Need help testing a dating site

mmurch01

Hello, I need some help with a new site I've been working on. Please do your worst (without bringing it down lol) and see if you have any problems with the site. I need your feedback so that I can make it as user friendly and easy as possible for average joe user. I appreciate all feedback and criticism!

url: http://www.yourprofiles.com

Thanks in advance. Please don't flame me about spamming, I've been a member here for a very long time and I'm not asking anyone to buy anything or obligating anyone for anything. Just looking for good, honest feedback is all.

Thanks again!

misbehavin

First of all, have you ever used another site? Because there are well-documented dating sites available, such as match.com or eharmony.com, and they have pages and pages of testimonials, and, quite frankly, probably have a MUCH larger user base than any new site you could find.

I would suggest checking out those sites, or even free sites such as Craigslist, or personals, rather than trying to be experiment with a new site. You're looking for compatible partners, not trying out new tech... Go with what people know works.

mmurch01

Thanks for the advice! I am actually the owner of this site and looking for feedback on how it works. I want it to be very easy and it is free for everyone, unlike match or eHarmony. I agree that the users make the site, but I want to ensure the site is easy for the users, even if there are few to start out with.

misbehavin

Oh, ok, I misread your original post.

I'll give it a try, but in the future, you may want to offer more details in your original post to avoid being flagged as spam, such as: Which features do you want us to check out? Any particular problems you want us to look for? Do you need stylistic help, or just look for errors? Be more specific, not just "check it out."

mmurch01

Thanks and I apologize for not being clear. The feedback I'm looking for is completely general. If you see something wrong with anything, I'd appreciate feedback. Also, if you don't like the layout, or the colors, or find it difficult to use, that is the feedback I'm looking for.

Thanks again!

SniperGuy

Well, first off, your reply sounds like incredibly programmed spam. But you have 912 posts and have been here since 2003.

So I guess you're off the hook for that. Design wise, there's an add shooting off my screen on the left, seriously distracting from the main page. Which is also a giant jumble of bright colors and painful to look at. Things really need to be more clear. I had to search for the join button, which seems to be hidden inside an image, even though it was in the center of the screen.

misbehavin

A few early thoughts:

When editing/creating profile...

1) Under "Drinker", should have an "Occasional" option
2) What's the different between "Description" and "About Me"?
3) IM UIN... Use "AIM" not "AOL"
4) Use "*" for password... Always a bad idea to reveal peoples passwords

misbehavin

Also, how new is this site? Because if it is BRAND SPANKING new, then this may not be an error, but I can't find anyone else at all, so either the search engine is broken, or I'm the very first registered user. Which is it?

mmurch01

Wow, excellent. THANKS!!! I'll make those changes asap. Keep 'em coming guys!

misbehavin

Chat is a nice feature, but should be inline... The new page breaks the continuity of the site... Keeps the headers the same, too...

mmurch01

Well, a little of both maybe? It is brand spanking new, only 9 registered users...it should however show them to you when you search. I'll look into this big time. This is great feedback, and I really, really appreciate it!

DrFrylock

mmurch01 wrote: »

I want it to be very easy and it is free for everyone, unlike match or eHarmony. I agree that the users make the site, but I want to ensure the site is easy for the users, even if there are few to start out with.

OKCupid and PlentyOfFish claim the same and are both 100% free. How do you distinguish your site?

mmurch01

I'm not familiar with okcupid or plentyoffish so I'm not sure what yourprofiles offers/doesn't offer that they don't/do. With time I will add a lot of features. I thought it was better to start off with less stuff to break. So far the feedback has been great! Thanks to all! I am always interested in feedback of this sort so please keep 'em coming!

Rhino

I don't get it.

YourProfiles.com

My Profiles? Why would I want more then one, unless I'm stalking someone? Or pretending to be a girl in one profile. ... err.

Most of the time, I just like 1 profile per site.

Also under 'FAQ' it has "Your FAQ here"....
I don't know what to put! Most people don't ask me questions!

I kid. Maybe you should put a FAQ there... like "What is this site and why would I want to use it?"

sorry, not trying to be harsh... just saying.

Also you have a chicken and egg problem... people only want to join sites that has other people, but people aren't going to join till you have people...

Maybe you could have say a giveaway or something to get people to join up? that way, other people will say "Hey, there are lots of people on this site, I shoudl try it "

Cause if you got a dating site that only has 1 other person... then, that might not be too much fun.

