As I continue to research the online dating landscape and the 1000+ dating sites in the US, I’ve come to learn some tactics that a few dating sites engage in. These tactics are at best misleading, and at worst, fraudulent:

Fake Profiles. This is relatively common, particularly in newer sites. Since people hesitate to join a dating site with few members, these sites will buy profiles from other sites, or create them themselves. A new member joins thinking there are 10,000 members, and is surprised to see that no one contacts her or responds to her messages. Worse, she might keep paying, unaware that many members are phony.

Fake Messages. Similar to fake profiles, some sites have mechanisms where it appears attractive members are messaging you. These people are not real, or at least not real members on the site. They are used to entice new members.

Using Member Photos in Marketing. This is fine, of course, if a member agrees; but in one recent case, a fairly new dating site was called out for hiding the acceptance of this practice deep in its Terms of Use. An online dater who left the site months ago was shocked to see his image used in the dating site’s marketing materials.

Marketing Matching Algorithms as Proven Science. I’ve mentioned this before, and it is a major reason why I created TruConnection.com, but it bears repeating. Some might disagree with me, and believe these algorithms are really engineering relationships. I would argue they are merely instruments to help sites justify high member fees.

In fairness, many sites (and most well-known sites) are scrupulous and honest in their practices. These sites work to build consumer confidence in online dating. However, the sites that are simply trying to capitalize on a growing market, with little care or concern for their members’ experience, are doing the industry a great disservice.

TruConnection.com is less than two months old, and doesn’t have nearly the member count of the larger dating sites (yet). But no matter what, we will not engage in deceptive practices. We will respect our members’ intelligence, not mislead them.

The business of bringing single people together to form relationships is not one that should be handled callously.

Lately, there’s been a lot of discussion among relationship experts and psychologists discounting the algorithms used by dating sites to match people (most notably this article from health.com and this recent piece in the Wall Street Journal). The basic argument is that a site’s algorithm — no matter how many data points it takes into account — cannot accurately predict romantic compatibility. Moreover, many argue, these matchmaking methods are mere marketing tools.

I completely agree; but I think they need to follow this theory to its logical conclusion: If a computer cannot match people based on a collection of information about them, why do we think a person can accurately choose a potential mate based on this same data?

One argument against algorithms is that there is no human element to it. There is no personal touch.

Yet when reviewing detailed personal profiles on mainstream dating sites, we are given a list of information about a person and, based on that (and a photo, of course), we are to decide if we want to contact them.

This method lends itself to a ‘checklist mentality’ that is unfortunate. ‘I only want to meet girls with a college degree that don’t smoke, have blond hair, are under 5’6″, and earn less than me.’ ‘I only want to meet guys that have a professional occupation, are 6′ tall, are listed as slim or athletic, and don’t drink more than 3x per week.’

How romantic!

To be fair, many dating sites do have an ‘about me’ section, or an ‘in my own words’ section where members can describe themselves. While this hopefully provides a window into who they are, by this point many have already been weeded out; they don’t fit the idealistic image of the reviewer, and their words and self-expression can’t save them.

Our slogan is ‘Meet People, Not Profiles.’ We are trying to infuse some realness to meeting online, trying to make it feel less like online shopping, and more like a meaningful first impression that quickly becomes an off-line meeting. Members simply write and share a photo, and they are not prejudged by so many data points…they are the one you met at the coffee shop, the one you met at the gym, the one you didn’t know much about until the first date, when you began to paint a mental picture of who they really are, and wondered how important your checklist ever was.

Over the past few months, as I’ve been promoting TruConnection.com throughout NYC and Boston (‘it’s a unique online dating site where you write / express yourself creatively and meet others, no detailed profiles, no algorithms, no gimmicks!’), I have often heard this: ‘Sounds cool, but my friends and I are not creative.’ So I slink away, defeated, place my TruConnection.com flyer back in my briefcase, and walk home in the rain (kidding…sort of).

But what does it really mean to be ‘creative’?

The label is often applied to artists, photographers, writers, actors, musicians, and maybe a few other professions. Because we label certain groups as ‘creative’, then by definition, the rest of us are ‘not creative’.

This labeling is unnecessarily limiting, and I believe untrue. So let me submit what I think about when I hear the word creative, and more to the point, what I mean when I mention ‘expressing yourself creatively’ as the best first impression when meeting online, and the foundation of TruConnection.com:

Thoughtful. Independent-minded. Intelligent. Expressive.

‘Expressing yourself creatively’ then, by my definition, is giving others a window into your personality, a sense of who you are based on what you write. It is certainly not communicating everything about you…but it speaks more about you, I think, than self-description, dating questions, or personality tests ever could.

I have some Facebook friends who I haven’t seen since grade school. One in particular updates his status on a daily basis with humorous and sometimes insightful rants. Although I haven’t seen him in 18 years, I actually feel like I know him pretty well. I feel like I have a sense of who he is. He’s not a ‘writer’, and he would probably recoil if someone called him ‘creative’. But, by my definition, he absolutely is. And through his writing, a window into his personality is opened.

TruConnection.com is a place to write about anything you choose (or write about the Daily Writing Topic listed), upload writing, and meet others. The first impression other members have of you is what you write/create + your photo. Sign up before April 1st and membership is free for life.

Mike

TruConnection.com is now five weeks old and has over 200 members in Boston and NYC. As TruConnection continues to grow, I want to make sure we are doing everything possible to enhance our members’ experience on the site, which means  facilitating the process of members expressing themselves creatively and meeting one another. Accordingly, I have introduced two new features which are now live on the site, described below:

PRIVATE LIKE/COMMENT

When members write or upload something on the site, you now have the option to LIKE their post by clicking the blue ribbon icon, or COMMENT on it by clicking the pencil icon. Likes and Comments are seen ONLY by the member who authored the post (unlike Facebook, for example, where likes/comments are more public). Members will see in their Alerts section that you commented or liked their post. It will also be visible in their My Shelf section (which now shows historical writings and uploads, as well as the likes/comments for each post).

So while you can still send a message to other members at any time (or chat with them if they are online), you can now respond to them directly based on individual writings/uploads.

AUTO-FOLLOW FEATURE

Up until now, you could choose to FOLLOW other members and be alerted when they write/upload on the site. Now, in addition to this, you can set up ‘Auto-Follow’ from the right hand navigation bar on Home page.

Auto-Follow allows you to set criteria for whom you want to follow. For example, you could set it up to auto-follow Men in Boston/Cambridge that are between 30 and 40 years old. This means that every time someone that fits these parameters adds content to the site, you will be alerted…even those that register for the site after you set it up. Since several new members sign up daily, this feature will make it easier to learn about the people you would like to meet as they join and start using the site.