Lavalife

Our new Speed Dating category is now available to all visitors. Speed Dating events or parties are usually held either online at a website or, in the "Real World" at a bar, restaurant or other entertainment location. Speed Dating offers singles a fast and easy way to meet 10 or more new people in a single night. At a typical event you go on short 3 to 6 minute speed dates with each participant of the opposite gender. After each short date you then score the person as someone you would like to either see again or not. At the end of the night, the host (or website) then gathers all the scores and if that same person wanted to meet you, your contact information would then be exchanged.

There are currently only 2 dating sites in the category. I added the Lavalife review because, at the beginning of the summer Lavalife started to offer online virtual speed dating nightly at 9 PM (use to be 8 PM) to its members (see Story). HurryDate is a new dating site which we reviewed specifically for this category. They offer both online and offline speed dating events and parties plus a dating website where members can go after the event to further communicate with their matches.

For more information about what Speed Dating is all about, visit our Speed Dating Services category.

To find out more about the dating services currently listed in this new category, read our review of Lavalife and our review of HurryDate.

Every dating site has its own spin on the dating profile format. In this series, I'll take a look at some of the different profile formats and how you can write your best profile for that particular service. Lavalife.com offers a few different profile options. You can choose from Dating, Relationship, or Intimate. (Why they call casual sex "intimate" I have no idea. I'm pretty sure you can't be "intimate" with someone you barely know. You can have sex with them, but that certainly doesn't make it "intimate." Anyway....)

Three Profiles

Beware! When you first sign up for Lavalife, you will have all three profiles activated. If you have no interest in casual encounters, you will want to delete your "Intimate" profile. Likewise, if you have no interest in long-term relationships, you should delete the "Relationship" profile.

The Writing Portion

There is only one open section to write in for a Lavalife profile, and that's the one that is originally presented to you as "tell others about yourself" during the sign-up process. Once you move into editing your profile, this field changes and is called "In My Own Words." This is the place where you'll want to talk about who you are and the type of person you'd like to meet. Keep it short and sweet and tell a story that others will want to join in! Think about the last book you purchased. You probably read the back cover (about 300 words) and thought, "Wow, I really want to read this!" If your profile reads like the back cover of a book, it should convince people to pick you up! (Pun intended!)

The great thing about having a couple different profiles (Dating/Relationship/Intimate) is that you can edit the "In My Own Words" for each one separately. I recommend having both Dating and Relationship active and test-driving different profile texts in each to see which gets you more results. Internet marketers do this with sales pages, why not do it with your dating profile?

Fill-Ins

Each type of profile also has some interests and fill-in-the-blank type questions to fill out. Dating and Relationship have the same interests list. I like the fact that they've given you the ability to select whether you enjoy participating in or just watching sports. So if you play softball but love watching football, you can be clear about that in your profile. Very handy!

Pictures

Lavalife offers the ability to upload up to 30 pictures and select which pictures appear with which version of your profile. This is a great way to keep your profile fresh if you happen to have 30 recent pictures. Since Lavalife will hold them for you, you can alternate and swap them out until you find the combination that seems to get you the most results!

Here's hoping that you find someone to click with you at Lavalife!

For more information on the dating site mentioned in this article, read our Lavalife.com review.

Consumer reviews on the internet for products and services usually receive more negative posts than positive, since most people satisfied with a product or service tend to be using it rather than writing reviews. It is probably the same for reviews of employers. I found a website called Glass Door which allows visitors to review their current and past employers. The website currently has over 26 thousand companies listed, with most of them being publicly traded. The site is new and is in beta so most companies do not have a lot of reviews yet.

A reviewer can list their job title, the Pros and Cons of the employer and Advice to Senior Management. They also rate the company on 8 different attributes (which is then averaged to a 5 bar rating) and also select if they approve or disapprove of the company CEO.

