Meeting People Online

Avoid ratemyface

2012-03-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Stay away form ratemyface and all the other sites on the RateMy network. Those people are spamming this blog. They are spammers and you should not deal with them. You've been warned AVOID ratemyface!

Free Communication Weekend at eHarmony Again

2012-02-19T04:19:00.000-08:00

eHarmony is holding a free communication weekend again. It started on Friday, February 17. The bad news is that it's ending tomorrow. If you have never tried it you stilll have some time left to join eHarmony, review your matches and start the free communication with them. While the communication is somewhat limited it's still a good way to get started before you buy a subscription.

I have written about eHarmony's free communication weekend before and I believe that not much has changed since then. If you want to get a clear picture of what to expect during this event please read the following:

Facebook security

2009-08-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

I've been using Facebook more often lately, almost everyday. And yet as I tried to sign in yesterday it's telling that I need to verify my account. It doesn't make sense really. The reason given is that I'm signing in from an unfamiliar location. Wow, so Facebook keeps track of from where I sign in and I actually have to sign in from the same place all the time? Please.

Besides, I've been signing in from the exact same location for the last few days and yet there was no problem. Now I'm thinking maybe it's some sort of phishing attempt. I feel so uncomfortable going through this step. Just one more reason to ~~hate~~ dislike Facebook. Below is the message I get after entering my email and password.

You are signing in from an unfamiliar location. For your security, please verify your account. This check prevents others from accessing your account without your permission. If your password is stolen through a phishing site, for example, this step keeps your account safe. You will not be prompted every time. For additional information please see http://www.facebook.com/security.

I still don't understand how entering my birth date will help Facebook know that it's really me. Seriously! My birthday is displayed on my profile, it's practically public information. If somebody is really trying to break into my account and made it pass the username/password that person most likely will have my birth date. I ~~hate~~ strongly dislike Facebook I wish my friends were not on there.

What Facebook does with your deleted photos

2009-05-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

Remember my Facebook Horror Story? Today I read an article on Yahoo Tech where Christopher Null explains how the photos you delete from your online pages don't get deleted. Of course if you are one of my beloved readers that's not news to you.

I've actually reused my deleted Facebook profile picture. What happened is I wanted to add many new friends and I wanted them to recognize me when they received my invite. Guess what I did? Since I didn't have a photo with me I simply went on my deleted facebook photo's address, downloaded it and uploaded it to Facebook again. If you read the Yahoo tech article you'll notice that the author claims the sites would keep your deleted content only for a few days or weeks, in my case the photo was still available at the old address after a few months. Keep in mind that this was a photo that should not have been public in the first place.

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

Today is February 14. I would like to wish you all a Happy Valentine's day. It's a belated wish for those of you who are many hours ahead of me. Here in Haiti it's still time to wish the ones you love a Happy Valentine's day. I hope you made someone smile today and that you did take the time to remind the people who love you how much you love them too.

Needless to say that you don't have to wait for a special day like Valentine's day to tell the people you love how much they mean to you. Even if you don't buy chocolate or special gifts there are many ways you can express you love.

Now a few words of wisdom from the good book, from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

Valentine's day specials for singles

2009-02-06T10:35:00.001-08:00

I was reading an article recently about how to enjoy your singleness on Valentine's day. Instead of writing an ode to singleness I simply wanted to point out the fact that as V day is approaching many dating sites are offering specials. While there are sites that offer special promotions every now and then, some seem to only do so when Valentine's day is near.

So what's a single person to do? Well, if you've been considering joining a dating site but didn't want to spend too much money on it, now is the time. Seriously! I'll simply tell you about the sites I know of who have specials, whether they offer extended free trials or free upgrades. Before I list the sites I would advise you not to join those sites to find a date for Valentine's day because frankly you won't have enough time to get to know the people you'll be meeting on those sites enough to be already going out on a date alone with them. And when you do find someone that you got to know and like enough to go out on a date with, remember, safety first. Pick the offer and the site you find most appealing and good luck.

