Interview Part 1
Interview Part 2

I wanted to take an opportunity to talk a little bit more about this service. The first thing that I’ll say is that in talking with Chloe, I was given the very strong impression that she really does care about providing a great service to singles.

Second, I also believe that this service has some really great ideas. As someone who frequently pushes for greater acceptance of online dating, I am excited to see a service that encourages social interaction with your friends as you use it. Services like this, in my opinion, are the next step between yesteryear’s rejection of online dating and tomorrow’s online dating becomes the norm.

Members, Members, Members
Still, good ideas will only get you so far. While HelloJackieJoe brings great ideas to the table, such as incentives to get your friends to join and at the same time earning yourself free time on the service, when many people use the site they may not sign up because of the newness of the service or because there are very few members where they live.

To that, I would suggest that if you like what the service has to offer, that you sign up regardless of the number of people in your area. I recommend this because new online dating services frequently find themselves caught in a Catch-22: having low membership discourages many people from joining which keeps the membership low. If you sign up and convince a few of your friends to do the same, the next time someone in your area visits the website they may find themselves compelled to try it where they otherwise would have passed it by. You can still have a primary dating service that you use that has huge membership. At the same time, there is no harm in creating your account here and seeing what happens. If more people took this approach, I believe there are a lot of great, yet small, online dating services that could find their membership rolls growing.

And just to be clear for any cynics out there, this really is my opinion. No money is changing hands here, I really just feel that the service is run by people who care about their customers and who have some genuinely interesting ideas.

Interested? Get 60 Days Free
If the service interests you, check out this promotion which gives readers a Little Red Rails a free 60 days using the service. This promotion won’t last forever so if you’re interested check it out today.

Related posts:

1. Finding Good Deals for Online Dating Services
2. The HelloJackieJoe Interview, Part 1
3. 2010 Dating Service Valentine’s Day Specials

Yahoo! Personals is the first service I ever paid for when I started dating online. I never had success with this service and as I discuss in my online dating guide, I think it may have had to do with the fact that Yahoo! wasn’t a site about dating. People doing other things would find themselves checking out Yahoo! Personals just because they basically already had an account through their Yahoo! account. It is my theory that this activity inflated the membership numbers for Yahoo! although many of these members were never all that active. On the other hand, if you found yourself with a Match.com account, you ended up with it for a very specific reason: you intentionally signed up for an online dating service.

Yahoo! Personals Ending – A Good Thing?
It is my opinion that the closing of Yahoo! Personals is not a bad thing for those of us dating online. This is because two fairly large separate services have now consolidated into one service. This is great news for users of both services and for any other singles who now sign up Match.com. While features of an online dating service are important, having a large pool of singles to choose from is often just as important.

Why Is My Yahoo! Personals Account Gone?
If you have found yourself reading this article because you stopped using your Yahoo personals account and now find it missing, at this point I think your only option is to create a new account at Match.com. On July 21, 2010, Yahoo removed all accounts that had not already switched to Match.com.

Related posts:

1. Match.com and Yahoo! Personals to be One Dating Service
2. The Best and Worst Cities for Dating
3. Do Cheesy Pick-up Lines Really Work?

This post is the second half of a two-part interview I had with Chloe Rothwell, the CEO of the new online dating service called HelloJackieJoe. HelloJackieJoe is unique in that it aims to involve your friends into your online dating experience. The first half of my interview with Chloe is available here in the second half is below:

You had mentioned that HelloJackieJoe integrates with Facebook. If I were using this service, and I wanted to ask 10 of my friends on Facebook what they thought of a girl I’m considering contacting, do they have to be members of the site or can they just see it as a visitor?

We take the dating to them in their Facebook environment. You select your friends from your list and you agree to allow them to pull the data for you. You see the profile, but within Facebook. It’s a very simple mechanic with options like “yes,” “no,” or “maybe”—we’re not asking people to comment on whether someone is attractive or anything like that—it’s very, do you think this person would be a good fit for me? And it’s just a way to have a little bit of fun and an extra way to encourage your friends, to get out there and arrange a few dates. It’s all designed to be very friendly from the point of where not forcing people to join our site if they don’t want to be there, we’re not trying to make you promote us to your friends unnecessarily – it’s very much about trying to come at this from the point of view of the person dating.

