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 at least 3/4 of the way. If she has a microphone active, you’ll see blue squares on her screen as well.

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

This totally 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. It served its purpose to get your acquainted, but staying in it for hours at a time without chat history and other standard features of today’s IM technology is simply not optimal. 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 is 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 without going through a speed date with her first.

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. The ratio is indeed 4:3 for your profile picture and 1:1 for your icon at the top of your own buddy list.

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Think about the last time you used a dating website. Who caught your attention? They were “Active users from the last 3 days”, right? The reason is because they are far more likely to respond to your message.

If you are serious about online dating, you need to actually be an active user.

How to achieve more profile clicks

Just login to the sites of your choice every other day or so, and you’ll automatically have more profile views.

You don’t have to run a search or do anything else. Simply signing into a site counts as activity. I would suggest checking your mail as well.

When you are in a nightclub or bar, you don’t know much about the person whom you are considering for a conversation. I am an excellent dancer (I am a VIP at a Salsa club) and a computer genius, but I don’t wear computer logo apparel to a nightclub very often. I am essentially competing vs. every other guy who is there for her attention. He can be a drug addict, a smoker, a construction worker, a CEO, an accountant, a criminal…

To me, that’s highly inefficient. I’d much rather be with someone who ignores every other guy.

On the Internet, I have a very clear advantage. I can establish my unique value proposition with the girl and then take her to my favorite night club. Once there, she has sufficient information about me to be disinterested in just about everyone else. This is how English majors win. I am not one, but my creative writing abilities are good enough.

Think about the last time you read a dating profile.

Now think about the last 50 of them…100…200…

How many of them can you remember?

A picture and a headline are there to get your profile viewed. We accomplished that, but now we have to keep the reader’s interest. We now face the problem that is commonly referred to as differentiating yourself from the competition.

I don’t care how hot a girl is if I ultimately can’t connect with her mind.

Many profiles are very brief, disorganized, and, frankly, uninteresting. I refer to them as generic. I don’t date generic girls.

Differentiating yourself from competition is hard enough in the business world, but there we only have to deal with a world of competing companies, which is traditionally not that complicated. If you do not have a business with a global application, it’s pretty easy to out-innovate local competition. Exception - ubiquitous businesses like nail salons. What do such ubiquitous businesses do to survive? They have two options - innovate or compete on price.

In marketing, the last thing we want to do is to compete solely on price. That leads into price wars…

Huh?! What?! Wrong site!!!…Or is it?

When you create a personal profile, you are launching a marketing campaign where you are the product. As you can’t compete on price, unless you are looking for some sugar, you have to differentiate yourself using only text and imagery.

Writing style

This is a formal document. Using IM-speak “im lookin’ 4 u” will not get you far. Write as if you were writing a love letter. You are telling the other person a story. A story that is designed to captivate his attention. This story needs to be powerful, engaging, and full of the “wow” factor. Read back your profile and see if it inspires yourself to write to yourself.

Spelling

Firefox has a built-in spell checker! Use it. If you can’t spell, you will get fewer responses. It’s really that simple. You must spell correctly.

Grammar

There are grammar errors in this article. Those of you who can spot them will likely ignore them because the content is compelling enough. Those of you who can’t spot them won’t care too much.

The same applies to your profile. You should strive to make it as grammatically correct as you can, but don’t get obsessed about it. I simply have better things to do.

Headline

I already wrote an article on that. Your headline should sum up the key points of your profile. This is hard to do.

Opening statement

Think of this as a sub-title to your headline. “Dear luscious hottie,” could be a fun start.

Length

If you can sum yourself up in fewer than 500 characters, you are either a genius at writing succinctly or did not tell me enough about yourself.

When I am reading your profile, you got me drawn in and hooked on the line. Now I want to learn more about you and to check against my compatibility requirements.

Longer profiles may actually result in fewer responses, but that is misleading. Many times I would be reading a girl’s profile and see some things that make us less than an ideal match. By figuring that out very early, I’ve avoided wasting our time. In sales, we refer to this as pre-qualifying leads. My time is extremely valuable and I prefer not to go on dates that have zero chance of being ideal for me long-term.

The devil is in the details - share your passions

Don’t tell me “I like motorcycles”. Tell me “I ride a Yamaha R1. Can you keep up?!”.

The first statement is generic and tells me that you may have a mild interest in motorcycles and won’t run away if I ask you to hop on the back on my bike. The second statement is aggressive and tells me that you have an acute interest in riding sport bikes.