1- Worldfriends
Once again is having a Valentine's day promotion where you get double the time you pay for. For example if you buy a 3 month membership you get an additional 3 months free or if you buy a 6 month membership you get 6 more months free, likewise, if you pay for 12 months you get 12 additional months for free. It's a great deal. Even if you only buy a modest 1 month membership you get not one but 2 additional months for free. The more time you get to spend as a premium member, the more people you'll be able to contact. If you can afford it, I would recommend the VIP+Open Club membership which gives you all the premium benefits one can have on Worldfriends. Register right now on Worldfriends for free.

2- Lavalife
Lavalife is offering a 7 Day FREE Trial for this Valentine period, instead of the usual 24 hours free trial. You can't be cheaper than free. It's only 7 days but if you really enjoy being on the site you might want to stay longer. You need to register soon because this offer expires in 8 days. Lavalife is a very popular dating site so you will find many potential matches. Use those 7 days to search and browse profiles and to initiate contact, see what happens. Register right now on Lavalife for your free trial.

3- Matchmaker
Matchmaker is offering a 10 day free trial, it's free and they don't ask you for your credit card when you register for the trial period. Did I say it's free? You'll have a little more than a week to find out if Matchmaker is the right site for you. Since this is a special promotion period there will probably be more active members on the site during that period than usual which is good for you of course. Another good thing about this promotion is that it ends only on February 28th so you've got lots of time to try the other two sites first ;). Register before the end of the month on Matchmaker for your 10 day free trial

Those are only three of the many dating sites with promotions for this Valentine period, try them out or check the dating sites you're already registered with and see if they are not offering special Valentine's day promotions too.

Related Posts
Why you should join Worldfriends today
Meet People at Matchmaker

Online dating sites

2009-01-30T07:28:00.000-08:00

I often talk about free online dating sites. I've joined so many during the years but frankly I barely spend time on them lately. The latest one I tried out was mingles, it's free of course, not very flashy like paid dating sites are but it looks OK. I'm not going to write extensively about it like I used to, I'll just point you to another site where you can read about it in more details.

I see many people use free online dating sites the same way they use social networks. They don't really search for dates as they contact people from far and distant lands that they will never visit.

Many people, especially those that are online often seem to use those sites to find a chat partner. That's way they will often give you their msn messenger email in the first message that they send you. I've met a few people on some of those sites but since I don't use msn messenger a lot we don't really keep in touch.

Facebook Horror Story

2009-01-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

Or, What Happens to your photos once you post them on Facebook.

So you have a Facebook profile and you enjoy reading daily updates from your friends and browsing their photo albums. You also enjoy posting your own photos and updating your status. It's fun and safe, you think, because after all, you use the privacy settings to not show your profile in search results and all your photos are accessible to your friends only. You feel in complete control of everything that you've added to Facebook so far.

But do you realize that simply by posting your photo on Facebook you grant the site the right to reuse that Photo for any purpose they please. Yes, they can use your private photos anytime anywhere because you grant them that right. You don't believe me? Read this directly from their Terms of Use:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

No big deal, you think, because after all you can delete your photos on Facebook can't you? In fact you can't. You can't delete your account either. Still don't believe me? More from the Terms:

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

So as you just read, even when you delete something from Facebook it remains there indefinitely. Even though they say that the license you granted theme expires ask yourself this: if they did not intend to reuse your content why would they keep it?

You might be thinking it's no big deal because you're not famous. The fact is it may not bother you now but who knows in 2, 5, 10, 20 years what will you think of it?

And this is not even the horror story I promised. Nope, I have my very own your-content-is-ours-and-we-keep-it-forever story with Facebook.

So here I am, a reluctant but long time hi5 user now on Facebook where many of my hi5 friends seem to have migrated. I added just one picture so my long lost classmates can recognize me when I send them friend requests. You can read my first impressions from using Facebook then come back to read the rest of this story.

One day, a friend sent me an invite to install an application. Actually the application used my friend's details to send me an invite to install it. While in one of those confusing pages where you choose what type of access to grant the application I see a Facebook-like button telling me I have one message. Thinking the message was from the application I clicked.

I know I should have been more careful but I would have never guessed that Facebook allowed ads with buttons that look exactly like the ones on the site. Truly, it's the most misleading ads I've ever seen. Anyway, I clicked then it happened. I saw myself on a site I had never heard of. The site had my Facebook profile photo and my public details. I was horrified. How to remove myself from this site? HOW!!! I tried and tried and just wouldn't find anything. This site that I shall not name, wanted me to think that they had imported my Facebook details to it and created a profile for me. I'll call the site, the Site Without a Name, SWN for short.

