Dating site PlentyofFish has made some recent changes outlined in this blog post.
Spent some time this weekend and rewrote parts of the site…
1. Ditched the paid virtual gifts on the weekend not really core to what we are doing.
2. Instead of allowing you to remove people from searches I added a new search that removes any profile you have ever viewed from the search..
3. Added a thumbnail cropping tool built in Ajax…
4. Revamped the profile system forcing better quality profiles…
5. Semi new design and cleanup of a lot of pages..
5. A whole bunch of tiny changes all over the place.
With so many different free sites all over the world the only way forward is to offer better features than paid sites and more of them. But only if it actually helps users.
#1 I wonder what it means that “virtual goods are not core to our business?” Does that mean nobody was using them or they couldn’t get people to pay for them.
#2 doesn’t make sense unless I still have the option to see people I have searched for. Do I? It’s difficult to tell.
#3 I saw the photo-fixer link, but now it’s gone. Where did it go? Why promote a feature that isn’t there? You would think that I would see the option on the photo upload page.
I uploaded a somewhat risque photo, which was deleted and I received a warning email but it didn’t tell me that my image was removed. Plus, I had it set to private. Bizarre.
Deleting an image doesn’t have a confirmation alert, oops there goes my fantastic vacation photo.
When I click “edit image”, I’m asked to log in even though I’m already logged in.
#4 What does “Revamped the profile system” mean? How does it force better quality photos?
#5 I see a new header graphic, thats about it. What else changed?
#5 again: Ok, so what are they? Why announce changes and not explain them?
When you log out, there is no option to log back in.
This was not meant to be a site review, but I have spent an hour or two on PlentyofFish this week, in my ongoing attempt to understand the draw of the site besides being free.