If I were a bike rider, I would be far more inclined to respond to the second statement.

Instead of “I like music, movies, tv” say “I just went to see DJ Tiesto as San Francisco Civic Auditorium. The show was cool, but the lack of lasers due to Tiesto’s request was a bummer. Have you seen Beowulf in IMAX 3D?! Seeing Angelina Jolie rise up from the water in 3D literally inches from my nose was…drool-worthy. What did you think about the season finale of Nip/Tuck?”

You want to engage the reader in a conversation. A classic marketing technique is to make the prospect think about how they would use the product instead of whether they need it. If I am starting to plan a date with you while reading your profile, you got me initially sold and to close the deal you have to give me a compelling reason to choose you from an ocean of competition.

Good sales people will not say “Call me if you have any questions”. They will say “We can meet on Thursday at 3pm-5pm or Friday 2pm. Which works better for you?”. If the prospect is engaged enough to consider this meeting, they will check the schedule and suggest a mutually acceptable time.

When I ask a girl out, I don’t give her the option to say “no”. I give her a list of choices. She always has that option, of course, but I do not explicitly present it.

Give me give me more, give me more…

Your profile is starting to look more interesting. Congratulations!

Go through it again and see if you left anything explained as one word and look for any potential stigmas.

“I am a nerd” has a stigma…”World-class computer expert” is better, don’t you think? I was a conference speaker at Microsoft, so I think I can claim that!

Rewrite anything that is generic, dull, or makes a reader say “huh?”.

What life accomplishments have you achieved so far that can make you unique? I doubt you’ll find too many computer experts who are competitive dancers, for example.

Close the deal

An effective action statement should take the reader over the top. You want her to really want you by the time she’s done reading.

“Well, luscious, if you are intrigued enough, I’d love to a cancel a few appointments to meet you this week”.

Why bother?!

I get a lot of first contact e-mail. I wrote a fairly edgy profile, so some of them are downright straightforward. Let’s just say I got more than one offer to participate in a sexy photoshoot. Some were even more explicit. In other instances, I wrote a profile that was more mainstream.

The girls who write me tell me that my profile told them that I was a very interesting person. It stood out in their minds. “You just grabbed my attention” was one compliment, for example. “Let’s meet tonight!” was another. I think you can see a pattern.

My profile effectively attracts wild, highly intelligent girls and filters out generic ones. Isn’t that what you want?

Argh! This is too much work!

You certainly got that right! I would argue that most people who aren’t in the advertising, marketing, or other creative writing industry can’t write a compelling profile. If you can, you may want to consider a career in that line of work.

Marketing communications experts charge hundreds of dollars per hour because just one page of text can make billions of dollars in revenues for their clients. I am not exaggerating. I bill at less than $200/hr so far.

Wouldn’t you rather go on a date than spend days on writing?

As I am an entrepreneur, I am addressing that problem with a professional online dating profile writing and editing service.

You’ve read my article on aspect ratios and know what size of the picture would be ideal for your profile. Now you are probably wondering how to get that one ideal picture taken to grab everyone’s attention.

There are two approaches to getting the pictures for your profile

Just about everyone uses the “OK, let’s have a look what pictures I have” strategy. They then look through all the pictures they have on the computer, find a few that are OK and use those.

Unless you have friends who are good photographers, that approach is sub-optimal at best. Most people can’t take a good picture. Moreover, they are typically taken in bad lighting and with focus on the ambiance rather than on you personally.

Taking pictures specifically for your profile is a much better idea

Overall, what you want is a good headshot. It’s not too difficult to get them done. All you need is a good digital camera, a thermonuclear source and some water vapor.

What?!

Sun and clouds…

There is a perfect article on creating killer headshots written by David Griffin. Read it. He’s an expert. He saved me a lot of time so I don’t have to write something like that from scratch.

While it’s certainly possible to take pictures like this with regular point&shoot cameras, a DSLR helps immensely.

I’ve used that article with great success. In fact, if you are booking a session with me, you won’t see lots of studio lighting gear. I just use my Rebel XT, my portrait lens, my cheap tripod, and whatever happens to look pretty as a background.

Self-portrait approach

A self-portrait should be your last resort. I had an emergency where I needed a headshot for a conference where I was speaking. It’s not my best by a long shot, but it worked for that purpose.