That’s great. A second ago you mentioned recurring billing and I was just reading more about that recently. Do you not use recurring billing?

No. What we’ve basically chosen to do is a site where you pay to communicate with people. You can post the profile for free and you can leave it up there for as long as you want and you only pay when you want to respond to somebody or when you want to initiate contact with somebody new. And at that point you can choose between paying for just one month or paying for two months or three months. And you obviously get a discount for paying for three months up front. Pay as you date is what we’re trying to create. If you don’t know what to commit for, you can just pay as you go, you can take a break and come back. It may be a little more inconvenient for people who have to re-enter their credit card details or reactivate their Paypal account, but we find, for the main part, that people would rather have that than an unexpected expense pop up because they forgot to cancel it.

What’s your target audience for HelloJackieJoe.com?

We’re based in the U.S. We’re actually based in Los Angeles, so what we’re trying to do is to focus on two markets right now. We’ve chosen Los Angeles because we’re here and we’ve also chosen Seattle because we have some familiarity with that market and we think it’s a really good singles market. There seems to be a lot of single people who are looking to be a part of some cool dating sites up there. If we find a good audience, then we’ll keep rolling out to other markets. There’s no reason you can’t join in you’re in another part of the country. It’s about making sure that we’re getting as many people nearby you to actually date. That’s a big challenge so we’re just trying to focus on different markets at different times.

It seems like your service is very socially oriented. Do you offer any of your users incentives to get their friends to participate or that sort of thing?

Yeah we do. We recently introduced a site credit system whereby if you encourage somebody else to join either by them adding themselves as a single person or by them being the friend adding somebody, you get a $10 credit on the site and that credit never expires and you can use it whenever you want in any payment that happens on the site. Eventually, if you added a couple of friends, you could date for free for a while. That’s the idea behind it. We’re trying to make it so that the other people who go to the trouble of bringing other people to the site are rewarded for that. And that was a feature that was created based on feedback from people who were using the site. People seemed to be liking it as a recognition for the effort they go to, as a reward system. We are finding so far that is a good system and we’re open to hearing from anyone else what we can do to help encourage them because I think it’s important to recognize the users who go out of their way to bring their friends to the site.

Yeah I think it’s a great idea. I’m not a business owner but I can imagine how hard it would be to break into a market that’s very controlled and with something like that you may be able to do it virally. I think it’s great for the users but I think it could be great for the service as well.

I’m glad you think that. We’re trying very hard to get people to share and do the referring so they get the credit.

Photo by Bill Ward’s Brickpile

Oh wow that’s a big question. I agree with you 100% that it has become a lot more socially accepted to say that you’re using a service. Appropriately, single people are getting a lot more choices for what services are out there that they can utilize.

I think the trend to more mobile services which has feature to help you keep up with what’s happening on the fly more, specifically with the GPS tracking and all that stuff, I think that will continue. Obviously, the integration with the social media and social networking sites will continue to find new ways to have the integration. I think all of that is very positive.

I think that there is still a very big desire there for people to have privacy over this topic. In that way, we decided not to make it solely integrated into social networking sites and not being solely about everyone on your social groups knowing what you’re doing. Different services will continue to evolve and appear that cater to more niche needs and desires and I think there’s a place for multiple options here.

In our survey results, we definitely find people use more than one service at a time. In that way, we think what we’re offering at HelloJackieJoe.com is a great complement to other services you might be trying out be they paid or free or very religious specific or any other kind of niche market. In that way I think we’ll definitely see more options coming to cater to people’s different needs and I think we’ll see it evolve to become a lot more social. There’s not a huge amount that has otherwise changed in terms of people posting a profile and I think some of those things are very classic and I think they do work. I don’t think you need to change everything up. More ways to communicate and more ways to communicate quickly will definitely continue to be there. We’ve tried to address how we think people want to communicate with having that safety and anonymity that you can have by the distance that online provides, so we’ve tried to make it that people can, you know, leave each other a voicemail and people can video chat and all these kinds of options, they give you more choices and I think that will continue.

That was actually my last question that I had to ask. Is anything you would like to talk about or anything you think my readers would be interested for you to talk about?

