Tuesday, July 1, 2014

The Battle of Modern Dating - OkCupid, Match.com, SingaporeLoveLinks, Tinder

It's no longer rocket science that online dating has changed the way people meet. While some people still find the concept of online dating strange or intimidating, statistics has shown a huge hike in the number of people finding for love, online.



Here's a few platforms that I have used and my personal feedback and ratings. 

Ratings based out of 10:
Friendship Score: Have I got to know any friends from this platform?
Potential Rating: How are the quality of potentials on this site?
Overall Experience: Did I enjoy my dating experience from this platform?




OkCupid
Perhaps one of the most popular free dating sites, OkCupid uses a mathematical algorithm to determine compatibility based on member-created quizzes and multiple-choice questions. OkCupid says it’s algorithm is extremely accurate if you’re honest and know what you want.”
Ok now, let's all take the honest pill and do a confession game. How brutally honest can we be online? I went thru a longgggg list of questionnaires and I personally do not think the profiling mechanism works for me. The questions are not customized accordingly to our region and you do get some cultural insensitive questions. Yes you can choose not to answer them, but I believe that will be tabulated into the final results too.
Friendship Score: 5/10
Potential Rating: 5/10
Overall Experience: 4/10

Cost: Free

Ok, I could be slightly critical here but the website was rather sluggish and not the most well designed. As it is a free platform with integrated instant messaging system. I find it rather annoying to keep having window popups and have chosen to disable this function. Plus point? They have a mobile version but it is even more user unfriendly and the poorly programmed processes seems to consume your phone's battery like a juice vampire. This platform didn't keep me engaged for long and the quality of friends I've made OkCupid is rather poor. Tough love perhaps.

SingaporeLoveLinks.com
This is another website I have tried before and found their demographics of men available in Singapore quite interesting. The search function is pretty standard and you can search for guys within your preferred age group as well as specify other prerequisites. You can also have instant chats with members who are logged in to the website at the same time as you.

The standard membership that allows you to put up a profile and browsing other people's profiles is free. 

Gold membership is S$29.98/month. A free member cannot communicate with another free member, but Gold membership gives you the privilege to get in touch with free and paid members alike.

Platinum membership is S$39.99/month. Pretty much the same as a gold member but a platinum membership allows your profile to appear first in searches, above Gold and Standard members. 

Unless you have some spare cash lying around, I do not think the platinum membership is necessary as anyone seriously looking for love will go thru small hassles to review the entire listing of members regardless of the category of your membership.

Friendship Score: 7/10
Potential Rating: 6/10
Overall Experience: 8/10

Cost: Free if you have a kickarse profile that can attract paid members to drop you a note. Otherwise, paid memberships starts at S$29.90.

I've actually got to know some pretty cool friends from this platform and we remain as good friends till now. I'm giving a slightly lower rating for potentials as I find most people on this platform tends to be looking for mainly friendship and nothing more.

Match.com

I believe Match.com is one of the pioneers of dating websites. The membership system has evolved over the years and it is currently a paid service online site. Signing up, creating your profile and browsing available matches is free. But you cannot contact any member unless you have paid for at least 1 month of membership.

Friendship Score: 7/10
Potential Rating: 8/10
Overall Experience: 8/10

Cost: One month of membership starts at around S$45.

Yes I have given Match.com the highest rating among these three online dating websites. As everyone is required to be a paid member before exchanging messages. I see more quality in the messages and there are more genuine and sincere guys on this platform. The website has a good mix of demographics as well but I think the steep price has steered some members away in adopting other dating sites. Less quantity, more quality. My previous ex of 2.5 years is from Match.com.

Tip: Sign up for a free profile and wait for them to send you a promotional email. 

Now how about the hyped mobile dating app.....

Tinder



A casual dating app where you have 500 characters or less to tell possible dates what you're all about. It is like the twitter version of dating app and all you have to do is to swipe left or right based on looking at pictures of people. If they find you attractive too, its a match and you exchange messages from there on.

Friendship Score: 4/10
Potential Rating: 2/10
Overall Experience: 4/10

Cost: Free

Fun factor high but novelty factor wears off fast too. If you are looking for quick hookups and instant gratifications, this app is quite interesting to adopt. For a serious relationship, I think probably not.

Dating Tips

I've always put in effort to formulate a decent profile and put up good quality photos to maximize my chances of knowing more friends. I would suggest everyone to at least write a short profile to reflect the best of yourself and show your best photos! Of course, you don't really know the actual person behind the screen so go have fun knowing new friends but date carefully!!

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Share the Love