When you are doing portrait photography, you are going for a very shallow depth of field. That means you focus the viewer’s attention on the subject and blur out the background. You’ll notice that all pictures in print media and on the web are done that way. This is how we make the subject literally pop off the page.

Unfortunately, shallow depth of field requires very accurate focus. We normally focus on the subject’s eye. This is very tricky to do with a self-timer and manual focus. Bottom line: don’t try that at home. What normally is a 10-second job becomes a 1-hr ordeal.

Sharp focus is a double-edged sword. When the picture is sharp, it literally jumps off the page. However, all the flaws are also readily visible.

Have someone else take your picture for free

Find a friend with a DSLR and print out that article for him or her. You’ll have good results.

Alternatively, have a photographer take some pictures. There are many photographers who simply love taking pictures. Some of them want to transition into making it their business. In order to make money with photography, we need portfolios that showcase our work. Most commonly, we have an arrangement with the model that is referred to as TFP or TFCD. In such an arrangement, we take pictures of a model and give him or her a CD of the images in exchange for permission to use those images for our portfolios. TFCD stands for “trade time for CD” One place where you’ll find someone like that would be on Craigslist in the Talent Gigs section.

Pay someone to take your pictures

If you approach dating as personal marketing, it may make sense to invest into a professional photoshoot. After all most sites charge a fee to host your profile. Without good pictures, that tends to be a waste of time and money.

If you are local in the San Francisco Bay Area, I can snap a few shots for you. This will not be free.

The ethics of retouching

While it may be very tempting to perform a digital cosmetic surgery, I do not recommend doing that. I can easily create a what is referred to as “soft focus” image, but in the context of dating I am not sure I’d recommend using that. Such an image is what is commonly used in magazines. Compare the picture of the same celebrity in People magazine and in National Enquirer. I am sure you’ll see a big difference in her appearance.

Cleaning up the skin is easy and certainly should be done. Digital cosmetic surgery, on the other hand, will create an idealized image of you that may lead to disappointment in-person.

A hot headshot will get you more clicks. Take the time and do it right. The easiest way to test it is to post it on Hotornot.com and see what rating you will get.

Flash is bad! (Unless you are good)

Taking headshots with a flash typically has pretty bad consequences.  Basically, flash creates shadows that do not flatter the subject. That is precisely why I much prefer taking pictures in day light.

In order to take a good indoor picture with flash, we use diffusers, softboxes, and a whole bunch of other equipment. None of that is necessary with nice and soft day light.

Smile!

Model headshots are typically not smiling. If you have a good smile, show it. It shows friendliness. Some people actually should not be smiling, paradoxically enough.

Whether you like it or not, that is a fact of reality with online dating.

If your goal is to win a popularity contest, that’s great. If you want to have a one night stand, that’s also fine. If your goal is to find a someone worthy of your affection, however, too much junk mail can be a problem and a distraction.

As I know how to take a good picture, I get quite a few replies, and so filtering is a must.

Defining your dream woman or a dream man

It really helps if you have an exact idea of who your ideal mate might be. In reality, most people cannot pin-point their preferences to such a degree. The more you know about whom you seek, the easier it is to filter out whose who won’t match you.

For the sake of an example, here’s my ideal mate preferences list (feel free to write me if you qualify :)):

• Intelligence - extremely high, commonly considered a genius by other people. I am a genius, so why should I settle for less?
• Height - irrelevant, but 5′9+ is ideal. As I am 5′11, it is easier to be with someone who is taller than average.
• Weight - fits in size 0-2. If I wanted to, I can fit into that.
• Face shape - oval. Just a result of my observations of who attracts me the most visually. If I don’t like her face, chances are we won’t last.
• Eye color - irrelevant, but I have a special preference for green.
• Smoking - No tobacco smoking, other substances are OK. In reality, most people who match my other requirements, especially on intelligence, generally realize what a waste smoking is.
• Drinking - Social drinking OK, no drinking OK, alcoholism is not OK. I don’t drink or drink maybe one drink in a night as it’s simply pointless for me personally.
• Dancing - Should know how to dance or be willing to learn. To me this is quite important because when I go out, I am one of those crazy people in the showoff circle, on stage, or even in a cage.
• Outgoing - She should love entertaining the crowd. Goes with the above. I crave attention. She should be ready to climb up on stage in front of hundreds of people.
• Business skills - Now we are starting to get really specific. My experience indicates that girls with interest in business understand me better than anyone else.

