How ok is this pudding?

(A review of okCupid.com)

Before I start with today's review, I'd like to let you know that I intend to make this blog a bi-weekly feature. I cannot yet commit to that, because trying out dating sites is a time-consuming exercise. But I will do my best.

Now let's get on with the review. Several people have told me to try okCupid.

I was a bit hesitant about this. Although okCupid is a free site with a reasonable reputation, it was acquired by match.com - a site so appallingly bad that even it's own CEO doesn't use it.
It's also involved in a class action lawsuit for it's number of dead profiles.

But the only guy I know who got his girlfriend from a dating site, met her on okCupid. So maybe, I thought, I should go on okCupid before match.com ruins it with their silly ideas about how a dating site should work?

And so I got on okCupid, which is a "profile gallery" - a set of profiles that you can write to.
It doesn't bother you with a questionnaire or psychological test beforehand - there are more questions and tests than you can shake a stick at, but you can answer them whenever you please. Many of them were not made by okCupid, but by members. Which means that not all the tests and questions are serious.

While okCupid is a profile gallery, it won't let you write to profiles indiscriminately. It selects the profiles it shows you with a matching algorithm. The algorithm bases its choices on how you and other members answered the questions.
But when you start browsing your matches, it also shows you people who are "like" your matches. Generally, there is a sidebar on each profile showing what people are "like" that profile. And you can contact these people too, even if they're not matched to you.
So essentially, it's a profile gallery that pretends to be a matching system.

And then there are some interesting discoveries...

1. okCupid has informed me that I am in the top half of it's most attractive people. And that my matches will now be selected from more attractive people. ...That doesn't explain the profile whose only picture displays a guy. (And not even a handsome guy at that!)

2. Lots of dead profiles.
okCupid has lots of inactive profiles - I've seen profiles whose last activity was dated 2007 and even a few from 2006! Neither can I blame match.com for this - 2007 was long before match.com acquired okCupid.
On the plus side, at least okCupid still lets you know when these profiles were last active. Match.com and lexa.nl simply state "last active over 3 months ago". Back when I was on match.com and lexa.nl, I have written to some of those profiles when I got more desperate adventurous. Now I wonder how old those profiles really were?

3. One-shot contacts.
okCupid tells you beforehand if someone responds "selectively" or "often". This is good, but it doesn't tell you if somebody maintains these contacts. I've got a response rate of 50% and usually positive reactions to my profile. But only one has bothered to reply after the first exchange of messages. So, it's not as frustrating as the average profile gallery, but it's still not much of a way to meet girls!
Also, after you've sent somebody a message, it will tell you when you first contacted this person...instead of the response rate.

4. Free or paid?
okCupid is free... but it bugs you about paid "A-list" memberships. Sometimes it offers you a feature, then when you click on it, it tells you that only "A-list" members get that feature.

5. Matched to what age??
okCupid lets you set the age category you're interested in... and then ignores it. I have been matched to women who stated that the maximum age for their men was 4 years below my age.

Despite all this, I'm actually still positive about okCupid. They should get rid of these old profiles, but at least they show you that these people last logged in 5 years ago, so you don't waste time and effort on messages. (And it conveniently illustrates how big the problem is... something the newspapers never tell you when they advertise discuss online dating).

If okCupid were a pudding...

If okCupid were a pudding, it would be a light dessert, with the obligatory little extra's like sprinkles. Although the taste is good and varied, it is just too airy and light, and leaves you a little hungry at the end of the meal.

And now in English...

So, what does that mean in English? An analysis of the analogy.

"A light dessert, with the obligatory little extra's like sprinkles."

okCupid has a number of features, including games (I haven't tried those yet) and tests, and the users can make tests themselves, too. It cracks the occassional joke - when it asks what languages you speak,one of the possible answers is the computer programming language C++! But unlike klikthet.nl which I discussed earlier, it knows when to stop.

"The taste is good..."

As dating sites go, okCupid is fun. The freeform approach to the questionnaire makes answering the questions something you can do at leisure, rather than an annoying requirement.

"...and varied"

Probably due to it's freeform format, okCupid attracts a lot of non-mainstream daters. I've seen bisexuals, people in open relationships and even a few bdsm enthusiasts. In other words, the population is very varied, from all walks of life.

"It is just too airy and light, and leaves you a little hungry at the end of the meal."

While no dating site has ever gotten me a date, okCupid outdid the rest by almost getting me a date.

Pudding Judgment: 6 out of 10

This site worked for one person I know, and it tries to work for me. I'm even starting to believe that profile galleries aren't such a bad idea after all - it's just that most sites are Doing It Wrong. I'm not so certain that okCupid is Doing It Right, but at least it's on the way. I'll be keeping my profile on this one.

