I must have wound down too much over the holidays or something because, well..... when I started building a new node for the Open Irish Directory yesterday, a dating node, ..... it suddenly occured to me that.... well..... there's no other way to say this...... GODDAMIT I'm 34 and I still haven't found the woman of my dreams!!! Boooohooooooo!
Now you presumably visit this blog for tech talk so I won't burden you with my sentimental outpourings (you can go here if you want to revel in the fact that somone has a sadder life than you!) but while I was perusing the current crop of dating sites it occurred to me that I'd never fit as much information into a profile as could be gleaned about me through my live online journal. Brian O'Neill is the founder of Spark, one of the more original dating sites targetting the Irish market and it would be interesting to get figures from him on what percentage of members write extended profiles.
Anyway, I've added the Dating node under the Entertainment & Shopping -> Dating & Relationships branch. Besides links to the regular dating websites there's a sub-node called By Blogging and each sub-node of that is a reading list. That means you can subscribe en masse to the group(s) you wish to track. Or you can browse them using Rowan Nairn's amazing OPML/RSS browser - OPod. You'll find EP Junior under the Males seeking Females -> 31-35 -> Limerick branch. The things I subject myself to in the name of research ;-)
January 12, 2006
I can't remember who it was...Paul Graham I think....who claimed that the "state" of dating sites was currently atrocious. There was definitely a disconnection between the expectations of the singleton and the expectations of the web site developer. how does it become a sustainable business model when the people on the site are resenting paying a few quid each month in order to message each other (or remove an artificial cap on messages). And the women who use them complain about the number of weirdoes there. And moderating photos without having to spend a lot of time rejecting pictures of gentalia? I've not really thought about it but it seems there must be a way to do it and not annoy people OR add features which are REALLY compelling..... Integrate it with Google Maps?
Anyway....
Posted by: MJ | January 12, 2006 at 10:04 PM
yet...........
incredible numbers of people try them.....maybe its the service that eventually lets them down? Im continually astonished at the type of people Ive met that have used to meet someone longterm through them..........people who would have considered writing a blog the height of geekness too! I think once they perfect their trade they could be on to a real winner.........
Posted by: Caoimhe | January 12, 2006 at 10:56 PM
Interesting viewpoints, thanks.
Posted by: James Corbett | January 13, 2006 at 11:35 AM
The sites do work, but like everything in life you get out what you put in. You get an amazing number of people who fill in the profile then never do anything - kinda pointless.
I have never had much of a problem with weirdos, i do a lot of screening a filter out most of the nut jobs.
Hand on heart i can say that 99% of people on dating sites are just like us, people looking a bit of romance and craic.
Mind you i will say the real world is better, you will get more luck at a dating event like speed dating. I always encourage members to meet up as soon as possible.
You need to be in the right move for dating, since the new year i have hit the bars and turned into a dating machine, talking to people in bars is not as bad as people imagine, you just need the right frame of mind.
Try NLP books like:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764570285/qid%3D1137251260/202-9372817-6069403
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/059305055X/qid=1137251291/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/202-9372817-6069403
And this is a general classic:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0749307846/qid=1137251315/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/202-9372817-6069403
Note the idea here is just to build up your self confidence - thats the secret to dating.
I am relaunching spark soon, so hopefully i can make 2006 the year of love for some more people :-)
Posted by: Brian O'Neill | January 14, 2006 at 03:10 PM