Maximum response

If you don’t know what you want and simply want to sample the crowd, keep your profile simple. This profile will be from an attractive female’s perspective.

Headline - “Centerfold hottie looking for fun”<- guaranteed lots of looks

Opening statement - “I have a portfolio on ModelMayhem as ID#XXXXX” <- establishes credibility. While some sites might frown at this, you are not providing contact information and they won’t filter for it.

Body of the profile - “Now that you’ve confirmed that I am in fact a centerfold hottie, let’s look at what it will take to meet me.

My interests include dancing, skating, modeling, listening to music, watching sports, and others.

I am looking for someone who is smart, sexy, confident, outgoing, and has realistic chances of approaching someone like me on the street without expecting a rejection.”

Closing statement - “That was easy! Now, the hard part. Do you have the confidence to write to me? I’ll be waiting, and good luck…”

Hard filters or soft filters?

Some sites will have a way for you to define some filters.

I recommend leaving all your options open if you want the widest selection. A profile like that, if it’s backed up with appropriate pictures, will result in a ton of mail.

What if you want to be more selective, however?

There are two types of filters:

Hard filter - you can define preferences using the site’s interface for distance, gender, smoking, drinking, ethnicity, and so forth… Those who get caught by a hard filter can’t reach you in any way.

Soft filter - you can write anything you want in your profile itself. Nothing precludes people from contacting you, but if done right it will make them realize that it would be pointless to do so.

I recommend using as few hard filtering options as possible. I usually just define smoking. While it may be tempting to set distance options, it’s not the best idea. It’s easy enough to relocate within this country to make it irrelevant.

With the soft filters, we can get very creative. For example, I use my TV channels as a form of filtering. After all, I don’t want someone who hates racing, for example. Therefore, I’d mention something like “The Speed channel is on my TV screen quite often.” While I am making a positive or neutral statement, it also has a filtering effect by making the reader who doesn’t share my passion for racing click away from my profile.

It’s important to use as few negatives as possible. Your objective is to make yourself less appealing to the reader whom you don’t want by describing your interests more completely. We don’t want to say “Don’t contact me if you are ………….”. A personal profile is a marketing document. There is no room in any marketing document for negative statements. You should re-spin them into positives about yourself. There is always a way to say something about yourself that will filter out people whom you don’t want.

For instance, if you want someone who loves the outdoors, you’d probably mention “I’ve hiked up Mt. Diablo 7 times over the last few months.” That is no easy feat, and should scare off couch potatoes who won’t be comfortable with having to go on such a hike.

If you want someone who appreciates the arts, you’d probably mention “I really enjoyed Legally Blonde: The Musical at Orpheum in San Francisco and try to see most of the locally playing Broadway shows”. The effect of this statement would be that a person who does not share this interest would be less likely to contact you.

Let’s take our hypothetical hottie and figure out how to get rid of all the dumb and ugly guys for her without making it obvious.

“I would really love it that when you respond you would please include a link to your photo portfolio”. Smart guys can figure it out pretty quickly that a portfolio can be anything from a facebook album, to a myspace profile, to a flickr page, or even to something like a MM or OMP portfolio. Others, well, she doesn’t want to talk to them.

In conclusion, when used effectively, filtering statements will greatly improve the quality of your responses. For best results, don’t use negative statement and use site-based filtering as little as possible.

Personal experience

I used a number of filters in my profile. As I am only looking for girls who are quite wild, I have to make it known. For example, I mention the fact that I have an active profile on an adult dating website. I can’t think of any better filter to scare off most of my readers. If that’s not enough, I can mention Playboy channel as one of my favorites. Does that make me a sex fiend? No. I simply want to avoid any awkwardness and lifestyle incompatibilities.

This approach works great. Every girl who responded to my ad with such statements was quite wild. Did I get lots of responses? No. But the responses I did get were all very interesting. One girl actually called my unlisted phone number, as I suggested in my profile. We met the same night and had a lot of fun for the next few weeks.

Resizing your pictures to ideal dimensions is easily one of the fastest ways to increase your profile views.

If you pay attention to those ideal picture dimensions ratios, your images will stand out from the crowd and get your profile viewed more. What is most important to you is how your thumbnails show up in the site’s search. After all, nothing prevents you from uploading an unmodified picture into a second picture slot, but we only have one opportunity to catch her eye in the sensory overload of thumbnails.

Image aspect ratio is the proportion of an image’s length to its height.