Also, no offense -but your site looks like one of those "spammer" sites... kind of shady. Not something I would want to be uploading all my info to.

mmurch01

One of the features that I plan on adding is one that allows members to easily link and highlight other profiles that they use on other sites like myspace, hi5 and facebook...won't be long and they can add even a forum profile if they want. That way other users can get more info from them and they can share their social network stuff and even possibly use yourprofiles.com as a hub. If when there are a lot of users, they can easily see what other social sites they are members of via their yourprofiles profile. Does that make sense?

I agree about the FAQ and I'm currently working on that and a privacy policy, about us section, terms of use and services. This is taking me a while but it shouldn't be more than another week before thats all up.

On the shady subject...anything in particular give you that impression or do you mean all around it looks shady. I promise I will never spam people!!

mmurch01

Is it the ads? I have the ads to possibly break even on server fees...site hasn't even paid for the domain its on yet. Could that be what gave you the feeling that it was shady?

Thanks for the great feedback! You guys are teaching me a LOT!

Aceed

I am a somewhat snobby intellectual and want someone who can string a series of sentances together.

I don't have time for bull shit, so please don't be retarded!

Wow.

Rhino

mmurch01 wrote: »

One of the features that I plan on adding is one that allows members to easily link and highlight other profiles that they use on other sites like myspace, hi5 and facebook...won't be long and they can add even a forum profile if they want.

oh!

I see what you did that.

Yes, that is a very good idea. A hub!

That's a good indeed!


As for why it feels 'shady' - partly the ads, yes - those don't help and I understand why you have them.. but maybe "class" it up a bit on the home page with fewer or no ads on the main page and then drop the "ad bomb" on them once they are already signed up/signed in?

Also the other reason I think, is that the site looks sort of "generic". I don't know how to describe it, but just seems very bland without "personality". Does that make sense?

DrFrylock

Can you talk a little bit more about what the point of your site is (not 'to make money through ads,' that's a given)? Who are you targeting and what are they supposed to use your site for? Are you just doing this on a lark to teach yourself web-development technologies?

I'm saying this because there are already at least two free dating sites with thousands upon thousands of people on them, and I don't see a compelling reason why anyone should want to use yours instead. Linking to profiles on other sites (myspace, facebook, etc.) is one idea, but it's fraught with peril in a lot of ways. For example, it's fairly easy to find out a lot about a person's real identity on MySpace. Who they are, where they live, who their friends are, where they go to school, and so on. People, especially women, want to be more anonymous on dating sites. You really don't want to make the most stalkerrific personals site ever, do you?

Many sites attempting to act as a 'hub' of social networking sites have been tried and failed, or aborted. The idea comes up all the time in next-big-Web-thing communities, but it doesn't work. The various successful communities (myspace, facebook, linkedin) target different groups of people for different reasons. There's not a tremendous amount of overlap. Aggregators like Spock are unifying information from multiple profile sites already.

This is a well-saturated market. I'm really glad you're enthusiastic, but what's new here?

Rhino

DrFrylock wrote: »

People, especially women, want to be more anonymous on dating sites.

That's a good point. Maybe make an option that says "Only allow people in my freinds list to stalk me"


But yes... he makes a good point. Yuo have to have an angle or niche or /something/ to sale it.

like: Guys that pretend to be girls online looking for other "Girls" for hot girl on girl action

or: Robot Date - *beep beep boop* if you know what I mean *nudge nudge wink wink*

or: "Christian Atheists looking for Buddist singles!"

you know.. something besides "Generic Dating Site # 475"

mmurch01

Yes, you're right, the point is not to make a million dollars here. Just trying to target people that want to be less anonymous...here is what I mean:

There are a million sites where people go and search through looking for people to hook up with. On all of these sites you are not 100% sure what you are getting...and if it were me, I'd like to know who is on the other side of the keyboard. When people link to their other profiles, it is kind of like having a reference list for the person looking to hook up with you...it's harder to 'pad' your description and post fake pics when you link to your myspace and hi5 profile and all of the pics wouldn't match. It allows people to meet people and do a little more research before hand.

How many times have you heard the story of the monster meeting the unsuspecting person on their first offline date? This site will help people avoid that situation.

Does that make any sense at all?

Even if there are one or two other huge sites out there that do that, it doesn't make a big impact on me because knowing that I CAN'T compete with them allows me to stay grounded. The goal is not to start a huge company but I want to do the best I can for the users anyway.

Rhino

mmurch01 wrote: »

How many times have you heard the story of the monster meeting the unsuspecting person on their first offline date? This site will help people avoid that situation.

Does that make any sense at all?

Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

It's a good idea. It's kind of like a "digitail bussiness card".. you want to get a hold of me? YourProfile.com/Rhino - or whatever.

MuddBudd

Darker blue... it's killing me, especially the bright inactive tabs.

I'd go with something closer to navy.

mmurch01

Ok everyone. I changed almost everything about the site and I'm looking for feedback again. This is a LOT more similar to myspace now and less about dating. Please take a look and let me know what you think about the new (well everything).

If you signed up before to check it out, I apologize, I lost all of the accounts during the changeover.

So far I have to figure out a way to get images to resize properly, but that's all I can find wrong thus far.

Thanks again! Looking forward to your feedback big time!

skeldare

Looks like a nice little community, though it's obviously a work in progress. It's really hard to give any real feedback though since a lot of the pages don't have much info on them. I'll keep an eye on this site.

mmurch01

Cool, thanks!

Soon I am adding functionality to allow community members to upload mp3's and movies as well.

Thanks for the feedback!

DekuStick

It reminds me of a cluttered facebook.

mmurch01

Cool, one thing I am afraid of is once there is a ton of content that it can be overwhelming to users. There's a section for classifieds like craigslit, there's a section for blogs and quizzes, polls, groups and forums...tons...

The advice here is great, I appreciate the time everyone is taking/has taken to help me make this site function like it should.

skeldare

Just curious, how do you turn off ads?

mmurch01

I have a gold membership option which I haven't really fully set up yet that turns off the ads and it costs like 3 bucks to turn them off forever (haven't set a price o anything yet).

If you've signed up today, I've upgraded you to gold free already and you'll not have to see them anymore.

skeldare

Cool, saw the bulletin so thought it was already on.

mmurch01

It's good to know that if I send a bulletin, members that sign up after I send it will see it as well!

I didn't know you'd see that! Thanks for letting me know.

I am going to upgrade everyone to gold for a while anyway as an incentive to join. I might post about it on the main page so that guests can see it also.

mmurch01

I'm also having trouble with mod_rewrite to make easy url's...

Soon instead of http://www.yourprofiles.com/index.php?do=/public/user/name_youradmin/ it will simply be http://www.yourprofiles.com/name_youradmin/ to link to your profile.

I think this is a top priority but I'm having slight difficulty with it...

drinkinstout

I signed up and it looks good so far but I must have stepped on your toes as you fool around with the rewrite cause it all broke - I'll look more tonight

mmurch01

If you noticed a hiccup there, I was trying something with the rewrite stuff but it didn't work lol

It's all good now...but rewrite is still not working.

mmurch01

Ok, cool. Thanks for checking it out! And you're right about the rewrite thing lol (although you didn't cause it)

mmurch01

Haha!!! Mod_Rewrite now works! http://www.yourprofiles.com/youradmin is my profile url! Yaya!

Vrtra Theory

Under Drink & Smoke, what exactly do the options mean? No...Socially...Sometimes...Yes. Does "Yes" mean "I'm constantly drinking/smoking"?

I'm sure it's a joke, but if I can choose "Vampire" as a job, you should probably just go all the way and let people enter whatever they want for that particular field.

The site navigation seems a little confusing to me as well, but I'll have to mess around with it more.

mmurch01

Good idea to make it an entry field rather than a drop down. Thanks!

mmurch01

Great feedback so far. Here's what I have changed:

1. mod_rewrite works so urls are shortened and more user friendly

2. Pictures are now resized properly for your profiles

3. Ads can be switched off with gold membership (currently no charge for that)

4. Profiles can be customized with css and html but there is an integrated WYSIWYG editor also

5. Removed blog functionality to make it look less cluttered

That's about it, please keep the suggestions coming, so far they have been great!

Thanks!

EggyToast

Vrtra Theory wrote: »

Under Drink & Smoke, what exactly do the options mean? No...Socially...Sometimes...Yes. Does "Yes" mean "I'm constantly drinking/smoking"?

mmurch01 wrote:

Good idea to make it an entry field rather than a drop down. Thanks!

Err, most people interpret the smoking thing to be exactly what it is. If you say "i'm a smoker" that means yes. if you smoke irregularly, but generally don't "need" a cig, that's "sometimes." If you only smoke at bars, that's "socially."

Back when I used dating sites, the smoking option was so that it was an element in searches. I made sure to only search for people who had "no" as their smoking option, for instance.

I think any element in a profile should be set up in a way so that people can search for it. It is a dating site, after all, not just a facebook clone.

(it also needs more women)