After investigating a little I realized that in fact what happened is even scarier. This 'SWN' was 'reading' my Facebook information from my browser session. Don't ask me how I don't know, maybe it's some sort of spyware. What it does is as long as your logged into Facebook it shows your profile picture and any public info you have available. Which means, if you Log out of Facebook and go on SWN site, it no longer shows your so-called profile but tells you that the site is 'Not open to you'. And it shows you an add for a Facebook application (I wonder if I can report this application and have it banned from Facebook?). As soon as you click on the ad it sends you to what looks like a Facebook login page (you can never be 100% sure these days) so you can login and proceed to install the application.

In a moment of panic, I deleted my profile photo. Hoping that it would no longer show up on the SWN profile page. Since they take the information from Facebook that should certainly solve the problem since the photo is no longer there, right? Wrong! Remember what you read earlier about Facebook keeping your content indefinitely. You see, each photo you add has a unique address and it is that address that the SWN site uses. When you delete the photo from your profile, it simply does not show up in your profile but its address remains the same. Since the SWN site knows your photo's address, it can reuse it at will even when it does not show up in your profile.

But the horror doesn't stop here. As I was getting used to my faceless profile, looking at what my friends where doing and just browsing around on Facebook. The most horrifying thing that ever happened to me on a social network happened. Keep in ming that I've tried many social networks and I'm active in quite a few, Friendster, hi5, Orkut, Myspace, WAYN, Mash(R.I.P.), 360 and I'm probably forgetting a few. As I was browsing and went back to the home page it was there... The photo that I had deleted. How? Where? When? I have not idea. I hadn't reupload it but it was there starring at me. Facebook was asking me to crop it. I was so stunt that I just didn't do anything. What happened can anybody tell me?

For a moment I wanted to set it back as my profile picture, yet I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if I simply clicked 'close' (Close what? I have no idea. Facebook is one of the most confusing sites I've even used). So I did it, closed and was back to my picture-less profile.

So now it's official, I think Facebook is dangerous.

Read more of my experiences with Facebook:
Facebook, second impression
Facebook - First impression

I'm a Yahoo Messenger Power User

2008-12-02T12:12:00.000-08:00

I'm a Yahoo! Messenger Power User! I'm not sure whether I should be proud of this. Doesn't it mean that I spend hours and hours online chatting on Y! messenger. I used to but I don't anymore because of lack of time. Anyway, Yahoo! recognized my contribution as a chatter and gave me a medal! A virtual one that looks like gold. :)

At first, I was afraid that the instant message I received was some sort of worm or trojan so before proceeding, I checked online to see what Yahoo had to say about Power users. It turns out the message was authentic. It's official people, Yahoo! loves me!

Power users (or top users) get exclusive rewards! Yeah, I know you're jealous. As a top user I can "enjoy great benefits made for me". There is a Power User page where I can choose my exclusive icon that will show up next to my name in my friends' Yahoo! messenger contact list.

I guess all those years of favoring Yahoo messenger over Msn finally paid of. In fact, I don't have Msn messenger on my comp anymore ever since the last time they asked me to update.

Just in case you guys didn't believe me I've chosen this special presence indicator available for power users only

This happened soon after I upgraded to Y Messenger 9, I don't know the two are related but I'm still happy. If you think you qualify to be a Power User but haven't received a message from Yahoo you might want to try and switch to the latest Yahoo messenger 9 to see if you get that message. If you are already using Messenger 9 then I guess you simply aren't a Power User, sorry. Now to choose my icon...

Of all the perks I've found the 24/7 Live Customer Care to be the most tempting. Think about it, I actually get to talk to a real Yahoo employee, a human being!!!!

Or as Yahoo puts it: "You're number 1 in our eyes, so as a Power User exclusive, we always have people here to answer your questions about Messenger in minutes. Contact us - we're here for you! wink ". I told you Yahoo! loved me.

There is also the All-Stars Group that I get to join. Members of the All-Stars group are the first to be informed of exclusive benefits and giveaways available to Power Users only.

Unfortunately I'm not one to adopt the novelties first.

