web dating uncovered

Smooch.com

2010-02-17T03:46:00.000-08:00

What is Smooch.com?

Smooch is the first website I have looked at in this field that has adopted (at least in part) some web2.0 principles. If you're not sure what that means I suggest you take a look here for a decent starter on the subject. The design makes this site immediately more accessible, exciting and - I am reliably informed - 'female friendly'. I understand that some bars are more or less female friendly so I can see what is meant by that in relation to this site. It's pink and bold and bright and kind of cute. I have yet to find a pair of boobs or a surprise penis although the lady on the welcome page is scantily attired and somewhat suggestive. In short then, it's a far cry from the other sites reviewed thus far. The biggest pull this website has in addition to the approachable design is the fact that it claims to be 100% free all of the time to contact other members, nice. There are no corporate logo's claiming the free press love their service, instead some business oriented awards are displayed which certainly adds a more professional feel.

The registration process is a little more lengthy than I had experienced up to this point and I was asked many more questions to bulk out the information that would be displayed about me. A very interesting part of this process was the mechanic that would suggest opt-ins for other websites based on your choices at this one. For example, if you indicate that you have a PhD then the following form element is displayed:

I want a professional and/or intelligent date, sign me up for LoveAndFriends.com.

As there is no fee to pay you are immediately admitted to the site and presented with a dizzying array of information and a wonderful wall of pictures. This was the first time I have seen this method of displaying members and I was pretty impressed. The concept is that members bid to have their pictures appear bigger than others, highest bidder = biggest picture. So here come the micro-payments. The promise of free contact is completely true but a great deal of site features are not available for free and require you to buy credits with real money and use them to unlock or use the more advanced elements.

So I put my new pictures up on the site and made a fine job (even if I say so myself) of my profile presentation. I completed all elements of the section from my favourite albums to turn ons/offs and everything in between. Then I searched the site for members in my general location and age bracket. The search function and IntelliMatch(?) service are limited and tend to provide the same results because you can't really filter or refine the search in many different ways. Despite this I found loads and loads of potential dates and got messaging. The smooch.com version of the virtual flirt/kiss/wink is to answer the question "Is this member Smoochable?" and if the answer is "maybe" then they are alerted to your interest. I think this is equally as pointless as every other sites variation on the same. After about 10 days and many many emails I received replies from 2 women very near to me looking for dates - hoorah! One of these woman was completely unacceptable and I politely told her that I had already found my match and wished her good luck. The other one lived about 5 minutes walk from me and seemed very nice but quite unattractive. She had evidently misrepresented herself on her profile or was deluded into thinking 5'10" and bulging size 18 represents average build but she was quite pretty facially and seemed unlikely to be a nutjob. I asked if she would like a date the following weekend and she quickly replied that she would. Job done.

So what does that mean?

Well the proof is in the pudding apparently, and that I did not get to sample, but by the victory conditions set out at the start of this investigation smooch.com did the job. Well done to them. I found the members to be genuine even if they were disinterested in my profile in particular. I did not get one person trying to scam me and still have not after a month of being a member. My email inbox is relatively free of smooch spam and apart from the registration process no other sites have been sent my information or even suggested to me. There's no porn or videos which is either a good or bad thing depending on your point of view. There are too many features if anything and some of them are a little confusing to use but generally they work as intended. The only one I didn't get involved with was the event organiser which could have been fun but I wasn't up for any of that. The site design, while being easy on the eye is poor for navigation and often leaves you wondering how to get back to where you were or where to go next.

In summary.

A good site made even better by the free services available to all members. There are plenty of nice looking women to browse through and it's easy to contact them. You can even tell when they have read your email which - if you haven't got a response - let's you know it's probably time to forget it and move on. I got a better than average reply rate and they were all polite and normal. The age range of members is wide and a fairly high standard of physical appeal. I would definitely go back to this service if I were a single guy looking for dates. Hopefully in time (as this is a new service) they will refine the navigation and general layout to make things easier to use but other than that, very nice.

maritalaffair.co.uk

2010-02-14T02:56:00.000-08:00

What is maritalaffair.co.uk?