There are not a lot of employer reviews for dating site companies but, here are a few I found reviews for:

The Canadian owned dating site, Lavalife received a makeover of their homepage and front end of their website recently. As long as I can remember Lavalife has always had a homepage that was predominantly red (see right image). Now a light blue and grey is used, as shown in our new updated image on the left. Once you log in though, you will find that the members area has remained the same, with the familiar red in the background.

Another surprising change to Lavalife's homepage, is the standard image of a couple having fun is nowhere to be found. This is a staple for most popular dating services. You just get a basic Join for Free and Login panels for visitors on the new homepage. The Lavalife name and logo doesn't even really standout. I am not sure if this simplistic approach works, as image wise it doesn't show what Lavalife as a service offers. As matter of fact the word Dating is only mentioned once in small letters, in a link for a directory at the bottom of the home page. They mention finding singles, but not really what for. Obviously most people visiting this page would know, but I think Lavalife should of mentioned they are a dating site, since their company name doesn't suggest online dating either. Plus, what do most people type into a search engine when they are searching for a dating site, I would think the term dating site or something similar! If these words are not on the homepage, Google and other search engines are not going to return it in their search results.

I really like the dating site, Lavalife and what they offer singles but, I do think they made a number of mistakes in the redesign of their homepage. They have other landing pages which are more traditional and contain more information, but it is was mistake not to include more information on their homepage.

On a somewhat related note, last year I looked at other dating sites and their use of blue (see Story).

For more information on this dating site, read our Lavalife.com review.

I'm late on a few stories but I thought I should get this one out. Lavalife is now offering Speed Dating and it is currently free to try until June 24th, 2009 (2 days left)!

Online Speed Dates at Lavalife starts 8 pm each night (local time), and you get the chance to meet 10 singles in your area and all in 30 minutes. The events are arranged by location and age group. The age groups span 10 years (i.e. 30 to 40). Your current Lavalife profile will have to be completed and you will need to fill out an additional speed dating profile. This includes a picture, (the one from your Lavalife profile can be used), 'Ask me About' phrases which includes 3 topics you enter that your speed date may want to ask you about, and your email contact information.

Once your profile is complete you click 'Sign up now' below the event of your choice and you'll be presented with a confirmation screen. Once the event is about to start you log into Lavalife and click on the speed dates tab to enter your event. Make sure you show up on time as you cannot join in once the event starts. Each speed date allows you to text chat with the other person in real time. You get 3 minutes on each speed date and at the end, you get 30 seconds to decide if you clicked with the person. At the end of the 30 to 35 minute event you will receive your click list. This list provides you with the email addresses of the members you clicked with and who have clicked you.

Once this free offer is over, speed dating events will go on sale for $4.99 each. You may also purchase 3 event passes for $3.99 each and a package of 5 events cost $2.99 each. Passes only expire if your Lavalife account has been inactive 180 consecutive days (6 months).

For more information on this dating site, read our Lavalife review.

The Richard Ivey School of Business (The University of Western Ontario), Intouch Magazine (Winter 2009 edition), has a feature story about the history of a few of their graduates who are successful business men in the online dating industry. Lavalife co-founder Nicholas Paine (HBA ’83) is interviewed first. He talks about his experience in the early 1990's of converting their Tele-classifieds business (Classifieds over the phone) into a web personals site, and by 2001 into the popular dating site Lavalife.

Sam Moorcroft (MBA ’95), is also interviewed about how he started the popular Christian dating site, ChristianCafe.com. In the late 90's Sam had used a U.S. based Christian dating service to meet women locally and on the advice from a friend decided to start a website himself.

The key to the success of Christian Cafe.com was filling a niche in the market. Moorcroft knew from the women he had dated that they wanted to meet believers like themselves.

In the beginning years Sam and his brother held down several jobs to support themselves while they got their online dating site off the ground. In ten years ChristianCafe.com has grown into a multi-million dollar business.

To find out more information about these dating services from Canada, read our ChristianCafe.com review and our Lavalife review.