Lookin For Love? Seeking Revenge? Try Online Dating...
As it's Valentine's day, it's only fitting to talk about love... or lack there of... or rather the unique ways technology is helping people find love.
This morning, the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle is stamped with a great story about how Silicon Valley execs have put love second to their job and are now using what appears to be a very successful matchmaking service in order to find the right mate. To be fair though, this strategy is expensive-- ($500 for entry level?!?! What?) So we've hunted down some other services that are less costly, less time consuming and probably less helpful, but definitely very entertaining...
By SFist Jenna, contributing
yesnomayb.com: In standard Web 2.0 stlye they have left off a vowel - We're not sure we can even call it a Web 2.0 company if they didn't! However when we added an E to the B we ended up at a teen Questions and Answers site, which we highly discourage unless you believe getting on one of those Dateline specials can make you a star.
Anyway, this site is great because registration is FREE and you get to judge people by how they look... Does it get any better? We gave it a whirl and let it be known, you can weed out a LOT of peope this way. Ugly picture? Next. Picture of individual with their significant other? DEFINITELY next. Poor speller? NEXT! It's easy and it's a great 5 minute break to spice up your day... and give yourself a power trip. This can be great therapy (or revenge) for those days in high school when you were the last person to get your braces off and but the first person to buy Sega Genesis.
Consumating.com: This site won our hearts with the tagline "a new way to find people who don't suck." It's owned by CNET and has this great rating feature where you can give people a thumbs up or thumbs down based upon their profile, which again allows you to judge on looks. Your popularity is based upon how many thumbs ups you get so keep that Golden Rule in mind. Again, registration is free and since this is a San Francisco based company, you can make it your mitzvah of the day by checking out the site and supporting your local businesses.
Wealthymen.com: This has GOT to be a joke... but it's totally not. Ladies, you lookin' for your sugah daddy? Is Kanye's GoldDigger your anthem? If so, this site might be of interest. And boys of the Valley, if you're making bank, sign up for this. We didn't try it because, well, we don't need to (and probably don't meet the standards!), but we recommend this for those guys who leave their receipts in the ATM for the next person to gush over ... Ironically enough, right now, you can sign up for free... suspicious.
Gay Dating Sites: Now, we could go and re-list the 8 sites that TechCrunch profiled a few months back, or we could just let you go to TC and check them out for yourselves... We'll leave it to the later as former TC writer, Marshall Kirkpatrick has already gone through the trouble. We did however check out some of these sites and in the interest of maintaining personal info we recommend looking at these sites from home. OhLaLaGuys isn't exactly filled with pics of men in roll-neck sweaters, if you catch our drift. We're pretty sure our IT team had a field day when that site came up popped up on the radar.
Dating-on-the-Go: Addicted to your cell phone? Better yet, your Treo (bigger screen)? Katie Fehrenbacher at Gigaom profiles some great mobile dating sites . . . We're not sure how we feel about individuals who are so attached to their PDAs that they resorted to dating on it, you know?
We know, this isn't the first time you've heard of these sites, nor the first time you've been corralled towards online dating - but 'tis the season to find love or at least tell you're parents (honestly) you're being proactive, so why not spend five minutes procrastinating at working and check out these gems of dating entertainment?