I signed up for several Facebook dating applications almost two months ago. Let me start by saying that the status of Facebook dating applications is in general, a mess. 150 applications in the category, with the most popular being crush, hotornot, astrology, purity or other types of tests. Why are astrology and personality apps in dating? Someone needs to start adding subcategories.
Many of the dating-related apps have similar names and not enough people to be useful. Very few people using the dating apps in my area. Confusing user interfaces and links out to entirely different websites leave me scratching my head as to why someone would go to the trouble to created yet another dating profile.
Overall, I am less than impressed with what I’ve experienced so far. But it’s still early days. New dating apps are being released (too) early and often.
Here are a few dating apps that I’ve been checking out for the last 45 days.
My favorite application so far. Photo gallery works, tags and profile information is right there and easy to read. Then I realized that all they did was add profile photos in a gallery view which leads back to Verbdate.com and ping-pongs you back and forth between Verbdate and Facebook depending on what you’re doing. Tied into Skype, Flickr and Google Maps much more external data integration than all other apps, which is super, love to see that.
1,972 members. fbDating.com is free, unless you want certain additional features. No action here, so not much to say.
25,426 users. Now an official FB app. Good description of service and how it works. Matching your FB friends with each other. Not very useful, since half of my connections are Internet/Silicon Valley related and the other half are local friends and relatives. Decent execution.
777 users. Created by a web hosting company.
No people within 25 miles of Boston.
Majority of reviews are negative.
940 users. Useful if you like rating people.
Nice integration with FB, but the empty calories of rating coeds gets boring fast.
In closing, there is plainly room for a winner takes all dating application on Facebook. Nothing up there now comes close to taking the prize. If you are creating a FB dating app, let me know and I’ll add you.
