|
Online Dating Services - Dreamdates
(Dream Dates) Review
Review by Joe Tracy, Publisher
of Online Dating Magazine
Dating Site: Dreamdates (Dream
Dates)
Slogan: Where Online Dating is most
real, fun, and effective
Review Date: April
10, 2004
Original Online Dating Magazine Rating:6/10
Reevaluation Date: December 19, 2005
Reevaluation Rating: 5.5/10 (downgraded)
Browse for Free? Yes
Cost Structure
Dreamdates gives
the user a lot of freedom when it comes to the cost
structure as you can purchase a full
monthly membership or just purchase tokens that allow
you to email others (at 2 tokens per message). Here's
a breakdown:
Token Breakdown:
20 Tokens = $14.95
40 Tokens = $24.95
110 Tokens = $49.95
Monthly Membership Breakdown:
1 Month = $24.95
3 Months = $49.95
6 Months = $79.95
12 Months = $99.95
Best Feature:
It's a tie. First, photos are uploaded and approved
very quick. More sites need this. Second, the technology
and simplicity of the site is excellent. It's easy
and fun to use.
Most Annoying Feature:
It's a tie. The first annoying feature is that Dreamdates allows you to rate other member profiles on a scale
of 1-10 then the rating is displayed for everyone
else to see (read further to see how to turn this
bad idea off). The second annoying feature is that
if you sign up for the romance group, the system
shows you people who are online from the Erotica
group. They should keep these two groups as far away
from each other as possible since they promote two
separate things.
Review
Dreamdates is a bit hard to figure out. In some areas
they really excell and in other areas they are downright
frustrating. For example, they ask a lot of questions
for your profile (including favorite cities, movies,
and hobbies), but they fail to ask whether you smoke
or not. They profess to have separate Relationship
and Erotica sections, but they mix the two together
in search results!
While Dreamdates has email communication
like other online dating services, it differs when
it comes to live communication. Dreamdates uses what
is called "Virtual dating". You set up a Virtual date
with another member and at the appointed time you are
directed to a private area with a virtual landscape
where you are represented by an avatar (as well as
your date). From there you can text chat or voice chat
with each other. The Virtual date feature is actually
a lot more unique than other services and gives someone
with first live online meeting jitters something extra
to chat about to break the ice.
Dreamdates tries
to be a top online dating site, but suffers from not
being able to attract enough
people to make it truly successful. As a result they
create limitations on users, like making it a three
step process to search for members "locally".
What really annoys me about Dreamdates is
that they have a feature where when you view a person's
profile, you rate them on a scale of 1-10. The profile
shows what the "average" rating of the person
is. I really felt sorry for some profiles that had
a "4"
rating (is this a dating site or a beauty pageant?).
I'd purposely click 10 on profiles that had low ratings
because I see this as a very degrading feature that
does an injustice to online dating in general. Luckily,
you can turn this feature off (if you know how) so
that people can't rate your profile. Here's how:
Step 1: Log into Dreamdates.
Step 2: In the "Preferences-Profile"
box, click "Manage My Account".
Step 3: Now click "My Dreamdates Settings".
Step 4: Remove the checkmark in the box
"Enable your profile page 'rating' feature" and click
Save. This will make it so that your profile doesn't
contain a "rating feature".
Recommendations to Dreamdates
Dreamdates is a good service. But it could be a lot
better if they paid attention to the following recommendations:
1) Get rid of the "rate a member" feature
that publicly displays the average score that the public
gives particular people/profiles. This idea is degrading
and sets a bad example for what dating sites should
be about.
2) If a person signs up for your Romantic
group, don't show them results from the Erotica group
when searching for who is online.
3) Don't allow free members to fill out
the entire "Full Profile Search" section only to hit
submit and get the message, "sorry, you must be a full
member to use this feature." Tell free members that before they
use the full search feature!
4) Let members fill out saved details
in advance like State and County so that they don't
have to go through three search screens in order to
get search results. Ideally a search should happen
after one click, not three.
5) Ask members whether
they smoke or not. This should be featured as part
of the criteria
as some people will only date other smokers or other
non-smokers. It's important to differentiate this
aspect of one's lifestyle.
6) Ask members whether
they drink or not. This should be featured as part
of the criteria as some people will only date other
social drinkers or non-drinkers. It's important to
differentiate this aspect of one's lifestyle.
7) Allow
users to see when the person was last active.
8) Run specials to
increase memberships. If there are five times more
males than females,
then grant females free membership for a limited
time. Dreamdates is
a nice dating service. Attract new members with special
promotions to increase the
overall popularity and effictiveness, which will
result in membership retention.
Conclusion
Any online dating service that has a public "rate
my picture" program is an injustice to the industry
and to the
purpose of online dating. Dreamdates misses the boat
in a lot of ways, really weakening their potential.
They strive to be one of the big online dating services,
but don't make their service appealing enough to truly
compete.
| Pros |
Cons |
| photo approval is quick |
public "rates" members |
| technology is excellent |
search crosses groups |
| credits or monthly fee |
too many clicks to search |
| virtual dates |
needs more members |
| |
important selections missing |
Reevaluation
Review
In the year and seven months since the
original review, Dreamdates has
done very little to upgrade its service. Absolutely
nothing under
our recommendations has been changed. Because of this,
in this reevalution, we weren't able to remove any
recommendations
and,
in fact, added one (Dreamdates doesn't
ask if a person drinks or not, in addition to not asking
if a person smokes or not. It's really sad
to see online dating services that stay stagnant instead
of improving. Unfortunately, Dreamdates falls
into this category. I hadn't logged into my account
on Dreamdates for
nearly a year. In that time, my profile had received
only one visitor!
Dreamdates must improve if it expects
to ever grow. The original score given to Dreamdates was
6 out of 10. A reevaluation of that score, a year
and seven months later, has resulted in Online Dating
Magazine downgrading Dreamdates from
a 6 to a 5.5.
--
Click
here to submit your review of Dream Dates. |
