| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/13/2009 8:30:43 AM | OP, you have earned your REPUTATION in the community by being considered the ‘Guru of the Free Dating Sites’! That is what ‘distinguished YOU’, made YOU unique in the ‘industry’! There were and ARE some very viable paid-dating sites, and while I sincerely both admire and enjoy what YOU have achieved and have offered on POF, if ‘paying’ became an issue, I would SERIOUSLY start ‘shopping’!
I would also suspect that one of the reasons for your success thus far with POF, was your ABILITY to ‘market’ the site as FREE!! In FUTURE marketing endeavors, you will STILL, indeed, be able to MARKET it as ‘free’, but there could potentially be so many ‘disclaimers’ as to render the site a ‘bit tainted’……….less 'credible'.......resulting…….perhaps……….in YOU (the creator) being viewed as less than SERIOUS/sincere!
If, indeed, the ‘catalyst’ for the SERIOUS member upgrade came from requests from existing members, I certainly CREDIT you for responding accordingly and presenting it to us as ‘optional’.
I would also HAVE to 'contend' that when ANYBODY on ANY dating site has a
'Vested Interest' (i.e. money involved)....there probably IS a 'serious' label that could be attached. However - at the risk of being redundant - YOUR original premise AND success was predicated on a FREE dating site!
THANK you for providing an opportunity to express our thoughts on this topic. | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/13/2009 10:17:13 AM | Marcus is 'serious' about making money.....
He had erased with his feet what he had built with his heart.........
I wish he gimme a choice of erasing delete who had visited my profile. I get tired of looking the same face ( I'm willing to pay for that).
Also all the posting, forum, profiles etc should have an icon colored blue if belongs to a man and pink if belong to a woman. Yellow for 'others'.
jmo
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/13/2009 10:26:25 AM | I, one of many, do not have the perspective that adding to the ca$hflow would either make me - or appear - more "serious" relative to another that does not. However ... having more features available would be a different thing entirely.
I'd be more inclined to favorably view the possibility of a contribution if it would enable:
* no limit on image storage ( not just 16 instead of 8 )
* the ability to 'albumize' photographs
* control of access to the above
* the ability to construct and maintain "distribution lists' for messaging
* a "longer", perhaps unlimited, profile, with more formatting options
* an ability to include on profile embedded multi-media content beyond 'just imeem'
* the same in private msgs sent to other users
* an ability to include other "widgets" on profile beyond embedded flash
* more control of "who" is displayed - and when, based on ...
* more extensive and flexible search criteria ( moi', being in SE MI, would like to have the capability of excluding, perhaps even not appearing to, Canadian members, lovely as they are )
In a nutshell, IMHO, make POF more of a Social Networking Site. Yes, there's plenty of xSpaces, xBooks and Twixters available - no reason not to compete and do it better.
that's my $.02 at the moment | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/13/2009 10:37:01 AM | I have an idea......why dont you start charging the new people that want to sign up...that way you can see exactly how many " serious" new people are coming to the site...if they are not serious.....then dont let them in the door.. ....you can tell by the posts already that 99% of the ones that have been here...... ( including myself I suppose) are not serious because we dont have our gold badges.... 
just a suggestion ....  | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/13/2009 10:45:37 AM | If it was a complete paying site would not bother me I would still stay.
But having said that you would need to add a few other things to make it worth the fee/s and keep everyone happy.
I'm sure there could be many things one could add depending on time and money.
Proper chat rooms Uk/USA and the like or by subject/age.If some want their own pvt chat rooms you could charge extra.
Blogs
More choice in the gifts for points we send.
A choice if you want be seen online or not.
A forum section were ladies only can go in. And one for the guys
A section for under 25's only
A couples section
Sections for games/quizzes.
A newbie section meet and greet to start them off a welcome type forum.
This list could be endless but if its having its members paying.Adding a few extrsa of encouragement would be a great help.I do know its all time and money, b ut I'm sure the effort would pay off in the long run.
As always my thoughts only.
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/13/2009 2:57:51 PM | This suggestion is for all members that are involved with the forums. Is it possible to indicate somehow next to the screenname whether someone is male or female? It sometimes matters if a M or F is responding. and this would save from having to review their profile.
Thanks for your consideration of this request. | |
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toyoux
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Joined: 5/28/2006
Msg: 107 | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/13/2009 4:35:06 PM | yes ma'am....super sized too
Personally I think that the "Serious" button should have a money back guarentee...in fact, it should have a 110 times money back guarentee....jmho...Irish | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/13/2009 8:36:58 PM |
I do not think it is right for the administration to upgrade someone to the serious member status without their consent.