You know, my main point is that we’re trying to offer something different and we’re trying to continue to build it in a direction that really serves the people who are out there dating. We’re looking to hear from people who use our site and continue to improve it in the direction that works for them. And in that way we might be quite idealistic, we’re trying to do something that’s committed to making it bigger than the site itself. And of the money that people spend on the site, we do give 20% away to charity which is a big part: that people want to feel good about the services that they’re using today. We’re trying to be very authentic in everything that we’re doing on HelloJackieJoe and I think that’s the main message.

Related posts:

1. The HelloJackieJoe Interview, Part 1
2. Online Dating with Your Friends
3. How to Fix the Free Dating Service Model

Describe HelloJackieJoe and how it’s different from other sites that are out there today.

Really what we’re trying to do is create a site where unlike other options where you’re the person who is trying to date and you have to do everything on your own, the premise of this site is your friend gets involved and helps write your profile and look at what profiles are out there and try to help match you with other people on the site.

So, it’s taking that experience where a friend might introduce you in real life and trying to take that online and at the same time, taking some of that awkwardness that people experience with having to promote themselves and having cliché profiles and helping people who are also a little scared to try online dating and need just a little bit of encouragement.

I was in a situation where I had a number of friends, who for whatever reason, felt like online dating wasn’t for them—they tried a couple of sites and had bad experiences. And it just felt to me like there was nothing out there where, as a friend, you could get involved and help your single friend find a date without completely taking over and trying to write a profile for them or something. And so, this is really where the idea came about. You know, in this day in age, a lot of people either don’t feel online dating is for them or they’re too busy or they’re too scared. It’s just trying to coax people into putting themselves out there without it being quite so scary and quite so solitary.

So you were actually motivated to create your site based on the experience with your friends?

Yeah, totally. You know, really the simple idea of being frustrated. There wasn’t really an option that helped meet their needs without them feeling quite overwhelmed by all of the different sites out there. I had a couple of friend who tried a couple of free sites in particular and found that experience lacking, and so it just felt like there wasn’t a way for you as a friend to get more involved without completely taking over and that’s not really in a support role and that defeats the purpose of them being in control. It really was created out of a need to act amongst my own friends, a need to be resonating with other people.

Now, if I had a friend who I felt would benefit from this service, how much control do they have if I decide to go and create them a profile? Do they need to sign off on this sort of thing?

Yes. The idea is that it’s not supposed to be a bad experience. It’s supposed to be a very positive experience, so the person who is dating has complete control over what anybody else sees about them. So, although you help create their profile, they approve it. So if they read something that they’re not too happy about, they can ask you for a little re-write or pick a different friend to help describe them. So the idea is not to make people, in any way, feel like they don’t have any control over what’s happening or who they’re being presented to, and in what light—they really retain that control but they have the opportunity to have somebody else talk up how great they are and how cool they are without being awkward. It’s also kind of fun to read how other people’s friends describe them—maybe what they wouldn’t reveal about themselves. It’s really going to be a very positive, fun, and collaborative experience as opposed to anything like an ambush site or a situation whereby that person might feel uncomfortable or awkward about being presented in a way that they wouldn’t normally describe themselves.

I have friends who will come to me for advice because they know I run this website. Some of them still seem to treat online dating like their dirty little secret and I’m curious, are you concerned that some people may be too shy to ask their friends for help? Or what encouragement would you offer if you felt they were to shy to ask?

What we’ve found is that most people still don’t want to publicize to everyone on their friends list that they’re dating and that’s why when we’ve done things like integration into Facebook: we’ve done it in such a way that still allows the person whose going out to date the control as to whether or not they’re sharing that information with their friends. For instance, we have an application on the site whereby you can ask other friend’s opinions about people you might be considering going on a date with. And you hand select those people from your friends list and when they reply to you nothing appears in your news feed or on your wall on Facebook—not everybody else your friends with on Facebook would know you’re trying to date.

Photo by jessica.garro

You can read the second half of my HelloJackieJoe interview here. Also, HelloJackieJoe is offering 60-days free to LittleRedRails’ readers. This offer won’t last forever so if you’re interested you should check it out today.