What more can I say?

Oh yes, here is a list of some of the benefits of Power Users:

1. Exclusive online indicators
2. Custom Avatar Accessories
3. Enhanced Customer Care
4. Special contests & giveaways
5. Invitation to try new products first

So keep on using Yahoo messenger and you might be invited to join the club.

No more Yahoo Messenger for Vista

2008-11-05T06:42:00.000-08:00

Yahoo will no longer offer the Vista version of Yahoo Messenger for download. While current users can still use it, they have to be aware of the fact that Yahoo will no longer continue to work on that version. The bugs will not be corrected and new features won't be added.

Even if I had Vista on my computer I would probably not use the Vista version of Yahoo messenger because it lacks so many features! No chat rooms, no message archiving, no web cam? I wouldn't mind not using a webcam but no message archiving! That's a deal breaker for me.

Join Friendfinder and Chat for FREE

Meet People at Matchmaker

2008-09-15T00:00:00.001-07:00

Matchmaker is an online dating site that promotes secure connections between singles looking for a serious relationship and friendship. With a large database Matchmaker is one of the top singles networking tools available.

Registration is simple, not many questions are involved. You'll find an easy-to-use web interface that allows you to search for potential matches.

Matchmaker offers instant messaging, flirts and e-mail. A heart half indicates when you've viewed a member and the other half, when he/she's viewed you. When you've found someone you're really interested in, you may add that person to your favorite list. You'll also find chat rooms. You may join Matchmaker as a free member but only subscribers may exchange messages.

One of the most useful feature of any dating site is the search. Matchmaker allows you to search by age, relationship type, location, with or without photo. You may also browse new members, online members, members on IM, featured members etc...

Matchmaker is open to users worldwide. The site has over 80 communities based on location or interest. Matchmaker also allows you to block users with whom you do not wish to have any contact. As a member you'll also have the opportunity to participate in events hosted for matchmaker members.

Mashable lied to me and to the world

2008-08-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

Remember how I told you that Haiti had only one athlete at the Olympics this year, according to Mashable. Well guess what? It's not true. I don't know where the people at Mashable get their information but they should have verified it before publishing it.

The fact is, Haiti is sending 10 athletes not 1. The complete list:
Azea Augustama or Gustamar
Joel Brutus
Nadine Faustin Parker
Dudley Dorival
Ginou Etienne
Ange Mercie Jean-Baptiste
Moise Joseph
Marvin Bien-Aimé
Barbara Pierre
Dayana Octavien

I can't recall my country ever sending just one athlete to the Olympics, maybe I'm too young for that, but as far as I can remember we usually have a few. And in case you were wondering, yes, we've won medals in the past, one silver and one gold to be precise.

My source for the information provided can be found here in French.

If you're still not convinced, here is profile of one of our athletes, Nadine Faustin Parker, on the official Olympics site .

Haiti is my country

2008-08-08T12:02:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't know I live in Haiti. Actually this blog is very closely associated with Haiti because I've added it to a few directories under Haiti and I have written about Haiti and Haitians a few times in the past.

Today I had a big surprise when I saw my country on Mashable ! I guess this means that Haiti is going to be famous now, at least on the Internet.

Mashable is telling me that Haiti has only one athlete at the Olympics this year, Azea Augustama, I had no idea, we usually have a few, not just one. He lives in the US where he arrived at age 7-year-old, in 1990 aboard a rickety boat from Haiti.

Find and Meet People on hi5?

2008-08-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

I've written quite a bit about hi5 recently and of course many people searching to find and meet people on hi5 have landed here. If you are one of those this is for you, I'll briefly answer the most common queries that I get about hi5.

Q:How to find people on hi5?
A:Finding people on hi5 is fairly easy really. They have a search feature. You can search by name, age range, sex, location, email etc... From my experience it's not very efficient, it omits many results. The surest way to find people is to browse your friends' networks. If you're still not finding the people you're looking for, you can try a Google search on hi5 by typing the person's name. This will only work if the person uses his name on the site, many people use nicknames so you might want to try and search with the person's nickname if you know it. For example if you were searching for me you would type something like this "marguerite jasmin site:hi5.com".