There is a bonus point for websites that crop your pictures to bring out your face. If you submit a picture that is ideally cropped, you will retain control over how you will be presented to the world. Believe me, that is not trivial. The staffers generally don’t do a good job at making you look your best because their workload is astronomical.

By the end of this article, you will know how to avoid having your pictures be blurry, squished, distorted, and too small.

Here is how to optimize your pictures for several popular websites to achieve professional results

MySpace.com

Have you noticed that on MySpace, for example, certain images on the friends thumbnail page look better? Myspace has optimized its site for long and narrow portraits and full length vertical body shots. In fact, MySpace photos get resized proportionally to be 90 pixels in width. The main profile pictures are 170 pixels in width.

Your best bet for the ideal MySpace profile picture thus becomes a vertical image that would look good when resized down to 170 pixels in width. I would suggest taking a high quality body shot and cropping it to a multiple of 170 pixels. 340 pixels should be sufficient. With MySpace, we have the opportunity to show not just your face but also the rest of you with no penalty. We are not so lucky on most other websites.

What’s interesting about this site is that it resized my properly sized 534×800 2:3 image down to 162×242. It appears that the absolute maximum is 170×400, or a 2:5 ratio. Crop a picture to 4:5 and then crop it in half, if that’s what you want. Out of curiosity, I uploaded a 600×1499 picture that got resized to 170×424 picture and an 80×199 thumbnail.

Rest assured, that picture will stand out of the crowd as you’d be literally twice as tall as everyone else around you

For MySpace.com, the maximum (that I found so far) image size is 170×424 (although 170×255 is what I normally see) and its ideal image aspect ratio is 2:5 even though most will use 2:3.

Facebook.com

On Facebook, your friends are represented as 50×50 pixel thumbnails.

Your photos are probably represented by 130×130 pixel thumbnails.

The maximum profile dimensions appear to be 200×266. You will have a built-in image cropper to select your thumbnail image.

For Facebook, the ideal picture size is 200×266 or its multiple and the ideal image aspect ratio is 3:4

Plentyoffish.com

Let’s look at Plentyoffish. Their ideal image size is different. Unlike Myspace, they merilessly destroy your photograph by squishing it into a 75-pixel square. It is tremendously challenging to stand out from the crowd in the sea of people on plentyoffish. On the other hand, you can use that to your advantage. If your picture shows undistorted, and everyone else is distorted, it will be you who gets his click.

Your best bet for Plentyoffish is to use square pictures. According to their own recommendations, 300×300 pixels square images will work best. Again, resize your profile photograph to match these dimensions, and I will guarantee you a lot more profile views, assuming your face looks good. On that site, you don’t see headlines in quick match view, so having a very clear face picture is essential.

You need to understand that Plentyoffish will resize all of your photos down to about 300 pixels. Don’t upload a picture that looks good at full resolution, but where you are just a tiny dot at a reduced resolution. This is particularly true for beach photos. Crop them to showcase you, and not the gorgeous landscape. You can always review and marvel at the original size photos with him in your bed and under candle lights later. For now, your task is to highlight your text with relevant pictures where you can be clearly seen.

For Plentyoffish, the ideal image size is 300×300 pixels and its ideal image aspect ratio is 1:1

Match.com

Match’s profile thumbnail images are 80 pixels in width. The aspect ratio for the thumbnail is 4:5. Sounds simple, right? Match will even crop your picture for you.

The ideal image size for a Match.com profile image is 280×350 and its ideal image aspect ratio is 4:5

Chemistry.com

Chemistry profile thumbnail images are displayed initially scaled down to 145 pixels in width, however their micro-thumbnails are only 51px. Chemistry does have a dynamic overlay so that if you move your mouse over the tiny thumbnail, you can see the 80px version of that file. Actually, it’s even more complicated, but if you will care about such minute details, you can probably write an article like this yourself.

It appears that the ideal photo size for that site is a maximum of 400 pixels in width. When scaled down to 80 pixels, it would appear 5 times smaller. When scaled down to 51 pixels, it would appear approximately 8 times smaller.

They use a slightly non-standard ratio of 9:10, but the height is only very slightly longer than the width. I think they were going for 4:5, but they are not enforcing that.
For Chemistry.com, the ideal image size is 400×400, and its ideal ratio is 1:1.

Friendfinder.com and its less wholesome siblings

Did you know that the entire company is now owned by Penthouse?