Related posts:

1. The HelloJackieJoe Interview, Part 2
2. On the Fence about Online Dating
3. The Affects of Angle

With that in mind, have I mentioned how much I love OKCupid? This free dating service offers more dating statistics than all the other dating services combined and they recently released a new tool for you to generate your own statistics to help you pick the best photo for your profile: MyBestFace. The service is simple (yet powerful):

1. Upload your photos

2. Help others by rating their photos
3. Get a Full report on your photos based on what others think

My favorite part of this, not surprisingly, is the statistical profile photo reports that are given based on what others think. It’s not just a list that tells you which photo you should use. Instead, it breaks out the people who rated you based on different categories such as Christian, Artists, Liberals, Guys/Girls 18-22, and so on. So not only do they show you your best photo, they also allow you to select the best photo based on the type of person you would want to meet. For example, below are some results for a photo that overall was quite unpopular:

However, as you can see there are groups who actually like the photo. If you were only interested in dating extroverts you might consider using a photo with results like this. Overall it’s a very unpopular photo so I doubt it would be worth it but you get the idea.

So again, I think OKCupid is awesome and once again their bringing value to singles in areas that no one else is even thinking about.

Related posts:

1. Does Your Dating Profile Photo Say What You Think It Does?
2. Should Dating Sites Offer More Options for Hiding Your Photo?
3. My Dating Profile Gets Lots of Views But I Get No Emails

Match.com Prices

With those costs being covered, it is worth noting that first time subscribers can save 20% using this promotion. With these saving you would be looking at paying approximately:

Obviously using the promotion is something you will want to take advantage of when subscribing if you can.

What Comes for Free at Match.com?

When you create an account at Match.com you need not subscribe – you can use the free version. However, at Match.com the free version is limited to a few simple things, namely creating your profile, viewing other profiles and winking at other users. Viewing other profiles should allow you to see if there are other singles you are interested in before signing up. Winking while using the free version of the service doesn’t bring much value since even if they respond, you’ll not be able to communicate until subscribing. Also, winking generally doesn’t work well for guys so if there are any men out there who are trying to gauge women’s interest by winking that may not be the best way to measure it. Generally the free version of Match.com is a view-only version.

Is Match.com Worth the Price?

In my opinion, the best way to determine if the service is worth the price is by asking yourself a few questions. First, how important is finding a relationship to you? If it is extremely important then it is something at least worth considering. The second question is: how are you finding your dates today? If you aren’t finding any dates, then the prices should appear very fair. On the other hand, if you are finding dates through other means such as going to the bar you will want to consider how much this activity is costing you.

For example, if you subscribe to Match.com for 3 months using the 20% promotion, you’re only spending $3.99 per week ($47.97 divided by 12 weeks). It is my opinion that finding dates at activities for less than this cost would be a tall order but if you are able to do so then the price would be too high for you. For everyone else, the price is great when you consider how little you actually pay over time.

Be Aware of Auto-Renewals

As far as I am aware, all online dating services implement auto-renewals. You should be warned of this when signing up but most of us quickly by-pass those screens. Auto-renewals are important to keep in mind because whatever time period you sign up for the first time will be the time period they sign you up for when the auto-renewal occurs. This means if you sign up for 6 months and then find that special someone, you need to remember to cancel your account. Don’t just forget about it or you will end up having to call Match.com to try to get the auto-renewal reversed!

Related posts:

1. What Is the Price of Chemistry.com Subscriptions?
2. What Is the Price of eHarmony Subscriptions?
3. Issues with the Match.com Six Month Guarantee

This is a fun way to find dates but it is more than that: it also removes much of the pressure of creating your online dating profile and appears to keep the mood on this dating site lighter. You do specify settings in your profile but it is limited to areas such as your religion, how much you smoke and so on. There are no areas of your profile where you are required to write about yourself.

The only bad news I can see about this site so far is that it is only available in New York City at the moment. If I were to guess, though, I would say they’ll have success and will be expanding to other areas so.

Creating A Profile at How About We

Creating a profile at How About We… is perhaps the fastest sign-up process I’ve seen (with the exception of signing up for Zoosk using your Facebook account).

1. Selecting Which Dates You Like the Most
In the first step of creating your profile, you’ll be presented with 10 different date suggestions and you will rank each of these. How About We will then use these settings to help suggest date ideas in the future.

3. Your Profile
As I mentioned above, your profile at this dating site is very simple. Specify the age range you are interested in, what type of relationship you are looking for, how long you would like your dates to last and so on. You will also be offered a chance to upload a photo (which you should take advantage of).

