Are you more likely to click on someone who is R1Rider, StarDancer, or blonde1985? The first two names tell us something interesting about the account holder. R1Rider very likely enjoys riding her Yamaha R1 bike. StarDancer is unlikely to be a wall-flower. What does a name like Blonde1985 tell us?

It suggests the person linked to this name is likely to be as generic as the name.

I ran a quick search as both genders between 25-30 years old near my zip code.

Men’s names that stood out: bayareahiker510 – defines activity in the name, mrwallstreet007 – self-explanatory, good_bunz – makes you wonder, reapingtheshadow – dark and mysterious, caveman4sale – funny, AndyMBA83 – suggests business as one of his primary interests, MixedArtist80 – likes art.

Let us look at women’s name choices: katsalamode – cats served with ice cream sounds fun, macgirl88 – somewhat generic but tells us she’s passionate about macs, asimplemelody – probably likes music.

That is it out of 30 people of each gender. The rest were generic names.

Take the time and come up with a creative name. I recommend including character description or activity as part of your name. Run searches as if you were searching for yourself and assess your competition.

An online dating username is a window into your world

It is a search term to be fed into the likes of Google, Myspace, and messengers

Coming up with a good name to serve as your online identity is not easy. Chances are that once you decide on a good screenname, you will use it as your social network identity and also your instant messenger identity. If done right, this can let you use an expensive dating website and communicate with people you like using off-site tools. The operators of such sites are not happy with that idea, but really there is nothing they can do about it short of enforcing arbitrary usernames.

You need to be aware what information is published that can be linked to your dating username. For example, I own the .com name of my nickname (wiseleo.com). If anyone wants to find me, she can type that into Google or even into the address bar and she will find too much information about me. I have to be aware of every post I make that can be linked to this username. Moreover, it is also linked to my Amazon identity, eBay identity, and so forth. It is too late for me to separate my identities based on 15 years of footprints all over the Internet, so I had to resort to online brand management techniques to keep my search results clean.

It can be used to segment your online identities

One advice for hackers back in the day was “Never use the same nickname twice”. While this advice was written far before time of omniscient search engines, it is far more important today. Even before Google, the FBI routinely caught hackers who reused their names.

I use a different and completely unrelated name when I am experimenting with various websites online.

A variation on this advice would be to have three identities. One is your private social network identity (Facebook and LinkedIn come to mind), one is your messengers and public social networks (Myspace, Twitter, Yahoo), and the final one is your dating sites identity.

CAUTION: If privacy is a concern to you, you should not use your social network or instant messenger name as your online dating profile name

If you wish to limit cyberstalking, it may be beneficial to create this third identity and to ensure that it in no way relates to your real information until such time as you choose to reveal it.

Be careful about copying your profile text across multiple profiles. If a reader runs a quick text string search, which in my browser is literally one click, the search results can potentially expose your other profiles and their linked identities.

Be careful which data you choose to share. Dating web sites are not private walled gardens. They expose a lot of information that can be used to piece together your identity. Assume that everything you wrote inside your profile can be viewed by your family and friends.

About the author

Leonid S. Knyshov writes for HotProfileTips.com about techniques to increase provide views on various online dating sites. I welcome your comments both via this website and via Twitter.

DownToEarth is Match.com’s attempt to launch a free site.

So far as of this writing it is marginally successful, but we imagine it will get better with time as more users will discover it and more search options become available.

Unique features

Their unique hook seems to be to offer its users the option to rate their date after meeting them in real life in terms of being true to the profile. The “Accuracy” rating is prominently displayed in the profiles listings expressed as stars.

They also explicitly choose not to offer the “one night stand” or “I am married” option. The site requires users to click through the “this picture is recent” checkbox before allowing it to be uploaded.

They have a fairly advanced photo application, including the ability to crop a headshot from the uploaded image. The upload process is entirely painless and works very well. Up to 28 images can be uploaded.

