects member success rates and efficiency.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
That user is a genius. People could care less about features, generally. For users its about being able to be seen/found by as many potentials as possible.
Yes, the best feature that an premium user can get is the visibility. If I am more visible I can attract more visitors to my profile, so more dating, or even access to quicker contact details, like email, mobile number or anything the other part has establish that can be let available for others. I hope I was clear enough
I agree… but as long as the increased visibility does not mean a highlighted profile like Match.com and JDate offer then its great. The key is more exposure WITHOUT LOOKING DESPERATE! I would recommend paying for a red box around your profile that screams I am lonely and need all the help I can get here :)
Correction: I would NOT recommend paying for a red box around your profile that screams I am lonely and need all the help I can get here :)
What are the new dating apps on facebook? Please provide something more concrete than ‘not delivering’ and include names of apps and metrics to back this up. There are 1,000′s of dating apps but no new ones have gained any traction in almost two years. More information please….
You mention other facebook dating apps yet don’t say the names. how come? Please provide the names as well as data that suggests the current big ones aren’t doing the job. It seems there hasn’t been a new player on the fb dating scene in two years. Who are the new players? What are their metrics? Please provide some data to back up these statements…
Good point Scott, although I need all the help I can get.
Facebook Dating, go use a dating site for a few days, then go use the FB dating apps and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
There are only a handful of decent dating apps, not thousands. The rest are too small, broken or lack any decent functionality.
One new entrant that I can talk about is MatchMatrix’s new app http://apps.facebook.com/bestfriendsandlovers/
Who are the new players? What are their metrics? Please provide some data to back up these statements…
The key is more exposure WITHOUT LOOKING DESPERATE! I would recommend paying for a red box around your profile that screams I am lonely and need all the help I can get here