Q:How to find Haitian members online now on hi5?
A:Same as above. Browse your Haitian friends' networks and see who is online. There's this little icon on the person's profile that tells you when he/she is online.

Q:How to meet people on hi5?
A:Don't meet people on hi5. If you must use hi5, use it only to connect with people you already know. It might not be a great idea to use it for meeting people you don't already know in real life. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Read More about hi5
How to remove an application from hi5
Hi5 applications suck
Friendster, Hi5 and Orkut
Hi5 friend requests never expire
The geography of social networking sites

Subscribe to My Feed

2008-07-31T09:19:00.000-07:00

You want to always know when I write something new? I'm flattered, really I'm blushing :)

You want to know where to find free chat rooms? You want to know all about best web sites I've used to meet people online? You don't seem to find any interesting free dating site? You want to know the best sites to use to search for people online for free? Then keep reading "Meeting People Online" where you know which sites to use and which ones to avoid because I try them out first.

There are a few ways to do this. The simplest way is to register with your email address and each time I write something new it will be sent to your Inbox. Enter your email address below to subscribe to email updates from Meeting People Online.

You can also subscribe to my RSS feed and read it with your favorite RSS reader.

My Yahoo Chat Rooms are working

2008-07-30T11:02:00.000-07:00

I was having this problem lately, I was unable to properly chat in chat rooms because each time I entered I saw nobody else chatting even though there were people present in the room. I had to use Yahelite to finally be able to actually chat with people inside the rooms.

Since I don't like to give up on Yahoo [messenger] I tried again to enter the chat rooms with messenger and this time, it actually worked. I didn't change anything from last time but for some reason I was able to chat with people! I had almost forgotten what it was like, the bots, the bots, the bots, the guys looking for c2c (cam-to-cam) chat and the bots.

Related
On Using YahElite
On Being booted and Yahlite

No Chat Rooms for Yahoo messenger Vista

2008-07-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

Why I would not use Yahoo! messenger for Vista even if I had Vista on my computer.

Did you know that the Vista version of Yahoo! messenger does not have chat rooms, webcam or message archiving? I could live without webcam really but no chat rooms and no message archiving! That's inconceivable. How could they even come up with a messenger that does not allow message archiving?

You can see a side-by-side comparison of all the current Yahoo! messenger versions here.

The XP versions (8 and 9) are the ones with the most features, in fact the only feature the XP version lacks is the Tabbed IM Windows.

Hopefully for people using Windows Vista you don't have to use the Vista version of Yahoo! messenger, you may still use the version 8 or 9 that work on Vista as well.

Meet People Online at Thoughts.com

2008-07-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

Thoughts.com is part social network, part blogging service with video and photo hosting, it's also part forum. Hard for me to say if it's a social network with blog or a blogging service with social networking. Thoughts.com is still in Beta so expect a few bugs. Create Blog

I strongly recommend you read the Terms of Use before you join Thoughts.com. Why? Because Thoughts.com does not allow the use of its service for commercial purposes. They don't allow users to post affiliate links or advertisement. If you plan to start a blog and create a profile on Thoughts.com keep in mind that it will be solely for non-commercial use.

What exactly can you do at Thoughts.com? Well you can create a blog of course, post in the forums, take part in surveys, browse and watch videos, photos or listen to podcast. Of course you may also create your own surveys, post your photos, upload your videos and podcasts. The site also has a Charity page with suggested Charities to which you may donate money. Thoughts.com promises free unlimited bandwidth, I can't tell you exactly what they mean by "unlimited" but free means you don't have to pay for it :p

The site has an annual Vacation Getaway. Each year, some of their top members travel to a new and exotic destination. Last year they went to Las Vegas. They have yet to select a destination for this year but they will be selecting a few members to join them on their getaway. You may see a video of highlights from last year's trip.

Thoughts.com is also part social networking. You may add your friends and family on the site and have quick access to their content. Thoughts asks you if you wish to search for friends from your email address book, I usually don't use this method as I prefer to add friends manually.

I've looked around the forums a bit and the members are very active there. Presently I'm not sure I want to start a blog on Thoughts.com mostly because I like to have full control over what I put on my blog and I want to have the freedom to use it for commercial purposes if I wish but I might spend some time browsing photos and videos and maybe participate in forum discussions.