Search capabilities

• As of this writing, the search options are limited to a zip code radius, whether the users have photos, and the age range.
• One can’t search for only non-smokers, for example.
• The user can view no more than 500 profiles at a time, which are displayed 10 at a time.
• User can sort the results by Accuracy rating, most recent login, number of photos, age, username (that sounds rather useless, unless I am looking for someone specific), and newest user (most likely to be age of the account entry).
• The default search option is to sort by Accuracy

Limitations

While their headline tool offers up to 128 characters of space, only the first 22 characters, including spaces, will be visible in your listing initially. This further complicates our task of writing a great headline. However, it also gives us an interesting creative opportunity as you’ll see further in this article.

Your images will be resized to fit into a 300×300pixel square. This suggests that for the purposes of uploading an optimal picture to DownToEarth.com your images should be no larger than 300 pixels. There is no option to see the larger images when viewing someone’s profile. For some reason, the images are actually rescaled to 295×295 with HTML when viewed on the site, which further slightly distorts them. While you can select a portion of an image to use a thumbnail, in reality they are never used except if you set the image as a main picture for your profile. That is not clearly explained. One can set any image as their main picture with one click. The additional images will be presented as 100×100px thumbnails, but it shouldn’t matter much if your image is nicely cropped to be viewable at 300×300px.

The site does not offer the option to preview your profile as others will see it. Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to visualize it if you are aware of all limitations.

In addition to the first 22 characters from your headline, the site will also show the first 190 characters from the “About me” portion of your profile, which is a little less than two lines of text in 12-point Times New Roman font face.

Lastly, both “about me” and “looking for” portions are limited to only 2000 characters including any spaces. Elaborate profiles are often longer than that, so you’ll have a “fun” time trying to fit them in DownToEarth.com system.

Overcoming limitations

One creative way to exploit the headline truncation “feature” could be to ignore the 128-character headline suggestion and to instead start writing a 22-character headline and then to use the remaining first 190 characters in the “About me” section to complete it as well as for any introductory paragraphs.

One way to ensure that your text fits within the 2000-character limit is to use the “Word Count” feature of your word processor.

Writing a profile inside a website that doesn’t even offer you a dynamic character countdown can be quite frustrating if you are a creative writer. Do yourself a favor and write in your word processor. That way you can ensure that your work won’t be lost if the text is too long.

Limit your age range to fewer years if you wish to view more profiles and you see 50 pages of results returned initially.

How to appear at the top of all results

• The most recent login can make you appear at the top of results by simply logging in frequentlly.
• Secondly, the number of photos can be manipulated. If you have 10 pictures, for example, you’ll probably be at the top for a considerable amount of time. There is enough room for up to 28 pictures…

Getting rated for 5 stars could also be an easy option as the default sort is by Accuracy, which is your star rating, but I suspect it will become less relevant with time as more people get rated. Hot girls are more likely to get a rating without meeting anyone, so that will artificially skew the system. While you are supposed to complain if someone rates you without meeting you face-to-face, in practice I don’t expect complaints about getting rated 5 stars.

As the site grows, I think these two search options will be utilized more frequently to manage the number of results returned. In my personal experience, I tend to prefer contacting those who logged in recently or those who have a lot of pictures.

Is it worth your time?

With so few users, it’s very easy to stand out from the crowd. There is no charge to use the site. Add yourself and make it a point to login once a week or so to be easy to find.

Please let me know if you like the article or if you have suggestions to improve it.

DownToEarth is Match.com’s attempt to launch a free site.

So far as of this writing it is marginally successful, but we imagine it will get better with time as more users will discover it and more search options become available.

Unique features

Their unique hook seems to be to offer its members the option to rate the other person after meeting them in real life in terms of being true to the profile. The “Accuracy” rating is prominently displayed in the profiles listings expressed as stars.

The site also explicitly choose not to offer the “one night stand” or “I am married” option. It further requires users to click through the “this picture is recent” checkbox before allowing it to be uploaded.

Downtoearth.com features a fairly advanced photo application, including the ability to crop a headshot from the uploaded image. The upload process is entirely painless and works very well. Up to 28 images can be uploaded.

