Spark Networks Consolidates Dating Brands into Spark.com

by David Evans on December 18, 2009 in Dating Sites

Spark Networks, operators of such popular online dating destinations such as JDate.com and ChristianMingle.com, has merged AmericanSingles.com and Date.ca into Spark.com. Having suffered ongoing declines in membership across the majority of their dating site portfolio, Spark has decided that it is now going to compete with Match and eHarmony/Chemistry/Perfectmatch, while attempting to keep the majority of member activity free.

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One exciting new Spark.com feature is the free Color Code Personality Test, a compatibility exercise required of all new members to help them learn more about themselves by providing insight into strengthening and building existing relationships and learning how to get new relationships off to a better start.

Other features include a profile photo prerequisite for all new members to encourage authenticity and visual representation; the ability for all members (including non-subscribers) to access email messages to promote communication; and more photo upload space, allowing members to better express themselves with up to 12 photos and captions on their profiles.

I’ve posted the Spark.com Color Code Personality Test screenshots to give you a better idea of the direction Spark is going in. In short, Spark has taken an ailing, aging online dating property and thrown a personality test on top of it.

As with all personality tests, the signup process feels relentless. Dating sites still need to figure out how to balance information gathering with user ADD.

Each screen states:

Select the word that best describes you AS A CHILD. Some questions may not have any words that accurately describe you. If this is the case, just select the word that is the closest fit.

In order to become a member I was forced to unexpectedly sit and reconsider my childhood for a good 20 minutes. Fond memories of being stuffed in lockers, getting sent to principal’s office, detention, and other awkward childhood memories? Yup, all there. Maybe this sort of thing won’t bother the majority of people who take the test, but regressing into a teenager at such a pivotal moment was disappointing.

I expect the drop-out rate during the signup process to be fairly high until they cut down the number of questions and refine the test. I’m well aware of the argument that for many tests you have to ask the same several times to triangulate on the most appropriate answer. Still, I hate taking tests, definitely prefer answering questions like on OKCupid. But that way, you’re not getting all of that tasty user information up front. Again, that balance thing.

New members must upload a profile photo. But what about the millions of existing members that may not have photos?

Spark.com is supposedly 100% free until you want to send emails to people. Soon after I sign up, I receive an email that says I have a message and that I should upgrade my membership in order to start conversations. Pay attention here. A woman, with no photo (photos are required, remember?), sends me a flirt. I’m thinking I have to pay $25 to respond to a firt from someone with no photo. But wait, it appears the woman has a photo, but I have to ask her for it. I click the “Ask for photo” link, expecting to be greeted by the subscription page, but I’m able to send the person a message asking them for their photo. I send a nice email asking to see their photo, and the next page is the subscription page. No indication that my message was sent. This kind of sloppy user experience design drives me crazy. How difficult is it to layer an alert over the message window stating that my message was sent successfully?

I go back to my Inbox and see that my outgoing message was moved to my Draft folder! I’m all ready to get in a huff about having to pay $25 to send an email to someone with no photo. Before I get all bent out of shape I attempt to send the draft email, and it goes through!

I click the “Viewed you” link and I see that several women have checked me out, including my mystery flirter with no photo. Clicking “Flirted with you” (the same mystery woman), and now I’m shown the subscription page again.

You have to pay to even see the “Emailed You” link. To be blunt, Spark.com is rife with confusingly bad user experience and pay-wall design decisions (from the consumer POV). Maybe I pay too close attention to these things, but would you rather hear it from me or some dating site affiliate site that spent five minutes looking over the site before slapping up a review?

I would imagine that men will pay the subscription fees and women will not. What effect do you think this will have on the gender balance?

Recently, Spark Networks signed on Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger as a spokesperson/affiliate/ private label operator in the hopes that branding her as the new face of American Singles would provide a much-needed shot in the arm to the once-powerful yet declining property.

Spark seems to have moved Stanger’s psxoxo.com branding over to Spark.com, which I was able to see is when I visited psxoxo.com. When I switched to another browser (cookies turned off), I don’t see the Stanger branding. This appears to be an attempt by Spark to private label their brands. Multiple brands sitting on top of a shared member database is certainly a good idea, I wonder what other brands Spark will associate with?

Pricing comparison compares Match at $203.88 and eHarmony at $239.40. For a few dollars more, the Premium Plan includes Member Spotlight and Highlighted profiles.

There is some usage data exposed on member hompages, I see “number of uploaded photos today” and “members online now.” It says 900 users online now and exactly zero people in my Region (Boston) are online between 18-42. I hope thats a bug, because the home page extolls the virtues of meeting millions of members and nobody is online at 5:30pm on a Friday?

Uh oh, I see a chat room. Hope the Spark customer service reps are standing by to deal with the neanderthal men and kick off the cam girls who will no doubt entice men to leave the site for other webcam services. Pay-to-view Message boards, is that like the free PlentyofFish boards, but now you have to pay to read/participate?

Education level and income are required. I dislike those questions as much as when they don’t offer spiritual not religious as an option.

There is an entire page dedicated to understanding 30 incomprehensible icons used on the site. Any site that requires a separate page to describe something as simple as an icon, back to the drawing board I say. The Flirt Icons say “Break the ice with a funny, romantic or uniquely-Jewish one-liner.” Did someone crib some of the copy from JDate here?

The gallery view is nice, no need to keep hitting the back button. The “Did we click” feature confused me. It says “Do we click” when browsing profiles and the options are Yes/Maybe/No. The rollover text explains each options and how public or private your responses will be to the other person. I prefer a “yes/no” myself. that’s what drives me crazy about OKCupids rating system. Don’t give me multiple stars that confuse during the rating system, a simple yes or no will suffice.

Overall, the site is looking about a B and functioning at the B- level. There are a few bugs in the underlying display code and the icons are unreadable, and I’m sure I’m overlooking a few things in all of the items in the sidebars, but give me a few weeks to spend some time on the site and I’ll post a follow-up, including going through the subscription process and hanging out in the chat rooms to see what goes on there.

Most importantly, lets see how the traffic performs over time, and don’t forget to keep an eye on the LOV stock ticker.

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