Overall, Thoughts.com is an easy way to start a blog and put your content online. Blogs are a good way to meet people online especially if you take time to interact with other users by commenting on their blogs and responding to their comments on yours.

This has been a sponsor post.

On Using YahElite

2008-07-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

I have finally tried YahElite. It's a free chat client that you can use for IM with your Yahoo messenger contacts and Yahoo Chat rooms as well. Of course YahElite is free to use but it's not and official Yahoo chat client.

In all the years I've used Yahoo messenger I've only been booted once. Therefore I don't really use YahElite to protect myself from booters I use it to make my chat room experience better. YahElite allows you to enter Yahoo Chat without having to open a browser window. Though you have to enter the captcha text for word verification, YahElite gives you the text to enter without getting out of the program. I find it more practical than the way Yahoo messenger does it.

Additionally, YahElite auto ignores most bots that you might encounter in a chat room. You no longer have to keep tract of each and every bot to ignore manually.

Also I've found that sometimes when switching rooms YahElite does not ask you for captcha. Not only does the captcha process take less time than it would with Yahoo messenger, sometimes you don't have to go through it at all which makes room hoping fun again.

Last but not least. While I've been unable to chat in the Yahoo chat rooms using my Yahoo messenger 8, YahElite has no problem logging me in to the rooms and letting me chat with the other users present. With Yahoo messenger, when I enter the room, even after the word verification I don't see any other chatters, no matter what room I'm in. I don't have that problem with YahElite, if the people are there, I will see them. And this is the main reason why I use YahElite.

The YahElite interface is not as intuitive as the Yahoo messenger interface and many users might feel lost if they try to use it but it's a very efficient tool for people who enjoy spending time in chat rooms and are experiencing various problems with Yahoo messenger.

This has been an update on YahElite, you may read my original post on Yahlite.

Last day to win a Gold Membership on Friendfinder

2008-07-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

Only a few more hours (the deadline is July 14, 2008 at 11:59 PM PST) to enter the part 2 of Friendfinder's "Silly Snapshots & Clever Quips Contest". Sorry you missed the first part but I didn't find the time to write about it before the deadline.

Entering the contest is free but you need to join Friendfinder first. You will need to provide caption for the three photos that you can see at this page.

What is the Silly Snapshots & Clever Quips Contest?
Here's what the people at Friendfinder have to say about it

" It's time to show off your wicked wit by creating captions for the top 3 photos in part two of our Silly Snapshots & Clever Quips Contest. Be sexy, be silly, be ironic, be a smartass...just be clever and you could win a Gold membership!

You may enter captions for any or all of these photos, but be sure to keep your captions down to about one sentence or 25 words maximum each - the shorter the better. Once you've come up with your witty captions, post them below. Don't forget to indicate which photo each caption is for.

If you're captioning more than one entry, be sure to post them separately to increase your chances of winning!

All entries must adhere to the Terms of Use. "

Each caption should be one sentence of 25 words maximum.

What will you win?

(3) 6-month Gold memberships

One winning caption will be chosen for each of the three photos. The members who submitted the winning captions will each receive 6-months of Gold membership.

Did you know that Friendfinder also has Free Chat Rooms?

IYS - The International Youth Service is closing

2008-06-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Here is the statement you'll find on IYS' homepage:

IYS will be closing down this summer, by 30th June 2008

The International Youth Service (IYS) has been operating since 1952, over 56 years now. We have arranged foreign pen friends for school children and students aged 10 - 20 years in over 100 different countries.

The internet has lead to a situation where sending ordinary letters is old-fashioned. Letter writing, once very popular, is now a hobby of a few.

We have come to the end of a certain period. As we can not find enough young people interested in penfriendship any more, we have decided to close down this firm by 30th June 2008.

We thank all our customers, both children and teachers, in past years and wish you happy times. Don’t stop learning different languages and cultures and keep up those penfriendships you have managed to build up.

The staff of INTERNATIONAL YOUTH SERVICE

This is very unfortunate. I have made quite a few friends around the world, in Europe, Asia and Africa, thanks to IYS. I can't even remember who introduced me to their service but I do remember having my friends, siblings and classmates signing up to find penfriends abroad.