Search capabilities

• As of this writing, the search options are limited to a zip code radius, whether to require matches to have photos, and the age range.
• You can’t search for only non-smokers, for example.
• You can view no more than 500 profiles at a time, which are displayed 10 at a time.
• You can sort the results by Accuracy rating, most recent login, number of photos, age, username (that sounds rather useless, unless I am looking for someone specific), and newest user (most likely to be age of the account entry).
• The default search option is to sort by Accuracy

Limitations

While their headline tool offers up to 128 characters of space, only the first 22 characters, including spaces, will be visible in your listing initially. This further complicates our task of writing a great headline. However, it also gives us an interesting creative opportunity as you’ll see further in this article.

Your images will be resized to fit into a 300×300pixel square. This suggests that for the purposes of uploading an optimal picture to DownToEarth.com your images should be no larger than 300 pixels. There is no option to see the larger images when viewing someone’s profile. For some reason, the images are actually rescaled to 295×295 with HTML when viewed on the site, which further slightly distorts them. While you can select a portion of an image to use a thumbnail, in reality they are never used except if you set the image as a main picture for your profile. That is not clearly explained. You can set any image as your main picture with one click. The additional images will be presented as 100×100px thumbnails, but it shouldn’t matter much if your image is nicely cropped to be viewable at 300×300px.

The site does not offer the option to preview your profile as others will see it. Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to visualize it if you are aware of all limitations.

In addition to the first 22 characters from your headline, the site will also show the first 190 characters from the “About me” portion of your profile, which is a little less than two lines of text in 12-point Times New Roman font face.

Lastly, both “about me” and “looking for” portions are limited to only 2000 characters including any spaces. Elaborate profiles are often longer than that, so you’ll have a “fun” time trying to fit them in DownToEarth.com system.

Overcoming limitations

One creative way to exploit the headline truncation “feature” could be to ignore the 128-character headline suggestion and to instead start writing a 22-character headline and then to use the remaining first 190 characters in the “About me” section to complete it as well as for any introductory paragraphs.

One way to ensure that your text fits within the 2000-character limit is to use the “Word Count” feature of your word processor.

Writing a profile inside a website that doesn’t even offer you a dynamic character countdown can be quite frustrating if you are a creative writer. Do yourself a favor and write in your word processor. That way you can ensure that your work won’t be lost if the text is too long.

Limit your age range to fewer years if you wish to view more profiles and you see 50 pages of results returned initially.

How to appear at the top of all results

• The most recent login can make you appear at the top of results by simply logging in frequentlly.
• Secondly, the number of photos can be manipulated. If you have 10 pictures, for example, you’ll probably be at the top for a considerable amount of time. There is enough room for up to 28 pictures…

Getting rated for 5 stars could also be an easy option as the default sort is by Accuracy, which is your star rating, but I suspect it will become less relevant with time as more people get rated. Hot girls are more likely to get a rating without meeting anyone and that will artificially skew the system. Although you are supposed to complain if someone rates you without meeting you face-to-face, in practice I don’t expect complaints about getting rated 5 stars.

As the site grows, I think these two search options will be utilized more frequently to manage the number of results returned. In my personal experience, I tend to prefer contacting those who logged in recently or those who have a lot of pictures.

Is it worth your time?

With so few users, it’s very easy to stand out from the crowd. There is no charge to use the site. Add yourself and make it a point to login once a week or so to be easy to find.

Please let me know if you like the article and also post your suggestions  in comments about how to improve it and if the information is no longer accurate.

DownToEarth is Match.com’s attempt to launch a free site.

So far as of this writing it is marginally successful, but we imagine it will get better with time as more users will discover it and more search options become available.

Unique features

Their unique hook seems to be to offer its members the option to rate the other person after meeting them in real life in terms of being true to the profile. The “Accuracy” rating is prominently displayed in the profiles listings expressed as stars.