The Pudding Taster and the Virtual Quizmaster (2)

A review of klikthet.nl, part 2

Yours truly, the Pudding Taster, has decided to quit referring to himself in 3th person. It seemed a good idea at first, but it makes for awkward writing.... and is hard to do consistently.

The picture on the left (from "Asterix and the Mansions of the Gods") illustrates the further drawbacks of this particular style. :-)

That being said, let's move on to today's review. I have been continuing my adventures on klikthet.nl - the weirdest dating service I've encountered so far.

I should start this review with a rectification. When I previously wrote about this site, I said that the Fair Trade label was not included in it's list of trademarks. This was in error; the Fair Trade label is there, but it is listed under "Max Havelaar" - the Dutch member of Fairtrade International. You don't see the trademarks in the system until you start typing, so typing "F" never showed me "Fair Trade". Only when I started looking for the Dutch brand instead, did I find it.

Next, about the site itself. As you may recall, this site asks it's members everything, then uses the answers in a quizzing game - you get to see pictures of other users, and are asked what they answered in the questionnaire.
The quizzing game is entertaining, but it can be outright silly. Some questions are nearly impossible to answer ("what province is this guy from?" - when you only see a head). Others are giveaways ("What skin color did this girl enter in her questionnaire?"). One other question was, "which of these three people is convinced that there's no God?" (Hint from yours truly: it's not the one wearing a crucifix).

Of course, answering questions about people doesn't get you in touch with them... which is the purpose of a dating site.
For that, the site matches you to people, that you can then chat with. Like most matching systems, only the makers of the site know what it is based on. Not getting a match for a long time, I decided to raise the age of my preferred match... and shortly after that, I got a new match. Strangely, she was not only younger than the age I indicated, but even younger than the age I originally entered! Not that I mind being matched to a much younger woman, but I have some doubts that the lady agrees...

And recently, I got another match... so now I have 3 matches that I could chat with... if they came online. Ever.

If Klikthet.nl were a pudding...
If this site were a pudding, it would be covered with whipped cream, sprinkles, those little paper umbrellas and paper flags... but if you sank your spoon in it, you would find that there's not actually a pudding underneath!

And now in English...
So, what does that say about the site in plain English? Let's see...

covered with whipped cream, sprinkles, those little paper umbrellas and paper flags:
This site revolves around a game. The game lets you score points, that you can then spend... for example, to get a view of how other people judged you.
Sometimes the site shows you two pictures of members of your desired gender, and asks which one you like best. Dragging a heart symbol to one of the two will make the two of you a potential click... if the other accepts. The price is 20 points. (It looks like this will not be taken from your points total until the other accepts - so far the only one I asked has not responded).

Also, the site uses popular language, apparently aiming at a young audience. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but it is done so often that it feels awkward and forced.

You can also use the points to get analysis results from your own clicking (although what this is based upon, again only the site knows). This is presented in the form of a restaurant menu, which rather wreaks havoc with my "pudding" analogy. Also I find it somewhat dubious that "new members and clicks" are called "free-range meat" in this restaurant menu... even worse in Dutch, where the word "scharrel" (free-range) can also refer to a casual romantic partner or even a person in a casual sexual encounter!

You can describe your preferred match in detail, but you can drag a teddy bear icon to any point that you find particularly important. You get three teddy bears for this purpose.

If you sank your spoon in it, you would find that there's not actually a pudding underneath
None of the my matches are online when I am. Since you can also type a message into the chatbox when the other is offline, I asked my first match if she ever came online. The silence that has now lasted for weeks tells me enough... this is yet another site that has a lot of inactive members.

Pudding Judgment: 5 out of 10 (meaning it's still unsatisfactory)
This is a funny site, but until my matches decide to come online and communicate, it fails miserably as a dating service.
It's a waste of time, but to this site's credit, at least it's a pleasant waste of time.

Activity Pudding

(A review of nmlk.nl)

Yours truly the Pudding Taster is a member of NMLK - "Nieuwe Mensen Leren Kennen" ("Meeting New People").

NMLK is not a dating site - it is an "activity site".

The site contains a list of activities. Members can subscribe to these activities - meaning they agree to go there. Members can also organize activities themselves, and that is how most activities on NMLK start.

How does it differ from Meetup Groups? The Pudding Taster will not be able to judge this until he has joined a Meetup Group; but at first glance, it would seem that Meetup Groups are groups of people who share a particular interest. NMLK, by contrast, has lots of different activities to choose from, catering to a variety of tastes. From a dog walk to a workshop on making chocolates, from skate-dancing to an ordinary drink - there's a lot of events you can join on this site!