It was a great experience for me. Even though I don't write to any of my penfriends anymore, I have very good memories of them. Some of them I've written for five to six years from the time I was in secondary school to my university years. Most of my penfriends were girls but I also had a few boy-penfriends. Bahadir was one of them. We lost touch because of address problems, my letters did not get to him they were returned but I found him on Facebook and we are in contact again.

It is unfortunate that the rise of the Internet has forced the IYS to close. As I was going through my letters, showing them to my younger brother, along with a few of the presents and postcards my penfriends sent me, he asked me how he could have penfriends too. I was no longer in contact with IYS but I remembered they had a site and I was hoping to find out, from the site, how I could register my brother with them. Alas!

I understand that it probably costs less to have friends over the internet than to have postal-mail friends but those are two very different experiences. I have a few people online I met online who wanted to be my (snailmail)penfriends and I'm not even counting those who wanted me to send them postcards.

When the Internet became mainstream, IYS decided it did not want to encourage students to make friends through this new media. It kept offering solely services via postal mail. I believe that it's where they went wrong. Yes, they don't want to encourage emailfriends but they could have used their website to offer the same services to students and teachers. Using the internet would have helped them keep the kids interested while cutting costs for the students. At least the fees would be lower and no postage would be necessary to get addresses. They would simply send you the other persons' information online. The problem with the Internet is identity verification and an overabundance of predators. So they would probably have issues with adults posing as children and requesting penfriends...

The closing of IYS is very unfortunate, did I say that already? I always wondered what the IYS headquarters looked like? How they organized their work, what their equipment looked like? Who the employees were? I guess I'll never know any of all this. Their site looked nearly empty with simply the announcement on the main page.

I still wanted to see more of IYS. So I went on Google and search the iys.fi site and found out most of their pages (like the fees page) are still online. I was unpleasantly surprised to see that Haiti was not included in the counties listed... I went to the United-States page and found out the service was not expensive at all, US $2.00 per address. Knowing that they guaranteed a response, it was really a great value. I kept searching and finally found Haiti on one of their older method of payment pages. Yay!

Now the only alternative for my brother to find a penfriend is to join a penpal site, penpalnet for example is free but they don't give any guarantees and you have to search for your penpal by yourself. Additionally the people you find online usually prefer email correspondence.

Why I might be using Facebook more often

2008-06-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

I recently found a long lost penpal on Facebook. When I say penfriend, I mean the traditional snail mail penfriend. Bahadir and I used to write letters to each other until the day when my letter was sent back to me. It's been nearly 10 years, and thanks to Facebook we are able to be in touch again. It's really amazing.

Meet local Singles for free at Meeta

2008-06-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

You know by now that I've joined quite a few dating sites already, yet I couldn't resist joining one more, Meeta.com.

I came across Meeta a few times before and it always surprises me that people actually take the time to put together Free Dating sites even though there are so many out there already. I joined Meeta.com hoping to find something really different or at least as good as the best free dating sites I've tried so far. I'm going to tell you about the registration process and my very first experience with Meeta.com.

Meeta has a very clean and simple look. I like the light colours and the whole ambiance of the site. There are three steps that you need to go through to join Meeta.

Step 1 : enter your basic information
You need to provide your name, birth date, sexual orientation, what you're looking for, your city, your email, your surname and password.

Step 2 : create your profile
You need to provide more detailed information about yourself, your appearance, habits and preferences.

You are asked for your relationship status, hair color, eye color, whether you have children, whether you want have children, whether you drink and smoke. All those questions are mandatory. Then you are asked optional questions about your religion, race or ethnicity, interests, and occupation.

Step 3 : add a picture
You are invited to add a picture to your profile to boost your chances of success. Meeta claims that with a photo you are 10 times more likely to succeed in your online dating experience. Photos are not mandatory therefore you may simply proceed without adding one, click "Submit" and your profile will be created without a photo. In case you decide to add a picture you should be aware of the fact that Meeta has picture rules. They are quite simple and short so I copied them here:

We suggest that you go solo in your MAIN profile picture after all, people are here to meet YOU. All pictures must be property of the user and contain none of the following:

Nudity
Racist or hateful behavior
Obscene gestures or lewd behavior
Copyrighted material or licensed material
Celebrity pictures

Now that I had my profile I decided it was time for me to find people because that's why I joined Meeta after all.

