An alternative to Plenty Of Fish…

I was (not-so-recently) asked to review a singles site: datehookup.com — A site that has paid me to place a banner ad on a historical blog post that gets a fair amount of hits. I happily agreed, as I regularly have a lot to say about dating options available to me, especially local ones.

Here’s an overview found on datehookup.com: “We are a 100% free online dating site. Chat, email, forums, get date ideas, all safe, anonymous, and free. You don’t need to pay for a great dating service, meet singles here for free.”

Sounds good, so far!

So, I dived in, and created a profile. Which, almost didn’t happen, because their site needed a space between the first and second half of my postal code, which I didn’t get until the fifth attempt to submit my initial details. I had initially thought that it wouldn’t accept my Canadian address, which actually wasn’t the case. So, a note… You need to have a space there, Canadians!

Also, I found myself wanting to search the local guys before I created a profile, but there was no way to do this. The reason for this, for me, was that I’d gone to a fair amount of effort in the past to create profiles on sites that had almost no local men available to me to peruse.

That is a roadblock for most women, I learned… As I’ve had plenty of conversations with Vancouver-based singles on this subject.

To compare to PlentyofFish.com, this site could take a few lessons… But, then again, if they weren’t a bit different, then everyone would just utilize PoF, right?

Another thing I found a bit awkward about this site was the member log-in, which wasn’t immediately found when I returned. It is, in fact, below the fold on most screens at the bottom of the page. I would have thought that it would be a tab, as most visitors would be returning to login, wouldn’t they?

There are some things I liked about the interface and use of this site:

– very easy to navigate
– animated blinky thing to tell me I have new messages
– fairly advanced searching with the ability to save the search
– ability to ‘wink’ at prospects, giving them a heads up that I saw their profile, and have a look at mine
– I was allowed to post up to 16 photos, giving the viewer of my profile a good deal of photographic evidence as to who I was and how I lived my life
– a place to blog my single adventures (although, I personally wouldn’t use this, it does give those without a blog a way to converse in a conversational way about their lives)
– ability to edit how my profile looked with fonts and styles
– everything about you is at a glance at the top of the page in a very easy-to-read review
– extended information that isn’t available on PoF: Personality Type, I’m Seeking: A man ages…, I Party… and a list of Interests (which is available on PoF)

So, all-in-all, I enjoyed using this site. Although the list of men in my area was slim, I can see that growth is happening, and the word is getting out about this alternative to PoF. Go give it a try! Let me know what you think!

A question for you single people out there… Have you found a free, or fairly inexpensive dating site you like?