NMLK helps you to try out new things - by facilitating the process of introducing yourself.

If you go somewhere by yourself, and want to meet people - you will have to address them. Depending on the situation, this may be awkward. With NMLK, there is always a group of people that you belong to.

NMLK points out that it is a site for meeting people in general, NOT a dating site. According to themselves, it started when 2 young men moved to Amsterdam and realized they didn't know anybody there. So they set up this site to meet other people there.

It has since grown into a site with a large membership.

Not all members are single, but most are, says NMLK - this fits the experience of the Pudding Taster, who has never heard anybody talk about their Significant Other at an NMLK activity.

But being single is not a requirement for joining NMLK, and the Pudding Taster approves of this; it keeps NMLK firmly away from the world of "singles activities", and creates a more relaxed atmosphere. The Pudding Taster believes that, paradoxically, this should make it more conducive to finding love! (Remember the old adage that loves comes when you don't expect it?)

Yet NMLK seems to have taken a cue from dating sites: they try to get an equal number of male and female members, and there is a waiting list for those who want to join.

If NMLK were a pudding....how does Activity Pudding taste?
Activity Pudding has a lot of substance, and a flavor of one's choosing. Although the sweet ingredient of love was not in the pudding that yours truly the Pudding Taster had, he believes that it could well be on the menu.

And now in English:
With NMLK, you actually meet people in real life. You don't have to write to them beforehand - you really meet, then and there (the "substance" of the pudding).

You can join any activity you like, and there are a lot of them (hence, "a flavor of one's choosing").

Not all activities are created equal. Some gather more public than others do.
The group is different for every activity, and some groups are more fun than others are. But that holds true wherever you go.

The best part is - if you don't meet Miss or Mr Right, at least you've been out and socialized with people. You've been doing something fun, and perhaps found an activity that you didn't even know existed.

Pudding Judgment: 8 out of 10

The Pudding Taster finds NMLK the best pudding he's had so far - in fact, the only service he willingly pays for!

Fun with Numbers

Just a quick but interesting finding....

Of the 2.2 million singles in the Netherlands, 3 million are members of Relatieplanet.nl.

Sources:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrijgezel (for the number of 2.2 million singles)
http://www.datingwebsites.nl/vergelijker.php?check_13=1&check_8=1 (for the 3 million members).

Also note that Lexa.nl (which is owned by Match.com) claims 1.6 million members - apparently, every 1 in 10 people over here is a member of Lexa. With such numbers, we don't need to subscribe to Match/Lexa - just address people in real life, there's a 10% chance that they are single & looking!

Who knew mathematics could be so funny?

The Pudding Taster's Tips for Selecting a Dating Site

Here are some of the things to look for when you join a dating site, mostly from the perspective of a straight male.

This piece is personal opinion, based upon personal experience.

Does the site tell you when somebody last logged in?

A dating service should tell you when somebody last logged in. This indicates whether the person is active on the site. If a person has not logged in for a long time, there is no point in trying to contact her (or him): this person has left the site, but forgotten to delete the profile.

How hard is it to unsubscribe?

Sometimes, dating sites make it deliberately hard to unsubscribe. As long as you haven't completed the unsubscription process, they can legitimately add you to the number of members - even if you haven't logged on to the site in two years!
If it is hard to unsubscribe, this means that there will be a lot of profiles from people who stopped using the site long ago, and never managed to remove their profile.

How is the male/female imbalance dealt with?

Since there are far more men than women on dating services, women get flooded by messages. For men, this means it is very hard to get a response.
Some services, like PaiQ.nl, solve this by only allowing contact between people matched by the system, thus limiting the deluge of messages towards women.
Another approach, taken by PlentyOfFish.com, is to let users set restrictions on who can contact them - like age range, and "must not have messaged users for Intimate Encounter". Other services, like Match.com, do not seem to address the issue at all.

If it's a paid service: can Free Members write back?

Paid dating services have 'Free Memberships' and 'Full Memberships'.
A Free Member is anybody who ever made a profile in the site and hasn't deleted it.
A Full Member is a paying member; only paying members can contact people.
On many sites, including match.com, lexa.nl and relatieplanet.nl, Free Members cannot respond to the messages they get. The sites never tell you who is a Free Member and who is a Full Member, so as a paying Full Member, you spend a lot of time composing messages that the recpipient cannot respond to until (s)he pays. Depending on the dating site, the recipient of your message may never see more than the subject line!
On a related note, paid dating services like to say that paid dating services are better than free ones. The theory is that people who are willing to pay for online dating are more serious about it. But if that is true, then why don't they tell us who the serious members are?