This is an interesting website and one that really opened my eyes to a different and fast growing part of the industry. You can probably guess from the name that the site is designed to facilitate dating between married people. When I came across the website I was intrigued to know how popular a service like this might be but not really surprised that it exists. It should come as no shock to anyone that affairs between married people are conducted on a regular enough basis that a service industry has grown up around the phenomenon on the internet. Perhaps the only shocker here is the size of it. After discovering maritalaffair.co.uk I started to look around for other similar services and it seems there is a serious marketplace to be tapped. Understandably there is also a fair amount of high profile publicity surrounding some of these sites and most of them proudly display the logo's of the media owners who have 'featured' their service in some way. Big names from national tabloids to the BBC and American news networks litter the homepages of these sites and appear almost as if they are endorsed by them - which is the point of course. The truth is, celebrity infidelity is a regular feature in the news and representatives of these websites are often asked to comment on the story, giving them an opportunity to promote their service quid pro quo. Far from endorsing the websites however the shows invariably decry such moral ambiguity but all publicity is good publicity if you're trying to drive traffic to a website. So maritalaffair.co.uk is just one of four big sites created to facilitate infidelity in the UK, others that will be reviewed on this blog are lovinglinks.co.uk, illicitencounters.com and ashleymadison.co.uk who have launched a UK version of their hugely successful US site. In terms of categorisation these sites are not regular dating sites but also not in the same camp as adultfriendfinder and the like. Putting the moral issue aside for the time being these businesses pitch themselves somewhere between the adult and mainstream dating services. Sex is implied but many members are not simply looking for a hook up, a great deal of them are looking for a solution to whatever problems have befallen their marriages. A common theme that exists throughout these services is the opinion that an affair may in fact save a marriage on the rocks. I am certainly aware of the argument that a sexless relationship can be revived for the good of all concerned by one or both parties seeking a bit of excitement elsewhere. In truth I don't feel qualified to comment on this aspect so I will leave the moral philosophy for other people. I can say however that more than a few people I have spoken to from these sites agree with it.

Moving on now to the specifics of maritalaffair.co.uk where "the grass is always greener!" I will start with their homepage where you are presented with a barely clothed lady promising all manner of naughty pleasures within. This page also makes a number of bold claims including Hitwise stats that place it as the 13th largest dating site in the UK. As I mentioned earlier there are also logos claiming coverage in The Sun, Telegraph and London Newspapers and most bizzarely The Alan Titchmarsh show (no seriously). The design is dark and somewhat sultry and reminds me initially of a Soho sex shop front. Moving inside to the registration process things start to appear less polished and a fairly simplistic form takes some details and immediately gives me access. It is quite clear that the site does not care too much about the quality of profiles for new users as there is no requirement to adequately fill in any details about yourself or what you are looking for in other people. As a newly registered user you have a basic account which restricts your activities to browsing the members and sending virtual winks, or buying gifts for other members. These gifts represent a serious revenue stream for dating sites, even ones claiming to be free, as micropayments for the gifts provide consistent incremental income even after members have paid their dues for premium access to the site. The entry level payment for full access to the site is £24.95 for 30 days and the maximum price which represents a full years membership is £124.95.

I paid the monthly fee and re-entered the site to fill out my profile and add some pictures, and amazingly received a mail from a member before I had even started. I uploaded a couple of photos which displayed the notice "waiting for approval" beneath them, presumably to ensure I hadn't uploaded anything unnacceptable to the website rules. By the time I had completed the profile to my satisfaction and uploaded my pics I had received 4 messages from members. Understandably I thought I had hit dating gold and moved to my inbox to read the messages. I quickly noticed a common theme though which deflated my hopes somewhat as they all contained hidden email addresses asking me to contact them outside of maritalaffair.co.uk. Still I dutifully emailed them all from my hotmail account and got poorly worded replies asking me to meet up with them on other dating sites. I have no idea if these sites are connected with maritalaffair.co.uk (which would make sense) but they all claimed to be and directed me to cupid.com and datetheuk.com with a huge list of email recipients in addition to mine. Some of these members sent more than one email but eventually their accounts disappeared from the site and new ones came to take their place. The only person I was able to get to respond to an internal message, after contacting every single member in the Greater London area, very generously offered to meet me for a date immediately at Baker Street tube station for a £45 travel fee or she would come to me for £75. Unfortunately I was unable to talk to any genuine members about their experiences of the service as I couldn't seem to find any. I didn't think much of the picture approval process either as it took about 30 hours before mine became visible to other members and I quickly discovered there was explicit porn available on virtually every other profile I viewed. So I really have no idea what took 30 hours if they are prepared to approve pictures of this type anyway. Another picture related curiosity that I stumbled on here is photos from members of other dating sites appearing on this one, without the consent of their owners. I suspect it happens more than I am able to prove but one woman in particular confirmed that she had genuinely uploaded her pics to one site only to find herself appearing elsewhere.