It's total bullcrap that anyone would just be randomly upgraded for free. I paid actual money so that the undesirable nitwits like what I've encountered here in the past can know for certain I'm not interested in them wasting my time... It's a respect I bought and paid for. If others are randomly getting something for free that I had to buy, then refund my money. | |
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raceme
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Joined: 12/20/2008
Msg: 111 | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/13/2009 11:04:05 PM |
What about the ability to change fonts or colors on your profile or does that just get to annoying?
It's annoying now you'll make it worse. I can change the site colors anyways on my browser. The question is why are you asking the forum users when you commented what we say don't matter since the forum users are a small minority and we have way too much time on our hands. | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/13/2009 11:34:20 PM | | How about pictures WITHOUT other women in them..I think you would get more responses. | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/14/2009 6:17:05 AM | Hi Poster,
Admin/bigfish must be giving out a lot of these free "Serious" button! I see them popping up all over the place...sad if that's true...a deceptive in it's nature-if true..
I think people with "nothing" for a profile are just here to "look around" and really aren't serious about anything. How often does anyone look at their own profile? They probably don't even know the big gold star is even there! It's not their fault if they didn't put it there, they don't KNOW it's there, and they can't remove it even if they do know it's there!
I just don't see it beening completely true given the shear numbers of "Serious" buttons out there now. And these profiles with 2 lines are looking for LTR's....and they are "always" online....IMHO...they need help....with their profiles....this could be the value added that bigfish is looking for to justify the fee..
But, the that's just my opinion...I guess I'm the only one who see's it as valid
Curvygirl...I call that the pick a person pic....lol
Irish | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/14/2009 6:29:59 AM | | delete this comment if you must but I just don't see the coorelation between paying money and being serious about your posted intentions. I'd much prefer paying a premium to meet people who have actually prepared themselves to meet new people through self reflection and improvement as opposed to the facade of a filtering tool that this new feature is. | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/14/2009 6:31:08 AM | I came back from vacation and just recently read about this new feature.
I can honestly say I usually have no problems with change on the site, lets face it, its free (up till now) so who am I to make the rules, right?
I didn't have a problem with the upgrade itself. We've been given a choice and in my opinion, upgrade or not, certainly does not mean that a person isn't out to play games. Lord knows I've been on this site long enough to take nothing at face value.
What I did have a problem with, however, was the fact that many of the upgrades thus far have been given free, without the knowledge of the person recieving it.
I just finished talking to a girlfriend of mine thats in a serious relationship, has it stated on her profile that she is unavailable to date, yet logged on one morning only to find she had the seal. She didn't know what it was, never paid for it, doesn't want it. Not to mention she had to explain to her significant other she had nothing to do with it.
So..now we have profiles of people that were given the seal, even if they aren't serious about dating, or looking for somebody......doesn't that make it lose any merit it MIGHT have had?
How will any one person know which profile has paid for it, and is serious about it, and which profiles were randomly given it?
I've even seen profiles looking for intimate encounters with the seal. I suppose you could be serious about getting screwed, I dunno?
The whole thing makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Had I even slightly considered paying for the upgrade, I would be pretty upset knowing some members recieved it for free. | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/14/2009 6:35:07 AM | I quite agree that it is deceptive... the giving of the "serious" buttons to those who haven't purchased them.
But not many will know how they were 'given' and not bought... unless they've read it here... (and these threads about it all, get deleted).
So, it will seem... to the majority of PoF lookers or members... that all those people actually bought the buttons.
Only a few will know that is a lie... a marketing deception.
The rest of the population will think "oh, look at that, look how many are choosing it, it must be something that works well for them".. and bingo, buttons will be sold.
Oh well, a lot of people that are deep into making a lot of money... eventually learn how to step out in "marketing strategies" that are underhanded and deceiving.
I find it funny that some of the people who are getting these free buttons... are not "thankful" like was probably expected.
They're not even wanting them.
As for the suggestions you want, Marcus, about "what else can I provide for paying members"?
Those that actually paid.... GO ASK THEM. | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/14/2009 6:35:26 AM | I honestly can't see paying that money out just to have a dot under my picture, and a few more pictures to play with.. It's not worth it.........  | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/14/2009 7:07:42 AM | | The lure of the Serious Members option simply is not exciting enough for me to want to pay to upgrade! I have all I want already and am enjoying the site just as much as I did upon first joining without the bonus of paying out money each month etc :) | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/14/2009 8:17:38 AM |
I just upgraded serious members to allow them to have 16 images instead of the standard 8. There are a lot of little things I can give serious members that simply aren't practical to roll out to the whole userbase.
What do you guys think of being able to edit your sent messages, as long as the reciever hasn't read them? Doing this for all users is simply not possible but since serious members are such a small portion of the site I might be able to get away with it. Just depends on how many people actually try and edit messages.