The Pudding Taster and the Virtual Quizmaster (1)

A review of klikthet.nl

"Klikt het?" is Dutch for "Does it click?"

This is a dating site that is set up around a game. To participate in this game, one has to upload 2 pictures (a headshot and a full-body shot), and fill in a questionnaire. The makers say that they'll keep it easy and just give you just a few questions, but "a few" seems to be a very relative term....there were over 30.

Also, some of the questions were a little weird. Like, "what hair colour should your ideal match have?" - the Pudding Taster doesn't have much of a preference, really! Her ideal weight and age had to be specified down to a centimeter and a year, respectively. And leaving it blank was not an option - you can only play if you answer all the questions first.
Then you have to specify, among others, your taste in music and your favorite trademarks. Sadly, some of the Pudding Tasters favorite trademarks were missing - and that includes the Fair Trade label.
Adding something yourself was not an option, but that was for a good reason that will be revealed later.

The weirdest question was what your ideal match should be - single, in a relation, or married. Yes, you read that right - the site allows you to match with someone who is already in a relation or even married.
The Pudding Taster is increasingly led to believe that the makers of dating site questionnaires are very weird people!

Playing the game

The game is simple - you are shown pictures of members and asked questions about them. For example, "how often does this person smoke". You can then choose from 3 possible answers. Giving the right answer will give you 4 to 6 "clicks" (the precise amount differs per question), giving the wrong one will cost you a similar amount. Skipping a question is an option this time, but will cost you 3 points.... er, clicks.
Other questions included what trademark fitted with a person. This explains why you have to choose such things from a limited list, and are not allowed to add new entries. The answers given in the questionnaire are meant to help in composing a multiple-choice quiz for other members.

This quizzing game is regularly interrupted by a different kind of question - two pictures of other members of the desired gender are shown, and you are asked which one you like best. Dragging a heart symbol to one of the pictures might get you in touch with this person - at a cost of 20 clicks. If the other accepts, you become "clicks".

The game is quite addictive, if a little superficial. Are we really supposed to determine people's culinary preferences from their looks? (The Pudding Taster wonders if the people at klikthet.nl cater specifically to people wearing deerstalker hats and smoking pipes. Elementary, my dear Watson!)
Even so, it's one if those games where you keep thinking, "OK, let's play one more round".

The Pudding Taster got a match on Klikthet.nl. He sent her a message, and is still awaiting the response. The drawback here is that you know practically nothing about your match - all you have to go on are two pictures. Even someone's preferred trademarks might have been a conversation starter.

Pudding Judgment: pending.
The concept of this site is very good - play a game and meet potential dates. While on other sites, you hang out waiting for one of your matches to come online, here you spend the waiting time taking quizzes.
Also, the system determines to whom you can speak, although you have some input.
Still, it hasn't given the Pudding Taster a date - or even a communication! Until it does that, it fails as a dating service. Since new matches are given only once every 2 weeks, according to the site itself, the Pudding Taster is giving it some more time.

The Pudding Taster and the Social Network (2)

Yours truly, the Pudding Taster, has continued his adventures on Single.nl.
He has sent messages to several people, but not gotten a single response (no pun intended). Not that the Pudding Taster is surprised: this is quite normal for dating sites, for reasons explained elsewhere. He has also been active in the forums, but that has not yielded results either.

How does Social Network pudding taste?
If Single.nl were a pudding... it would have been made by a cook who did a half-hearted attempt at establishing who you were, then based his pudding on that. The cook presents his pudding as being better than others,but the ingredients have gone stale.

And now in English:

"a cook who did a half-hearted attempt at establishing who you were"
Single.nl allows you to describe your interests - things in which you are "interested", "not interested" or an "expert". But the subjects are vague. For example, what does it mean to be an expert in "military"? That you are a Civil War buff? Or that you have a profound interest in military hardware? While the one does not exclude the other, there's a world of difference.

" the cook presents his pudding as being better than others"
Single.nl says it's a social network. Why? Because you can be "friends" with other members? News flash, Marquet B.V. - other sites have been doing that too.

"the ingredients have gone stale"
There are very few people on this site. Worse, it doesn't tell you the last time people were active - you may be writing to someone who hasn't been online in 3 months.

Pudding Judgment: 3 out of 10
Single.nl is not a social network. It is just a profile gallery like every other run-of-the-mill dating site. Worse, however, is that it has a very limited membership. And even there it is doubtful which of the members are active. The whole thing has been a waste of time.