A Few How About We Dating Ideas I Saw

Here are a few of the date ideas I saw when browsing the site for a minute or two:

“How about we… go to the driving range at Chelsea Piers and hit golf balls.”
“How about we… take a boat tour of Manhattan at night with wine in hand.”
“How about we… have fun”
“How about we… pop open a bottle of prosecco”
“How about we… run around the city “one upping” each other on random acts of kindness.”

Clearly some of these are better than others! The important thing in my mind is to be as honest as possible even if you think your idea is strange. If someone else sees your “strange” idea and they love it, you’ll probably have a great time together.

Related posts:

1. Need a Date Idea? Try Stealing One!
2. Dating Site Review: CatholicMatch.com
3. A Second Dating Profile Review

Most Services Do Not Like Hiding Photos

Many dating services do not want to have photos hidden because these photos can convince other singles to sign up. If other people are like me, they don’t randomly sign up at a dating service. Instead, they try a few services and when they find one where they think see good potential with the singles there, they sign up for that service. When photos are hidden, people signing up will have to make their decision for some other reason.

This is why I believe eHarmony is able to hide photos from non-paying members where other services cannot: eHarmony is selling strong relationships that are personality based. This means that every match you receive is a potential great date whether you can see their photo or not. Because of this, the fact that the photos are hidden at this site is actually serves as further encouragement to sign up. In contrast, other sites rely in large part on physical attraction to encourage singles to sign up.

Many People Would Prefer More Hiding Options

Many singles are still embarrassed to be using online dating. Sometimes it is not even online dating itself that people dislike but the idea that they would be advertising that they are single. Some people feel like there is something wrong with openly looking for a relationship as if successful people find their relationships without an effort. Regardless of the reason, it is understandable that many people would prefer to not show their photo.

The thing is, many of these people do not want to hide their photo entirely. Instead, they want to make sure that the only people viewing them are those they could actually end up dating. That makes a lot of sense to me. Having an option on whether you wanted your photos to be public or only viewable to singles paying for the service is a great idea. Those people who are happy to have their photo visible to everyone would have to change nothing and those who would prefer to be more private could ensure only potential dates are able to see them.

Related posts:

1. Selecting Your Main Photo for Your Dating Profile
2. Match.com Questions and Answers
3. Are Niche Dating Sites Worth My Time or Money?

1. Find a service you are interested in trying

2. Sign up for the free version of the service
3. Wait
4. Eventually you will likely receive an email offer from the site for use of the service at a discounted price

Obviously this method will not be for everyone. If you are anxious to start dating online you are not going to want to wait weeks (or possibly months) to see if the site will ever offer a discount. However, if you are on the fence about using online dating, this might be the perfect way to find extra discounts.

Photo by hill.josh

Why I Know Signing Up At Dating Services Works

I should probably explain that as a part of running this site I sign up for lots of dating services. Lots of dating services. Often it is out of a desire to see what they have to offer, or to see if the site has change, or to write a review on the site, or sometimes to review a profile if someone contacts me. Regardless, I have more dating accounts than would normally be reasonable. Because I have all of these accounts, I get to see many of these email promotions first hand.

Some Examples of Dating Site Special Offers:
To give you an idea, these are a few of the offers I have seen recently:

• Christian Cafe sent an offer for 3 days free and 25% off when signing up
• JDate offered 36% off of subscription prices during their Passover sale
• Chemistry.com offered 3 days free (basically a personal free weekend promotion)
• Matchmaker.com offered a 7 day free trial after some inactivity on my account
• Spark.com offered $35 off over a holiday weekend (if you signed up on that weekend)
• CatholicMatch.com has offered discounts for dates like St. Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day and Easter.
• DatingDirect offered one month for £4.99
• Lavalife send a promotion code to save 25% off a subscription

I could find more if I went further back in my email but I imagine you get the idea.

The Big Dating Sites Are the Exception

Perhaps not surprisingly, the biggest online dating services do not follow this rule. Neither Match.com nor eHarmony have ever sent a discount offer. Now to be fair, eHarmony has free weekends almost every month so technically by having an account you can take advantage of deals when signed up but that’s a little different than the other offers I see. If you sign up for one of the big sites hoping for a discount you might be waiting for a long time!

Update May 4, 2010: A reader wrote in to inform me that you can get good deals through Match.com using this method:

Just a note about signing up for a free account and waiting for discounts… match.com DOES offer them. I get emails offering 25% off regularly, after signing up free to browse.

