Pudding with Peppers

(A review of pepper.nl)

Hello all, and welcome back to another review of a (hopefully) innovative dating site.

Today's review is about Pepper.nl. I could say that it has been on my radar for a while... but it's more like it barged in, pushed all the other candidates aside, and started screaming, "I'm here! Right in the middle! Me! Me!"
And that is not a good sign. Above all, Pepper.nl is an attention whore.

But let's begin at the beginning. Several friends pointed me to a new website, "5daters.nl". Apparently, this was created by 5 singles who were fed up with the way dating sites work. And so, through this website, they started to ask other singles for input - how should a good dating site work?

In truth, the whole idea seems to have originated in the boardroom of commercial Dutch TV broadcaster RTL. This is not necessarily bad, but it is strange that they aren't more upfront about it.

Either way, the result of this crowd-surfing was a new dating site called Pepper.nl. The site is not free, but it has a free 1-month trial period.

When you sign up for Pepper.nl, it gives you a questionnaire; your answers in this questionnaire will later be used to connect you to other people on the site. (Nothing innovative so far!)

When dating sites make a questionnaire, they have a choice: they can take an existing psychological test, or make up the questions themselves. It seems that Pepper.nl chose the latter route.
Each question in the questionnaire is a statement, to which you can check one of four answers: "Helemaal mee oneens" ("Totally disagree"), "Meer oneens dan eens" ("Disagree more than agree"), "Meer eens dan oneens" ("Agree more than disagree"), and "Helemaal mee oneens" ("Totally disagree").
What is missing here is a "Don't know/don't care" option. This is probably intentional, an attempt to force you to answer one way or the other. This goes wrong when the site starts posing vague statements like "I look for situations in which I can express my different sides" ("Ik zoek naar situaties waarin ik de verschillende kanten van mezelf kwijt kan") or "Everything changes too often and too fast" ("Alles verandert te vaak en te snel"). Another tricky one: "I strife mostly for financial security" ("Ik streef vooral naar financiële zekerheid"). Err... what if I already have financial security?

And then you have to upload pictures. One conclusion of the crowd-surfing by 5daters.nl was that dating sites need more pictures. So their brainchild pepper.nl forces you to upload no less than 6.

And now we get to the painful part.
Pepper.nl wants to know what you like and dislike... from your Facebook or Hyves account. (Hyves is the major Dutch social network). The site tells you that it will only take what you allow it to take, but let's face it - this is Facebook we're talking about. If it feels like giving Pepper.nl all your surfing history it will do so without blinking. Hyves might be more careful, especially in consideration of what is left of the Dutch privacy laws. But ultimately, having a Hyves or Facebook account should not be required to do online dating. (I for one choose to keep my profiles strictly separate from my online dating profile because it is too identifying. I won't Facebook-friend people before I've met them in real life!)
Unfortunately, without the information from your Hyves or Facebook accounts, your profile is "not complete", and you won't get any matches.

But the kicker has yet to come!
Pepper.nl is heavily advertised on Dutch websites (that alone proves that this is not a simple project by a group of friends, but a serious commercial venture with a heavy advertising budget). The advertisement is a moving GIF that starts with "Dating sites - they don't work!" ("Dating sites - ze werken niet!").

And this is very true, because Pepper.nl literally doesn't work!

For more than a week now, when I try to log on to Pepper.nl to complete my profile, it tells me that I cannot get in because of security reasons (the favorite excuse of the incompetent technician).
Er... I log on, give my password, and THEN you tell me that you have security issues? If you have security issues, you should not be asking for passwords AT ALL, they might get compromised!
And for the record, I used the right password. I tried to log on with a bogus password and I was told that that password was wrong - I didn't get the "security" warning then.

If Pepper.nl were a pudding...
If Pepper.nl were a pudding, it would be made by a cook who asked you everything, and wouldn't take "I don't know" for an answer. The cook would then give you the pudding he said everyone else wanted. But when you tried to eat it, you would find that the dog has gotten it instead.

And now in English...

"made by a cook who asked you everything, and wouldn't take 'I don't know' for an answer."
The questionnaire is the usual annoyance; but it is worse because it only has 4 options, and not a "don't know"/"don't care" option. While I can see the logic behind this, the questions themselves were less well considered, making it an awkward experience. The people who make these questionnaires must be very weird individuals.

"The cook would then give you the pudding he said everyone else wanted."
Pepper.nl came about after a crowd-surf for input on how a dating site should work. This is a good idea, provided you realize that the crowd does not always know best.
There were 5 conclusions (http://www.5daters.nl/De_tussenstand/):

1. that dating sites needed complete profiles
2. that they needed more pictures
3. that matching formulas don't work but can be used to do a preliminary selection
4. that we don't need all the cliche's in profiles
5. that it should be about dialogue and real contact

Funny thing is, what is missing in this list is that there is a horrible male/female imbalance. And that it is very hard for us men to get serious contact with a woman, whereas women are hard-pressed to separate the "playas" and married husbands from the serious daters.
But the strangest part is that having real contact is considered only number 5; shouldn't contact be the first priority of a dating site??

...when you tried to eat it, you would find that the dog has gotten it instead.
Dogs can make food disappear in less than two seconds; Pepper can make access to your profile disappear in the same amount of time.
5daters.nl was on the right track by asking input from singles on how a dating site should work. Unfortunately, nobody bothered to tell them about "availability of service" - something online daters take for granted (those spoiled brats!) And so availability never made it to 5daters.nl/Pepper.nl's priority list.

Pudding Judgment: 1 out of 10
Bad-mouthing other dating sites, and then failing yourself. Not only failing to make a better dating site (that is to be expected), but failing to actually provide a service at all. Pepper.nl must be the laughingstock of the industry.