Online Dating Magazine
 Authoritative Insight Into the World of Online Dating

Online Dating Services - LavaLife Review
Review by Joe Tracy, Publisher of Online Dating Magazine

Dating Site: LavaLife
Slogan: "Where Singles Click"
Review Date: July 13, 2003
Online Dating Magazine Rating: 7/10
Browse for Free? Yes

Cost Structure
LavaLife operates a "credit" cost structure, where you buy credits and use them to communicate with others. It costs 5 credits to email another person (nothing thereafter to communicate with that person) and 5 credits to start a 20 minute Instant Messaging session. Here is the cost structure for credits:

$14.99 = 60 credits
$24.99 = 115 credits
$39.99 = 200 credits

Best Feature:
Being able to use credits to communicate. Most sites have monthly fees and annoy you with automatic monthly charges "for your convenience." Not LavaLife, thank goodness.

Most Annoying Feature:
You can't turn off the Instant Messaging feature. This is highly annoying, particularly to women, who have trouble browsing because they are always being interrupted with someone wanting to Instant Message them.

Review
LavaLife is a fun dating service that has some unique features, but also several annoyances that may interfere with a person (particularly women) looking for a meaningful long-term relationship or quality date.

When you register for LavaLife, you have the option of setting up profiles for any one of three areas: Dating, Relationship, or Intimate Encounters. After you have your profile and pictures loaded, every time you log on, you're presented with a screen as follows:

This screen shows you what is new since your last visit. The top icon is for new instant messages you've received. The second icon is for new email you have. The third icon is for new smiles you've received and the fourth icon is people who have given you access to view their photos. If you don't have a profile set up in a particular category then the option to create one is given.

LavaLife uses "smiles" for people to express an interest in another without dishing out money. Smiles can be accompanied by a short note that the user selects from a list. The use of smiles is a great feature that allows you to innocently flirt with someone to let them know you are interested.

To actually communicate with a person you can either email them or send them an instant message. Both features cost 5 credits. One aspect of email that I really like about LavaLife is the ability for a person to send a "collect call" email. This means if a lady is interested in me, she can send an email message as a "collect call" and if I want to view that message then I pay the credits. I make it clear in my LavaLife profiles that I accept collect call emails as I personally believe the guy should pay for the initial communication.

The way photos are handled is that you can display one main profile photo for everyone to see. Then you can have up to 8 "backstage" photos that a person can view only if you give them permission. If you want to request access to someone's backstage, you can request it in an email to them and click a button to grant them access to your backstage. You can also grant backstage access, if desired, to someone who has instant messaged you.

Navigation on the site is easy. There are the three separate areas of the service: Dating, Relationship, and Intimate Encounters. A menu at the top of the screen (see picture directly below) allows you to easily click to view a new section.

While you're online, your profile is visible for everyone else online to see. There is a side menu as shown below:

The person icon represents how many people are currently online using the LavaLife service. The camera icon represents how many of those people online have a photo available for everyone to see. The target icon represents how many people are online from your area. The fire icon represents who is online that you've added to your hotlist. There is also a smile icon that represents who is online that has smiled at you and another smile icon with a checkmark that represents who is online that you have smiled at. You can click on any of these to view the profiles.

The navigation and ease of finding local people, and knowing instantly if someone is online that you've hotlisted or smiled at, adds a lot of value to LavaLife. However, because so much emphasis of the program is put on who is online, it deemphasizes the search of people's profiles who aren't online. Thus you'll generally see more results if you spend a lot of time on the service (and people do spend hours at a time on the service).

LavaLife's Instant Messaging feature is java based, making it nice to use, but sometimes troublesome to people who have problems accessing java routines online. And since you can't turn the Instant Messaging feature off, you may find yourself (particularly if you are a lady) being bombarded with requests to communicate, thus interfering with your ability to navigate, check out profiles, or even answer an email. The result is that, as a woman, you may be constantly contacted by men who think you are interesting (if they've taken the time to read your profile), but you aren't able to take the time to find men that you find interesting. Read the column How Can I Get Better Matches for some great tips.

My Experience
When I first started online dating, LavaLife was one of the first services I signed up for with a profile in the Dating and Relationship sections. One day, I received an email from a woman commenting on my profile. We exchanged emails for several days, met in person, and found we had a lot of chemistry together. The experience led to a healthy and rewarding relationship for both of us.

Recommendations to LavaLife
LavaLife can improve its service by doing the following:

1) Allow users to turn off the Instant Messaging feature. It particularly interferes with a lady's ability to use the service. As one frustrated woman directly put it in her profile, "if you're female on this site you end up dodging 40 IMs a minute."

2) Recognize that your promotion of Intimate Encounters as part of your service creates a problem for people looking for legitimate long-term relationships or dating partners. Just having the Intimate Encounters section doesn't keep those guys there as many women in the Dating and Relationships section report being IM'd by someone looking for a one night stand. This is like building a McDonalds in a gang-infested area and asking gang members to stay out. It won't happen.

3) Allow users to better organize the way they view who is currently online in their location. For example, arrange the program so that when a person logs on it shows those who are online locally and within the users age preference range. By doing this, you'll stop the problem of 45 year old men messaging 20 year old women who only want to communicate with people that are under the age of 26.

4) Allow users to view who has hotlisted them. If I know that a person has hotlisted me, then it gives me the opportunity to view their profile and send them a message if I'm impressed by the profile.

Conclusion
I really like that LavaLife hasn't fallen into the trap of many other dating services that force both people to be members in order to communicate. The credit system works nicely and by using a credit system, LavaLife prevents the annoyance of other dating services that automatically recharge your credit card every month "for your convenience." LavaLife is pleasant on the eyes and fairly easy to navigate. If they can overcome the problems associated with their Instant Messaging feature and allow users to see and communicate only with people identified in the age range they set, then the service will be much improved.

LavaLife is rewarded with a score of 7 out of 10.

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