You may have to set your profile correctly, because the mail always notes “Because you asked to be notified of Match.com Special Offers, we will send you emails such as this on a periodic basis.”

Thanks for the update J!

Additionally, I received an email from eHarmony over the weekend offering me 3 months for a very cheap price so it looks like I may have been wrong about my thoughts on the “big” services. It appears that all dating services may take advange of this tactic from time to time.

Related posts:

1. Dating Services: How Long Should I Sign Up For?
2. Why Haven’t Free Dating Services Beaten the Pay Services?
3. What is a Good User Name for Online Dating Services?

Often when dating online, you will find yourself on a date with someone you quickly realize you are not compatible with. Simple profiles frequently fall short of revealing the true character of the people we date. MatchAffinity helps address this issue by taking the compatibility of you and your dates into account before you even see each other’s profiles. MatchAffinity incorporates an extensive compatibility questionnaire to determine your interests, values, beliefs and goals and then uses this information to connect you with the best singles based on who you are.

While this idea may not be new, MatchAffinity has created a service specifically catered to singles in the United Kingdom that also offers flexibility lacking from other matching services available today.

How Does MatchAffinity Work?

Generally, dating services fall into one of two categories:

• Match Based: Match-based sites use your personality to provide you with a limited number of singles who match best with you. The good is that you only see those people who you are likely to get along well with, the bad is that you are only seeing the people the site believes you should date.

• Browse Based: Browse-based sites allow you to browse through all of the dating profiles and select exactly who you wish to contact. The good here is that you have total freedom in who you contact, the bad is that you’ll find yourself on dates with people that you get on with poorly.

MatchAffinity Matches Screen

Sign Up Process

The sign up process at MatchAffinity is an extensive one due to the fact that you need to provide information on your personality, values and interests. This information is then used to provide you with the best matches. Some of the questions are very straight forward, such as how well you deal with stress, while other areas of the profile creation are more mysterious, such as the question that has you select which color describes you best. You will want to set aside 30 minutes or so to fill out your affinity profile questions.

Sample Screen from MatchAffinity Sign-up

MatchAffinity Features

Compatibility Based Matching
MatchAffinity helps you meet the people you’ll match best with. This is perhaps the most important feature of the service and will help you better determine who you will be contacting.

Contact Anyone You Want
While the service provides a great compatibility system, unlike other service you are not limited in who you can contact. Not interested in the matches you’ve been provided with? That’s not a problem, you can contact the people you want to regardless of how strong your compatibility is.

Advanced Searching
To find other singles you wish to contact, you can use the Advanced Search functionality. This allows you to search for singles on dozens of different areas such as race, religion, interests and so on.

Online Coaching
This feature really sets MatchAffinity apart. Many services will offer profile advice but always at an additional cost to the user. MatchAffinity on the other hand has rolled this feature into the service itself. The cost of a professionally written profile can often be as much as the dating service itself so this feature bring enormous value to the dating service.

Video Coaching
A small feature but still very nice: MatchAffinity provides many videos with advices ranging from just starting at the service to moving your relationship forward.

MatchAffinity Subscription Pricing

3 months: £29.00 per month (for a total of £87.00)
6 months: £19.00 per month (for a total of £114.00)
12 months: £14.00 per month (for a total of £168.00)

If you think these prices are too expensive consider the fact that if you did sign up for 3 months you would only be paying around £7 a week. Most people will spend more than that at the pub each week without meeting anyone at all (or when they do meet someone, odds are the compatibility will be missing). I believe your time will be better spend chatting with other singles that match well with you rather than leaving everything up to chance and still spend as much or more. In the end, I think you can spend less and have more success with MatchAffinity than many of the “traditional” methods.

Final Thoughts on MatchAffinity

Overall I feel MatchAffinity brings a very strong service to the world of online dating. It’s concentration on a single geographical area should benefit its users, it has an easy to use system and the affinity matching system will help singles avoid some of the bad dates that other services can’t avoid.

Related posts:

1. MatchAffinity Free Weekend: June 4th to June 6th 2010
2. Dating Site Review: CatholicMatch.com
3. Match Affinity Free Weekend for UK Singles – Apr 30 to May 2, 2010