The site also explicitly choose not to offer the “one night stand” or “I am married” option. It further requires users to click through the “this picture is recent” checkbox before allowing it to be uploaded.

Downtoearth.com features a fairly advanced photo application, including the ability to crop a headshot from the uploaded image. The upload process is entirely painless and works very well. Up to 28 images can be uploaded.

Search capabilities

• As of this writing, the search options are limited to a zip code radius, whether to require matches to have photos, and the age range.
• You can’t search for only non-smokers, for example.
• You can view no more than 500 profiles at a time, which are displayed 10 at a time.
• You can sort the results by Accuracy rating, most recent login, number of photos, age, username (that sounds rather useless, unless I am looking for someone specific), and newest user (most likely to be age of the account entry).
• The default search option is to sort by Accuracy

Limitations

While their headline tool offers up to 128 characters of space, only the first 22 characters, including spaces, will be visible in your listing initially. This further complicates our task of writing a great headline. However, it also gives us an interesting creative opportunity as you’ll see further in this article.

Your images will be resized to fit into a 300×300pixel square. This suggests that for the purposes of uploading an optimal picture to DownToEarth.com your images should be no larger than 300 pixels. There is no option to see the larger images when viewing someone’s profile. For some reason, the images are actually rescaled to 295×295 with HTML when viewed on the site, which further slightly distorts them. While you can select a portion of an image to use a thumbnail, in reality they are never used except if you set the image as a main picture for your profile. That is not clearly explained. You can set any image as your main picture with one click. The additional images will be presented as 100×100px thumbnails, but it shouldn’t matter much if your image is nicely cropped to be viewable at 300×300px.

The site does not offer the option to preview your profile as others will see it. Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to visualize it if you are aware of all limitations.

In addition to the first 22 characters from your headline, the site will also show the first 190 characters from the “About me” portion of your profile, which is a little less than two lines of text in 12-point Times New Roman font face.

Lastly, both “about me” and “looking for” portions are limited to only 2000 characters including any spaces. Elaborate profiles are often longer than that, so you’ll have a “fun” time trying to fit them in DownToEarth.com system.

Overcoming limitations

One creative way to exploit the headline truncation “feature” could be to ignore the 128-character headline suggestion and to instead start writing a 22-character headline and then to use the remaining first 190 characters in the “About me” section to complete it as well as for any introductory paragraphs.

One way to ensure that your text fits within the 2000-character limit is to use the “Word Count” feature of your word processor.

Writing a profile inside a website that doesn’t even offer you a dynamic character countdown can be quite frustrating if you are a creative writer. Do yourself a favor and write in your word processor. That way you can ensure that your work won’t be lost if the text is too long.

Limit your age range to fewer years if you wish to view more profiles and you see 50 pages of results returned initially.

How to appear at the top of all results

• The most recent login can make you appear at the top of results by simply logging in frequentlly.
• Secondly, the number of photos can be manipulated. If you have 10 pictures, for example, you’ll probably be at the top for a considerable amount of time. There is enough room for up to 28 pictures…

Getting rated for 5 stars could also be an easy option as the default sort is by Accuracy, which is your star rating, but I suspect it will become less relevant with time as more people get rated. Hot girls are more likely to get a rating without meeting anyone and that will artificially skew the system. Although you are supposed to complain if someone rates you without meeting you face-to-face, in practice I don’t expect complaints about getting rated 5 stars.

As the site grows, I think these two search options will be utilized more frequently to manage the number of results returned. In my personal experience, I tend to prefer contacting those who logged in recently or those who have a lot of pictures.

Is it worth your time?

With so few users, it’s very easy to stand out from the crowd. There is no charge to use the site. Add yourself and make it a point to login once a week or so to be easy to find.

Please let me know if you like the article and also post your suggestions  in comments about how to improve it and if the information is no longer accurate.

My impression

SpeedDate.com is a really interesting site. It’s a little broken, based on the number of “Date ended for unknown reason” – they can’t ALL be hanging up on me on the first second, right? I do hold a solid 7.6 on Hotornot for my non-pro pictures, so I am not that hideous looking.

