Phone Pudding

First steps in the wonderful world of smartphone dating apps

In my investigation of innovative dating services, I cannot overlook smartphone dating apps.

In theory, it could be beautiful: sign up, switch on GPS, let the phone determine where you are, and if there are any matches nearby - preferably people who share an interest.

No more time wasted writing endless messages to people who have left the site years ago. No more looking at photoshopped pictures. Simply walk up to another user and say "Excuse me, are you that girl who loves skiing?"

I wanted to try out simply one app and review it, but I haven't been able to investigate any one app in depth. So instead, I'll just discuss the ones that I've found.

The okCupid app
Since I'm already on okCupid, I figured this app might be worth a try. Unfortunately, the blurb on Android Market doesn't make clear what the advantage of the app is when you're already on the site.
It doesn't mention location-based services, for example. In fact, it seems that the only use for this app is to automatically log on to okCupid. I'm already growing tired of writing messages to people who don't respond, I really don't see the advantage in doing so on a Tinkerbell-sized keyboard.

MyYearbook
MyYearbook is a social network, but for some reason decided that it's app should be listed in the Android Market with "dating" as a tag.

I installed the app and tried to sign up. Things went well until it demanded my e-mail address - AND password.

That's right - I had not even signed up, and it already demanded my e-mail password. I couldn't sign up without supplying this information. I decided to give it a bogus password to see what would happen. myYearbook tried to access my e-mail, told me the password was wrong, and if I would be so kind as to provide the right password.

....and I thought Facebook was aggressive!

Needless to say, I removed this app from my phone.

The eHarmony app
eHarmony is a paid service. Having been bitten by match.com and lexa.nl in the past, I am wary of paid services. In general, only paying members can respond to your messages on these things, meaning that 9 times out of 10, you might as well write a message to your TV set. (It's actually less idiotic since, if you switch on the TV set, it will at least say something back...)

So I read the blurb carefully. It uses the word "FREE" (in capitals) a lot, but if you read between the lines, you find that it will not let members respond for "FREE"

The blurb informs you that it's "better than the dating apps for Skout, Zoosk, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish or Match.com" - thereby violating Dutch advertising law, which states that you can only directly attack a competitor if you can prove your claims. eHarmony suggests their psychological test is more important than profile pictures. Unfortunately, they also inform you that their psychological test has been shortened optimized for smartphone users, who can take it in 10 minutes.
So what's going on? Apparently smartphone users get a dumbed-down version of the eHarmony test, so either their matching isn't as good as those who buy the original thing, or the matching algorithm isn't as sophisticated as we've always been told. But that casts the whole "better than those sites with profile pictures" in a very weird light.

...and it doesn't mention location-based services (GPS) either.

The app for eHarmony is "FREE", but it's utterly useless until you're a paying member of eHarmony. Until then, eHarmony gets to advertise itself on your phone for "FREE".


SinglesAroundMe
I was initially put off by this app, because the maker claimed that it "has taken the world by storm". Must have been a very quiet kind of storm then, I never even heard of this app until now.
But when I found that most dating apps fill their blurbs with self-aggrandizing drivel, I decided to give this one another look. Once I got past the usual blah-blah, I found that this one does use GPS. It even seems to have some users over here in the Netherlands.
It doesn't ask for all that many privileges, either - GPS, camera, a few more. I'm not quite sure why it wants the access to the camera, I guess it's so I can take a picture of myself for use with the app.
But this is one app I installed. Unfortunately, it is bug-ridden; most of the time, it tells me GPS isn't switched on, even though it is. This can sometimes be helped by killing the process in the Task Manager and re-starting it, but really... how user-friendly is that?
When I finally get through and log on, it tells me that logon fails because it "can't find www/login.htm" (or something like that).
I'll give this one a few more chances, but those bugs had better be fixed soon!

And finally...
On closing, there is one thing I'd like to say to the people who make smartphone dating apps:

I'm NOT interested in how "great" your app is. I'm NOT interested in your endless self-praise and your bad-mouthing the competition.

What I AM intersted in is: HOW does your app work, and HOW MANY members do you have in my country?

If you can't answer those two questions, you have no business writing dating apps.

Murphy's Laws of Online Dating

Over the last few weeks, I haven't had the time to try out another dating site; the real world, both at work and in my spare time, has kept me quite busy.

So there's no review this time. But in order to stick to my 2-weekly schedule, I'm giving you something else instead - what I consider to be Murphy's laws of online dating.
As usual, this is from the perspective of a straight male.... although some of them hold for other perspectives as well.

Disclaimer: I have no ownership of the "Murphy's law" thing. (This should be obvious for everyone except intellectual property morons...)
Now that we have that out of the way, here comes the list.

1. The biggest proponent of online dating is the friend who has never done online dating.
2. If a dating site doesn't work for you, it looses a member.
   But if it does work for you, it looses two members.
   So it's better for a dating site to suck than to work.
   
3. Matching algorithms will match you to someone who hasn't been online for 3 weeks.
4. The profile you really like belongs to someone who forgot about her account.
5. Your carefully composed message of genuine interest... will get drowned in the messages from other guys, and be deleted unread.
6. If your friends know 1 person who met his or her lover online, they will conclude that "online dating works".
   If your friends know 10 people who have given up online dating in disgust, they will ignore this.
   
7. Every dating site considers itself "leading".
8. Every dating site considers itself "the Google of online dating".
9. Dating sites where you can't see the picture until you've chatted - have a magical attraction for ugly people.
10. Articles that criticize paid dating services are written by free dating services.
11. Articles that criticize free dating services are written by paid dating services.
12. Dating sites speak half-truths about everything from their number of members to the price of their serivces... and then tell their members to be honest to each other.

Anybody else have Murphy-worthy comments on online dating? Let me know!

Edit: Added the one about being honest. (May 19)

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.