Meeta has the typical look of free online dating sites i.e. covered with ads for paid dating sites. But unlike many free dating sites Meeta offers matching. You have matches pages with a list of your potential matches based on your match preferences. Unfortunately for me I had 0 matches.... They tried to cheer me up telling me not to worry and encouraged me to search for people on the site while they find me some matches. They also suggested that I refine my match preferences?

I decided not to let the lack of matches discourage me and continued to explore the site. Meeta has Forums and Groups. I tried the groups first and of course there were no groups in my city and since I wasn't interested in creating one I went on to look at "All Groups" and saw all those that were created. Unfortunately they had very few members and not a single topic.

I thought maybe I would be luckier with Forums. Indeed they were a little less empty than the groups, a few threads had been started but not many replies.

Yet I decided to go ahead and simply browse members' profiles. By default you are restricted to profiles of people near your city. If you want to see more people go ahead and click the "All Members" option in the sidebar. If you're in a city with few or no members on the site the city restrictions might bother you.

Meeta does not have an overwhelming number of members, you are certainly not going to spend hours browsing profiles but you might find a topic or two to which you can reply in the forums.

I find the search feature very unpractical, it's one of the worst search experience I've ever had on a dating site.

I wanted to try specific searches for people of a certain age range and in specific areas but it just wasn't going to happen. As far as the location is concerned, you can only search for people near a certain city, not a country, not a state but a city and they don't even provide a drop down list or any aid of any sort to look up city names so beware of typos. Since Meeta allows approximate ages like 20's and 30's, in profiles, most of the time you won't know the person's exact age. A person in his 20's can be anywhere from 20 to 29. So good luck finding the exact person you're looking for.

The most annoying aspect of Meeta is the fact that the site feels like it's still in Beta, with the occasional 404 error popping when you click a link. I hope they find the time to look around the site and clean up a bit, removing those errors.

Meeta really needs to improve their search feature. On a dating site I want to be able to search for the exact person I'm looking for and Meeta does not allow that with ease, they should try and make their search more specific. Because after all you're here to fine your match.

I like Meeta's look, it's a nice site but unfortunately I don't see why I would spend my time there. I hope they send matches by email, I believe that would be their only chance to have users come back because there isn't a whole lot for me to do while on Meeta.com. Who knows, maybe one day I'll find a Meeta message in my inbox telling me someone is interested in me, it might happen.

This post has been a sponsor post.

Match.com or Yahoo Personals

2008-06-21T13:01:00.000-07:00

Is Yahoo Personals Dead? Has Match killed it?

I was checking my mail today, on Yahoo! mail and noticed banner ads for Match.com. I'm used to seeing ads for Yahoo! personals in my Yahoo! mailbox but today I only saw Match ads and other ads that I can't remember.

The Match ads were quite effective because they have a black background that contrasts with the white background of the mail page. They also look interactive, with search fields and flash animation, inviting you to click. Yahoo! even showed many versions of the Match.com ads, horizontal banner, wide square banners, whether I was at the mail homepage on checking my inbox, they were there. I didn't click on any of the ads since I'm not interested in joining Match but I couldn't help but wonder, why would Yahoo! run ads for a dating site who is a competitor to their own Personals site? It seems to be related with geographical location. Yahoo! personals is not an international site apparently Match.com is.

After further investigation I've discovered that in some locations Yahoo! offers personals services using Match.com or Meetic. So Yahoo! personals is not dead it's just not available in every location. But I really find the Match ads to be more attractive than the Yahoo! personals ads.

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Hi5 friend requests never expire

2008-06-21T09:54:00.001-07:00

If you don't accept friend requests from people you don't know on hi5, it means to do take the time to look at who's sending you those requests.

I currently have over 20 friend requests pending. Many of those requests were sent to me in 2005! Yes, I'm not kidding. Even though it's written at the bottom of the request list that hi5 will expire friend requests automatically after 60 days it turns out that they never actually do it. Since I have not changed my mind about those people in three years I might as well let those requests hang in there until something happens, or not. It doesn't really bother me since the most recent requests are placed on top of the list.

I wonder why they took the time to say that they expire requests after 60 days when they actually don't?

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