Viability of DownToEarth.com

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. Read the rest of this entry »