"SO SO HORNY MY PANTIES ARE WET THOUGH COME SEE ME ON CAM IF YOU DARE XXX"

So what does this all mean?

There isn't much else to say about this website as there are no other features worth mentioning aside from the usual search and message functions. The layout is poor and the lack of profile policing means it's not exactly fun to trawl through nonsense posts from scammers with pig ugly pictures of someone elses fat arse. At no point did I feel like I was even close to talking with a genuine woman about potential dating opportunities. In fact if anything I immediately felt like removing all trace of myself, and my credit card details from the site. I had no confidence in the owners or the members.

In Summary.

Don't bother. I really don't think anything good would come of contact with the members of this site. If any gems are truly hidden in the rough here then good luck to any of you brave enough to prospect there. Whatever you do please be careful with your personal details and be sure the person you are talking to is in fact who you think they are. If anyone offers to meet you in return for the cost of their travel expenses I would strongly suggest you ignore it - I'm not sure if it's illegal but it's definitely ill-advised.

So my first foray into married dating did not go so well but worry not, this is not always the case!

adultfriendfinder.co.uk

2010-02-13T01:47:00.000-08:00

To kick things off I will start with adultfriendfinder.co.uk for no particular reason other than that it was first alphabetically. As the first post I will also try to set a standard format by which you can expect other posts to adhere.

What is adultfriendfinder.co.uk?

It is one of the older, and to my knowledge, bigger adult oriented dating services. Of course all dating sites are adult oriented (I hope) but in this case I mean that it is intended to facilitate sexual relationships in particular, not simply dating. In fact they claim to be but I have no idea how true the claim is, or on what it's based. The signup process is quick and simple and does not in fact give any option to be listed as simply wanting to date, various encounter types are listed instead, such as 3-way sex. Does this mean it should not strictly be classed as an actual dating site? Maybe/maybe not, but it's getting reviewed anyway. From the moment you enter the site and throughout the registration process you are presented with pictures of girls located near you doing their best to look alluring. After sign up you are classed as a standard member which allows you to browse other members but not to contact them. You can reply to emails at this level but most other functionality is restricted. The cheapest single payment option is £19.80 for 30 days of Silver membership, the most expensive was £119.76 for 18 months of Gold membership. The difference between Gold and Silver status appears to be the duration for which emails are kept on their system.

"The World's Largest Sex & Swinger Personals Community"

I paid for the cheapest option and started browsing potential matches after completing a pretty decent profile and uploading some pictures. This was one of my earlier attempts and so in all fairness my profile was perhaps not as good as it would become. Nevertheless I tried to theme it appropriately for the service and made it clear that I would like to meet a girl/girls for a date... and maybe more! I hoped that this would attract both the hardcore and more reserved elements to reply or get in contact with me. For each match that I could find via the excellently detailed search engine I wrote a reasonably long email introducing myself and asking for a reply to initiate contact, I linked my profile to the message and thought of a catchy subject to grab the readers attention. They also have a web based chat service which I attacked eagerly to try and contact some members in real time. In total over the course of 3 weeks I sent about 70 emails and tried to initiate chat with at least 50 or so members. I did not recieve even a single email response which was dissapointing and the handfull of replies I got from the chat system were from people asking me to visit other websites to view their live cam shows. If you are so inclined there is plenty of porn available throughout the site from member profiles and videos etc., and affiliate services which is great for members who want to indulge in that. There were also groups that you could apply to join with specific interests such as "Gothic Sex in Milton Keynes". i did apply to join the bigger more generalised ones such as "London Swingers" but I did not get accepted for whatever reason. These groups did appear active so perhaps perseverance would have led to membership being granted.