Friendfinder thumbnails are 96×96 pixels. Friendfinder lets you have much larger pictures visible to gold members. If you are more into the adult side of that network, such as adultfriendfinder, passion, outpersonals, millionairemate, or alt, then you should especially realize that your thumbnail picture should be of your face and not of any other body parts. It is true that 96px is enough space to fit a good body shot, but gorgeous headshots tend to get more clicks, unless your body would still score 8+ on Hotornot after about 500 votes.

They only recently changed to square pictures on profile. If you have an older account there, you should update your picture to the correct size.

For friendfinder.com and its siblings, the ideal image size is 300×300 and its ideal image aspect ratio is 1:1 or square.

The unexpected bonus of the megapixel wars

Look at all of your snapshots taken with multi-megapixel cameras. Most of them are probably mediocre. Look at them at 100%. Do you realize that you only need an approximately 300 pixel square image to show your smile? If the overall composition is not so good, but the smile is burning hot, take the smile and ignore the rest of the image.

I went through my entire picture library and found one of my better smiles on a picture where my head is barely visible. That was only a 2.1-megapixel picture! If you routinely take 3+MP pictures, you probably have some very good candidates for creative cropping.

How on Earth can you optimize your images to each of the sites?

Are you getting dizzy yet from all these calculations?

The easiest way I’ve found so far is to use Google’s Picasa. It’s free and can do that pretty easily. What you’ll do is use crop tool and then export the result as a new image. Do yourself a huge favor, and don’t work on originals. Make a copy of your source photos and import that folder into Picasa separately from the rest of your pictures.

Undocumented Picasa tricks

There is an undocumented trick for Picasa to achieve 4:3, square, and 3:2 crop ratios. To get a 4:3 ratio, you would hold down CTRL while in manual crop mode. To get square ratio, hold down the SHIFT key while in manual crop mode. For the 3:2 crop ratio, you would hold down the ALT key while in manual crop mode. An astute reader will also recognize that 3:2 is same as 6:4 and 5:4 is same as 10:8, both of which are preset ratios in the photo size dialog box.

In summary, use the 4:6 option for ratios of sites requiring 2:3. Use the 8:10 option for ratios of sites requiring 4:5. You’ll have to use manual mode to get a square crop or a 3:4 ratio. Picasa will automatically adjust the overall image ratio if you use a modifier key and continue dragging.

Again, as of build 2.7, this is undocumented, so don’t bother looking through Picasa help for these modifier keys.

This article took many hours to research and write. I firmly believe that this research will help you to get more profile views with all the consequences of getting more dates. Who knew that knowing math could help you get a date? I welcome your comments.

Guess which of the three ends in the waterfalls?

A highly targeted profile can in fact lead you to finding the match of a lifetime.

We recommend that your profile should convey a theme. A theme makes your profile more coherent and tells us more about you between the lines. It is much easier to write an easily flowing profile when you choose a unique theme to glue everything together.

Don’t try to be someone whom you are not. You chances for long-term happiness are much greater if you connect with someone who will like you for who you are today and not what the fantasy version of you might be. Such fantasies tend to collide with reality with disastrous results. For example, I watched an episode of “Millionaire Matchmaker” recently and one of the guys has a stripping pole in his living room. Will he be compatible with someone who finds that offensive? I don’t believe so.

If you are a football player, for example, your profile might look somewhat like this:

Headline - Pigskin lover with a sensitive touch - it’s obvious to football fans, and potentially curious to others

Opening statement - Huddle up! We are making a play of your lifetime! - here we are continuing with football terminology and are openly conveying the excitement of a major game.

The rest of the profile would carry the same theme. It would use appropriate terminology. A risque theme could be a game of touch football on the beach, for example, if you think you can get away with it.

Your last paragraph should always be a call to action. It should never be “If you’d like to know more, just ask”. That statement is a waste of electrons and, far more importantly, the reader’s time. Do you realize just how difficult it is to write to an attractive stranger something better than “Hi, you are hot! I’d like to know more”. If you provide the reader with more information, you will increase your chances of connecting with them through common interests. They will see you as a better match.

Let’s say you meet someone offline and she’s a total stranger. Would you tell her “Hi, I am Zack. If you’d like to know more just ask!” Absurd, isn’t it? We certainly would like to know more, but don’t make us ask for it. Humans love instant gratification. Don’t make us wait! Tell us now, immediately!

