Free Online Dating

Free online dating services

There are also many free online dating sites. These sites do not require a membership fee or subscription to contact other singles. Unfortunately, these dating sites are not reviewed as much as the better publicized online dating services. These free dating sites offer many of the same features found at the major online dating sites. The main concern with free sites is that they have very few members compared to the millions at Match.com and others, but free online dating services such as PlentyofFish.com, BookofMatches.com, WooMe.com and ConnectingSingles.com are gaining in popularity by word of mouth.

About.com's Guide to Dating, Bonny Albo, is the only major reviewer to evaluate these free online dating services. Her top choice is OkCupid.com, with CasualKiss.com the runner-up. OkCupid was founded by the creators of SparkNotes.com. It has uploaded more than 3,500,000 photos and claims to be accurate as long as you're honest and know what you want. The site includes forums, tests and a "QuickMatch" feature that offers instant matching. There are no hidden fees or costs. It is also one of the only dating sites to give full biographies of the people running the site.

Casual Kiss promotes itself as more than a dating site, rather your "digital lifestyle." Casual Kiss has many of the same features found at the major online dating sites, but it also has some unique aspects. Casual Kiss has a chat room that not only includes text but also the ability to communicate by webcam to anyone worldwide.

PlentyofFish.com, launched in 2003, has over a million members and has introduced a new Relationship Chemistry Predictor assessment. The test allows members to answer a series of questions with five relationship variables: self confidence, family orientation, self control, openness and easygoingness. The assessment is short and quick to complete compared to eHarmony and Chemistry.com. However, little information is given on how the questions were developed or if there's any scientific merit to the test.

MySpace.com has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years and now has about 200 million users. While it is not a dating site per se, people can meet on MySpace, and many use it as a networking and dating portal. The site is free, and anyone over the age of 14 can join. Each user can have his or her own page on which to post a blog or place a profile. You can list your likes and dislikes, upload photos and ask your friends to join. You can correspond with people via e-mail, online chat, instant messaging and discussion groups. You can also invite people to either private or public events that happen in the real world.

MySpace.com is not without its detractors. In its Terms of Use, MySpace informs members that by joining the site they grant MySpace the license to use, copy and distribute any content they place on the public areas of the site. MySpace will have nonexclusive rights to your original works and will not compensate you in any way. User reviews on Amazon.com are mixed. Some love it and think it is a great place to have fun and hang out, while others complain about the spam in their e-mail in boxes and the unending advertising on the site.

Another social networking site gaining momentum as a dating portal is Facebook, which also allows users to post free personal web pages. In a Business Week article, Sarah Lacy notes a major shift in online daters using social networking sites over traditional dating sites. According to the November 2007 article, "The number of people visiting online dating sites dropped 6% in September from a year earlier at a time when growth soared among social networking user-generated sites." Two sites that meld social networking with user-generated content are Yelp and Digg. Both sites have features that let users connect based on shared traits and are free.