What did happen as a result of my membership was my inbox got filled with spam consistantly (and still to this day) telling me that 35 hotties want to meet me. I have no idea why 35 in particular and I can assure you that they do not wish to meet me.

So what does this mean?

Well I'm not too sure about this one and to be fair to them this particular review was not as exhaustive as others to come. On a positive note they did not appear to pass my details onto other websites or email spammers (except themselves). The minimum decent membership fee was relatively low and there was a great deal of content to get involved with. Their affiliate sites (part of the friendfinder network) offer a multitude of variations on the FF brand from Jewish Friend Finder to MillionnaireMate.com which may in fact be more appropriate for review on this blog, and I concede this point. They do have their fair share of scammers trying to get you onto other sites or to divulge your personal information, but they do not seem to contact you via the internal mail system like other sites. These scammers are found on the testimonials section of your profile in which other members can leave reports about you. I received 4 of these all basically along the same lines as this one:

hi sweetie!!!...i read your profile and i got so interested...i wish i could talk to you more to know you better.im just new here in the site and just exploring whats in here.i am currently bored now here with my situation and im here looking for someone who can meet up or have fun with...i am really looking for my mr.right...lol!...i wish i could talk to you soon...add me up now so you can see how hot,sexy and lovable i am!!!lol!!!you must judge me for better...........

yummykris16 at hotmale dat cum and yummykris16 on yahuu......i am online now!!!see yah!!!

When you contact these people via the email address 'hidden' in the message they simply try and sign you up to the website they get a kickback from for refferals. This site however did have one of the smallest number of scam attempts but perhaps that reflects the overall lack of contact I got in general.
In Summary

Overall I don't really love or hate this website, I didn't even get close to achieving that all important date so it has to rank pretty low on the scorecards (if anyone is keeping scores) but I do accept that my profile presence was less refined than on other sites. The negatives points were not all that bad but the positive points wouldn't make me go back for any reason. I suspect a vast amount of their huge member database are either not active or not real but I am sure some people are enjoying the niche clubs that have formed on the site. On a seperate note the site design is dated and not particularly pleasing to the eye and the features are standard at best and boring at worst. That's the best conclusion I can muster for this one I'm afraid. I hope it helps or at least informs.

Thanks for reading.
webdater

Laying down some parameters

2010-02-13T00:04:00.000-08:00

To get things underway I will set out the conditions under which I have visited these websites and consumed their services. My original intention was simply to see what competitor sites were up to with regard to features and content, as my interest was aroused I expanded both the type of sites I signed up with and the overall amount. I was fortunate enough to be able to offset the cost of access to paying member sites against my new commission. This meant that I was able to enjoy (or not) the full features of these sites to contact members, and in some cases allow them to contact me without being paying members themselves. After a short time I was compelled to go further and create rich profiles with genuine pictures of me in an attempt to try and make contact with another genuine person. I had no intention of meeting with anyone in person and agreed that the cutoff point was set as the point at which the other party agreed to meet for a date - and didn't imply that money or goods would have to change hands for this to happen. I even had a profile writing service polish my own attempts and help from my long suffering missus to pick some better photos of my self. In short, I feel that in each case I tried to present myself realistically to other members in an appealing way without stretching the truth too far.

There are now so many sites that I have been able to review as an insider I will post a new one each week, or as often as time permits. I intend no harm to any of the businesses featured here, or indeed any promotion of any one service over another. In the spirit of investigative journalism I will present my findings as truthfully as I am able to without compromising anyones identity, with a respectfull and balanced report on each site I have had membership of. I will explain what level of membership I paid for and what I liked and disliked about the site in general. More importantly however I will describe the experiences I have had so far with other members and crucially, did I get any dates.

I hope any readers enjoy these posts and that I can perhaps save some people the time and money involved in web dating by pointing out the good and bad out there at the moment.

Disclaimer: These posts are my opinion only. I decided not to show the pictures I used on the sites for the sake of my own privacy. I appreciate it would be usefull to see them to properly assess whether any negative feedback might be a result of me being a complete minger, but you will have to take my word that I am perfectly acceptable on that front. If any other websites would like an impartial review of their service undertaken by me please get in touch and I will be happy to do so.