I’ll give you an extreme example. I recently wrote a resume for a woman as a favor. It took me 4 hours! I was completely exhausted! She openly commented that she felt as if she were being interrogated. It took me 4 hours to write a simple resume for a relatively low-level position. Only about 30 minutes of that was actual writing. Given the opportunity, she probably would finish her profile with the “Just ask” comment. Woe be to the person who would ask her out and then try to learn more about her.

It’s OK to have a long profile. If you wrote a long profile that flows well and has a well defined headline, a strong opening statement, a highly coherent multi-paragraph body, and a catchy call to action, you will have a profile that is substantially more attractive as compared to the typical short, unorganized, and generally boring essays.

For this scenario, an action statement might be as simple as - Ready?! Make the catch!

When you write your profile, evaluate it for flow. Is anything out of place? Can anything be expanded? Will expanding on more interests amplify the emotional response? Does it make you smile just reading it? Do you have a burning desire to contact yourself?

Image credit: http://karin-travels.webtravellog.com

To finish my river-themed article, I leave you with this thought:

There is a reason why they call them bridal veil waterfalls…

Headline writing is akin to writing poetry. The idea is to grab the reader’s attention using very few words. Admit it, this one made you look.

What you need to realize is that your headline should describe you and not the person whom you are seeking. After all, if the reverse were true, I would write a headline “Seeking Miss Nude Universe for a Hot Orgy with Angels and Fallen Angels in My Bed Tonight!”. Considering that I’ve gotten a lap dance from that woman in the past, I’d say that at least part of my next level of expectations is reasonable.

Your headline should describe you succinctly and be as witty as possible.

This is your opportunity to catch the reader’s attention and to have her click on your profile. What works great is a headline of comprised of contrasting words. For instance, one of my headlines reads “World-class computer expert…Dancer :)”. That headline is the longest that particular site would allow me to write. Yet, I managed to express something unique and interesting about me in just 5 words. If I weren’t a dancer, I’d probably use the word “Danger”.

To summarize, your headline should be all about your own self-expression and not about whom you seek. It is there to give the reader a chance to have a glimpse into your personality without reading a lot of text.

Let’s analyze a few sample female headlines from my search results (18-36, female, less than 25 miles from my zip code):

Looking For Someone Real - meaningless
kiss me like youll never see me again - has potential
Just looking… - Actually less likely to be contacted, signals zero commitment
I’m just a plain and simple girl… - tell us something unique
Chemistry - cliche
cute cali girl for some fun!! - everyone likes to have fun
Smoke me;I’m dope. - now, this one caught my attention!
Looking for a Good Hearted Man - and so is everyone else
Really? - meaningless, signals no commitment
Hello world - this one also caught my attention, as it tends to be a programmer’s first ever program
lets go get some fu*kin french toast - caught my attention because I want to know why
Lookin 4 A Real Peoples 2 Kick it With - obviously an illiterate person who has nothing in common with me.
Searching for a great man! - and so is everyone else.

I clicked through most of those profiles, but my time is limited, so usually I don’t do that.

As is usually the case, the profile with the most interesting headline, which in my case was the girl’s expression that she should be smoked, was the most interesting person out of the list.

Here is her full profile - http://www.plentyoffish.com/member4275694.htm

If you have an interesting headline, your profile views and meeting opportunities will go through the roof.

One of the most important concepts in advertising is effective use of white space. This post is fairly easy to read because the text is broken down into paragraphs.

It is a well-known fact that the online Internet dating profiles are typically read in two phases.

• Phase I is skimming the content and headlines looking for a quick overview of the person.
• Phase II is actually reading the ad, sometimes multiple times.

By not utilizing an abundance of white space in your profile, you make it exceedingly difficult to skim, which in turn makes the reader skip your profile altogether.

I see well-written profiles quite often where the only final touch the person needs is just to add some more white space.

Your comments on this article are welcome.

And now to illustrate the concept of painful to read profiles…

Time and time again I come across profiles that are genuinely painful to read. One of the most important concepts in advertising is effective use of white space. This post is fairly easy to read because the text is broken down into paragraphs. It is a well-known fact that the online Internet dating profiles are typically read in two phases. Phase I is skimming the content and headlines looking for a quick overview of the person. hase II is actually reading the ad, sometimes multiple times. By not utilizing an abundance of white space in your profile, you make it exceedingly difficult to skim, which in turn makes the reader skip your profile altogether.I see well-written profiles quite often where the only final touch the person needs is just to add some more white space.