|
Online Dating Services - American
Singles Review
Review by Joe Tracy, Publisher
of Online Dating Magazine
Dating Site: American
Singles
Slogan: "For love and romance"
Review Date: July
3, 2003
Online Dating Magazine Rating: 7/10
Browse for Free? Yes
Cost Structure
1 Month = $24.95
3 Months = $59.95
1 Year = $149.95
Best Feature:
Nice instant messaging and chat systems.
Most Annoying Feature:
Paid members are limited to 1,500 characters in the
email messages they send out! This is highly annoying.
Review
American
Singles is a nice and well executed dating service
that seems to keep up with modern technology while
giving
you
a lot
of
freedom
in your online dating experience. But before delving
too far into this review, you should first be forewarned
that American
Singles is a misleading name. The name implies
that it is a site for just American singles to communicate
with each other, but you'll
find that a number of users are from other
countries.
I really like the freedom the American
Singles site gives you. You are given the ability
to see who you've viewed in the past, who has viewed
you, who you have hot listed, who has hot listed you,
who you have "teased", who has "teased" you, and so
on.
Another thing I like about American
Singles is the number
of ways it gives you to express an interest and communicate
with other members. For example, if
I want a girl to know I'm interested in her I can Hot
List her (and she'll be able to see I've done so) or
I can send her a tease (cute one-liners to express
an interest). If I want to communicate with her, I
can Instant Message her, email her, or even hook up
with her in the chat room.
The chat room is a nice concept. Whether
you're a paying member or not, you can go to the chat
room and chat it up with others. And if you are so
inclined, you can start your own chat room. My one
qualm with the chat room system is that it is very
cluttered and not moderated. People can highlight text,
change
color, etc. which makes the board hard to read. One
person may write a message in white text with a black
highlight and the next person has blue text with a
yellow highlight. This makes the chat room seem rather
juvenile at times.
Your American
Singles Message Center is where you manage your email
and teases. From here you can block/ignore users and
organize your messages.
Nearly everything about American
Singles is well executed. When you view someone's
profile, it opens a new window. If they are online, a
button appears allowing you to chat one on one, if desired.
You also have options to email, tease, hot list, or send
the person's profile to a friend. American
Singles even has an advice section, giving quality
advice on what photos work best to get responses, etc.
My Experience
While I haven't met anyone in person from American
Singles, I have communicated with some very nice
and intelligent women. The email character limit has
been a frustration to no end, but the rest of my experience
on American
Singles has been extremely pleasant. American
Singles is definitely one
of the best dating sites out there.
Recommendations to American Singles
American
Singles can improve its service by doing
the following:
1) Find a way to improve the speed in which you approve
photos for new members. It's very frustrating to sign
up for a great service then have to wait 48-72 hours
for one of the most important aspects of your profile
- your pictures - to be approved.
2) Allow more than 1,500 characters for paid subscribers
sending an email message to another!
3) Clean up the chat room program.
By allowing users to chose different colors/highlights/styles for text,
the chat becomes cluttered, hard to read, and at
times downright annoying. Let everyone use
black text on a white background to keep things clean,
simple, and easy to read.
Conclusion
If I was to create a quick slogan for American
Singles based on my experience, it would be "the
freedom to date online the way you want to". I just
love how nicely organized, intuitive, and executed
the whole site is. I also like that they keep up with
technology (i.e. not using HTML-based older chat services
like some other sites).
| Pros |
Cons |
| lots of stats |
messy chat room |
| two ways to show interest |
word limitations |
| technologically up to date |
photo approval too long |
| nice layout, lots of freedom |
|
American
Singles is rewarded with a score of
7.5 out of 10.
--
Click
here to submit your review of American Singles.
|