SpeedDate.com decided to create a very advanced site that functions more like a desktop application, but that also makes it a bit more difficult to use with hefty technical requirements. Take this from a computer expert.

While my gaming rig (P4, 2.8GHz, 3GB RAM, Windows Server 2003 SP2) had no problem with the site, my bedroom laptop (P3, 700MHz, 384 MB RAM, Windows XP Pro SP2) literally choked on their buddy list feature by consuming 100% of my CPU. It didn’t choke on flash, as one would erroneously assume. It choked using Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2.0.0.13, and Firefox 3b4 with latest flash on all of them! In other words, no matter what I used, my bedroom computer would essentially die as soon as I logged in and activated the buddy list, which happens automatically upon login.

When it works, however, the site works very nicely. If you setup your audio and video in the flash settings correctly, the other person will be in for a treat. Some webcams come with built-in microphones and you need to know how to select it in flash microphone settings.

The site lets you see your audio performance through its display of blue squares. You will be heard if your blue bar reaches 3/4 of the way at least.

I think it is the way of the future and once the site matures we’ll be having even more fun.

This free site does not censor member-to-member offsite communication. I can actually share my Myspace, Facebook, Yahoo, MSN/Live Messenger, AIM, ICQ, etc. information without having to resort to obnoxious anti-censorship techniques.

How to succeed on SpeedDate.com

You really just need to know a few things. When you are connected, the person’s profile is not always entirely visible on the screen. This is one site where having a long-winded profile may not work to your best advantage. It’s also complicated to see the person’s profile and chat at the same time because the profile is shown as a DIV overlay on top of everything. It’s a case of too much technology and not enough UI expertise.

Put your most valuable information in the top part of the interests section. If you want to highlight that you cook well, for example, put that information near the top. If you say it at the bottom, chances are it won’t be read. It’s hard to both read the profile and chat with the other person in real-time.

Scrolling the screen while attempting to keep up with the conversation can be tricky. Most girls do not have webcams. While the site features a way to send messages to members, that basically adds them to your buddy list and not much else.

Video is a powerful way to make a connection, but really you should make a quick connection using the site and then switch to Skype. Skype makes videochatting painless and setup-free. The on-site chat is… Not up to the par of Userplane’s offerings.

I’ve only run into fewer than 10 girls with a functioning audiofeed and a couple with working webcams. My sample size is over 100 and my current buddy list is about 40 girls globally. That’s pretty good odds. Out of those 40, I would go out with a few if they were local enough. A couple are worth a quick flight.

Attempting to text chat in under 3 minutes is tricky. Get done with pleasantries quickly and take control of the conversation. Ask open-ended questions that require thought. I love to ask “What is your idea of fun?“. It focuses the conversation on her, which is good. She’ll give me enough information to ask a few more related questions. “So, how did you get started playing water polo?” If the answer to the  “What is your idea of fun?” question bores me, I’ll say “Thanks for your time” at about 2:50 on the clock. I do not recommend hanging up on your dates before 3 minutes are up. That really destroys self-esteem and we don’t want to contribute to that problem now, do we?

No censorship is good! Do yourself a favor and get out of their web chat interface as quickly as possible. I strongly recommend Skype for video conversations, but just ask her if she hangs out on other IM networks or has Myspace or Facebook.

The site doesn’t have a lot of users yet, but it has a Facebook application and growing nicely. Expect the numbers of users to increase. Be an early adopter and enjoy!

Flirting

The site features a “flirt” feature. It’s still fairly crude, but more effective than clicking “skip” on your short list of matches. Click on “Members – All members” or “Members – online members”. It’ll be sorted by distance.

You will have the option to ask the girl to add you to her buddy list.

As always, good pictures are key. I think the aspect ratio on this one is either 3:2 or 4:3. I’ll correct this post when I measure that.

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Your comments are most welcome!

So what?!

Who cares?

Grab her attention and hold it!

User’s guide to “So what…who cares”