New year, New profile
It’s that time of year again when everyone does a little stock-take and makes plans for the coming year. If you’re single, it’s highly likely that “look for the one” is on the list of things to do.
I thought it would be a good time to offer up some thoughts and tips on writing a profile. It will be no accident that my comments come from a male perspective – sorry, can’t help it. Read more
Review of Christian Dating sites: Fusion101
As promised when I launched this site, here is another edition of a questionnaire into Christian Dating sites. Specifically, I asked a number of questions about what people liked or disliked about them. Read more
Dubious marketing techniques
No doubt you’ve heard of Twitter – this year’s big internet phenomenon. Since the back-end of last year a lot of companies have realised its value as a marketing tool: it makes it really simple to get your message out there. Of course the trouble with “really simple” is that it can be abused.
Just to fill you in on how Twitter works: Twitter is basically a short message service which lets you broadcast messages to your “followers” or indeed anyone who might be searching for keywords like “Christian Dating”. There are a couple of ways to abuse the system: open lots of accounts and just keep on resending your Tweets (messages); follow lots of people (expecting that a large number will follow you back) to spam their accounts with your messages.
Clearly the technique is not sustainable and it irritates people – erm, like me 
grr!
So what’s all this got to do with Christian Dating? Well, I’ve noticed lots of such messages on Twitter for BigChurch that do exactly this. At first glance they seem to be legitimate people, but when you look a little closer you see exactly the same messages from dozens of different “people”. These “people” follow thousands of people but tend to just have a few hundred followers.
There is nothing that I have seen that links these Twitterers directly with BigChurch other than they have hundreds of messages with links to their website. I mentioned in a previous post that not all Christian dating websites are run by Christians – in fact BC is run by Penthouse – and if this is a marketing technique being employed by them then it clearly demonstrates why Christians shouldn’t use their service as this kind of behaviour does nothing for our reputation.
I sometimes find Twitterers asking “why are Christian Dating sites spamming me?” It’s a good question, and clearly it’s a practice Christians shouldn’t be using.
On a slightly different tack, I just found a post on “A little Leaven” which shows a rather inappropriate photo in an advert for ChristiansTogether. @PirateChristian suggests “The church sold its soul to lucifer.”
As with anything you buy or any service you use, you need to decide for yourself whether you’re happy to promote it by buying or using it. If you care that the people who pick the beans for your coffee are paid a living wage you buy FairTrade. If you care for your reputation as a Christian perhaps you should use websites that also value that.
I thought I’d post a few examples of the Tweets here:
mary65378 take a look,free dating for church members,christian dating,find love,its great,its free signups all week http://tinyurl.com/cmpxzx
mary65378 couldn’t sleep.so back on the christian dating site,join 4 free,follow me & follow my link http://linkbee.com/UHMP
sara738495 couldn’t sleep.so back on the christian dating site,join 4 free,follow me & follow my link http://linkbee.com/UHMP
mary65378 im getting so much attention,i love this christian dating site free to join,http://tinyurl.com/cmpxzx
sara738495 im getting so much attention,i love this christian dating site free to join,http://tinyurl.com/cmpxzx
Not all Christian Dating Sites are the same
What do you look for when deciding which Christian dating website to use? Perhaps you simply go for the one that looks the best; has the best “user interface” or the most features. Perhaps you try to figure out how big the site is or how many people use the site. Perhaps you’ve been recommended a site by a friend.
These are all useful criteria to help decide, but have you thought about who might be operating the websites? Is it a safe assumption to make that a Christian website is run by and for Christians? Well, apparently, it’s not a safe assumption.
I was rather surprised to learn that BigChurch.com is actually run by Penthouse. Yep! Perveyors of adult magazines. And many of the other big “Christian” sites are run by large companies that run a whole host of dating sites for special interest groups such as Christians and even Gardeners over 50.
For many dating companies it’s not necessary to have the same beliefs as their users. As long as they can categorise your special interest correctly – put the right questions in your profile form – they think that’s enough to satisfy the market.
Does it matter? Well, in the end, only you can make that decision. But it does highlight the need for Christians not just to be taken in by the Christian tag. When you look at a dating site, try to find out who runs it. Look for the “About us” section. Find out if there are sister dating websites – if there are, there’s a fair chance they’re covering the demographic bases.
Are social networks the place to find love?
It used to be that websites were fairly static places: you look up a company and they present to you their product and services. Many still are static, but interaction is now the thing on the internet. That’s what the so-called Web 2.0 is all about – user interaction through websites.
In a limited way, this is what dating websites are all about too – they allow you to interact, not with the website owners but with other users of the site. But you can do that on Facebook, Bebo, Myspace and Twitter (and a plethora of others – there’s even a site where you are set up with an online chat session with another random user).
Can you use these social network sites for dating? Do you use these sites for dating? I was talking to a dating expert yesterday, and she says that Facebook is definitely being used by some to find a partner – she said that even she was hit on on Facebook. I tend to use Facebook for friends only, so accepting “friend” status with a stranger on Facebook seems a little wierd to me. But the expert tells me that many Facebook users want to have a huge friend list because it positively confirms that they are liked, and taking it one step further, receiving approaches from strangers online also confirms your attractiveness.
Twitter also is a very interesting place. Unlike Facebook you can “follow” someone, but it doesn’t need to be reciprocated, so there is no presupposition that you know each other, or even have anything particularly in common, other than perhaps that you might be interested in similar topics. I started writing about linguistical things on Twitter and suddenly found that I had a handful of followers, complete strangers, purely on the basis of one or two “tweets”.
So with all the social possibilities that these sites bring, do Dating websites still have a place?
All the benefits of anonymity are there – you don’t have to reveal your real name on sites like Twitter, and you don’t have to reveal your email address or even your location. So you can make “friends” with someone and let a relationship develop naturally, pretty much as you would meeting with people for real, but without the worry of bumping into them if it goes pear-shaped.
I wonder though, if the same rules for real life meeting also apply to these sites? i.e. if you’re shy, will it still be as difficult to take a friendship to romantic relationship? If you’re socially confident online/offline it’s probably all the same; you’ll easily develop romantic relationships.
One of the things I like about dating websites, is that it’s unambiguous. You know that you and others are there for the same reason. Perhaps you feel like you have enough friends, but you want a partner. A dating site lets you do that.
In the end, it’s all about niche. The reason you’re interesting in a Christian dating website, is because you don’t want to wade through profiles you have no interest at all. By using a niche site you make your search simpler, and it gives you more confidence because you know you’ll identify at some level with most if not all the people on the site.
So for me, I think there is still a place for dating websites, and especially Christian dating websites – they meet the need.
Will subscription-based dating websites survive?
Just last month an Economist article said that dating websites OkCupid and eHarmony were bucking the economic trend and were seeing more people using their services than ever before.
eHarmony told the Economist that the number of visitors to its site was greater when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by over 100 points! OKCupid says that back in September it was averaging 6,000 messages sent through its system per day, now it’s about 18,000.
Both companies say they link site usage with the recession. Perhaps it’s true, when there are problems in life, having someone to share it with can be a great help.
For me though, there’s a more interesting question: will subscription-based dating sites continue to grow in the long run?
eHarmony, like Match.com and some of the Christian sites, is a subscription based site. But with the availability of free online dating sites like OKCupid (and free Christian dating sites) will its business model continue to work? Perhaps for the time being, but clearly even the big companies are starting to wonder.
In January Match.com launched DownToEarth.com which is totally free (and only available in America at the moment). Clearly it is testing the waters. Perhaps it is hoping that users of DownToEarth will upgrade to Match.com.
I’m sure that despite the current market growth, all subscription-based sites are actually feeling the pinch. It’s not just the economy that’s putting pressure on subscription services, it’s the competition from free services, both free online dating sites, and free social networks that for some are replacing dating websites.
FriendsReunited started out charging people to use its service, but with the massive growth of Facebook, it had to make it free a year or so ago.
The big problem with providing a free service is making enough money to keep going and turn over a modest profit. Newspapers are suffering from readers migrating to free online sources, and subscription-based dating sites will see the same happen to them too.
The man who created perhaps the largest free online dating site, PlentyOfFish.com, has even started to wonder if he should create or buy a subscription-based site – so are free sites commercially viable? It’s a tough one – the bigger the site, the more expensive it is to run, but if no-one wants to pay for it, and advertisers aren’t advertising so much, how will they survive?
Conclusion
Free dating and social network sites will kill subscription-based sites. Free dating and social network sites are commerical suicide. Discuss.
New blog
Hello folks. This is the first entry for a new blog on online dating for Christians.
Online dating has really taken off in a big way over the past few years, so it’s only natural that Christians also start using dating websites. But it’s a big step for most people to start using them. Does it mean that you are a loser, desperate, Billy or Billie no mates? No, I don’t think so. On the whole people who use dating websites are people who lead busy lives and simply don’t have the time, or perhaps in the inclination, to hang out in bars or church-surf on the off-chance of meeting someone.
For Christians the difficulties of meeting someone special can be even more acute – especially if you are committed to a small church – because we just may not be meeting other single Christians frequently enough to build a relationship. So dating websites can be a key to meeting the right person, and if you use a website that other Christians use, then it can be even easier to meet someone.
Over the coming days and weeks I will be posting the results of some research into dating websites Christian121 did last year. I’ve decided to close the survey down for now, but may carry out some other surveys as time goes on.
That’s all for now.