Any other features that might be useful to ad ? I love the idea of extra pics...especially since you can have extra pics that you may not want on your profile, but want to share with some people in emails. Would be nice, too, if the 'extra' pics would be allowed to be those without yourself in them....I'd like to share things in emails only, such as my dog/my grandkids/stuff like that. Personally, I tend to be leary of profiles that only have one pic, as they are most likely to not be real...(not always, though...before some of you jump on me). I don't understand tthose who only have one pic up anyway, because obviously some people aren't the best judge of their own pics. How many times have you looked at a profile's pics, only to wonder why they picked the one they did to be the MAIN one??
Editing messages would mean nothing to me...I say what I mean and mean what I say. That's the way it is in real life, too. I can see this being used in the case where you don't get around to it right away...the person who sent it thinks you are purposely ignoring them, (while in reality, you may be on vacation/may have a serious illness or death in the family/may have computer problems to keep you from responding right away), and therefore changes the message to a nasty one. Of course, you WOULD get to save time by seeing their true colors right away.
Colored fonts would be nice, too, if it were clickable...also larger font. I think you are coming around now, Markus.
I would rather be able to see a spell check option...I would also like to be able to see when they joined...even if they aren't in the forums...maybe this could be shown if they are in your favs? I agree with being able to hide the gold star when you are in a relationship, without hiding the whole profile. When I'm in a relationship, I put our couple pic up so people can see that POF works, even though none have been 'the one' yet, obviously. I've been able to give it a try with people I would've never met otherwise.
Your advertisement about it bringing more emails, quite frankly, scares me from purchasing it. I pride myself in answering all emails, and if I got many more, I doubt that I would be able to do that, and then you'd have complaints...especially if I had the 'gold star'.
I'm glad to see that you are working on improving it, though. (even though you 'blew it' when you gave out random freebies. IMO)
~DC~ | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/14/2009 10:52:00 AM | Check out this research paper.
http://www.columbia.edu/~ss957/whenchoice.html
When people have no much choice they don't know what to do and they can't commit to anything and they always wonder if they made the right choice.
This is why the serious membership works so well. People think serious members are a far better choice so they send more emails to them and also talk to more users. | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/14/2009 12:11:58 PM | That article reminds me of why I hate going to the mall and shopping. I prefer going to one or two stores I know I like that aren't crammed with too many options and goods that I know aren't what I'm looking for. I do think a dating site is kinda different than going to a grocery store, however, at least it should be. You know how so many people say dating sites are like candy stores, and so many treat them as such, one is not enough, they must sample all the goodies, or as many as possible.
I doubt anything's going to change that. 
I've seen that too many choices can be overwhelming and cause someone to not want to many ANY choice. It's happened to me, and I recall the same effect on my child at some point, going to a store like Toys R Us, the choices were so many, no decision could be made.
In those cases, however, you weren't allowed to sample the wares, use it till you were bored with it, then discard it and try something new. In this online dating world, that seems to be the case, whether you're paying or not. I don't say it's intentional in all cases, after all, it takes a good 1-2 months to start really getting to know someone sometimes and see how compatible you are. | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/14/2009 12:32:33 PM | I had read that study too, and there is a book about the concept of too many choices I read last year called,
"The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less" by Barry Schwartz
based on this research, and it goes into more detail explaining why.
I love the interesting concepts of "hedonic treadmill," "post-decision regret," and how "counterfactual thinking" affects how we make everyday choices in our lives.
You can see a free clip of the author speaking at this location:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
Marcus, thank you for adding more pictures choices for gifts.
I really like that you have a seasonal one. This was an area where more choices are a good thing...because you didn't have enough choices that were generic enough (bears that say I love you wouldn't really be used that often, I think.)
I have sent the shamrock to several people after going to a local PoF St. Patrick's Day event here. It was fun. I am so glad we have the feature of planning local events. The planners in my area advertised the event and over 100 people were there. I think this is a great way to get more people to sign up and become new members. It's also a no-pressure way of meeting people so you can check them out before deciding if you want to even start e-mailing someone. And you kind of know who will be there, so you can decide if you want to go or not...
You know the people who go to events are serious daters, because they are actively looking and getting out there.
It's a great (free) feature that more people should take advantage of... I like that knowing you are all from PoF gives you an easy conversation-starter with people. We had little shamrock stickers for people to put on their shirts...I started "tagging" people with them...it was fun.  | |
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| New Serious Member Feature.
Posted: 3/14/2009 12:33:46 PM |
This is why the serious membership works so well. People think serious members are a far better choice so they send more emails to them and also talk to more users.
The studies presented in the research paper are all well and good, but not sure they are relevent here. They are based upon information garnered in blind studies, regarding behaviors revolving around choices. On POF the situation is totally different...
We have been given many choices, and now because someone tells us 'serious members' are a far better choice... that alone is going to predicate that we are more inclined to take them seriously. Not so, we might look more just to see who is falling for all of this, hence your triple number of views, and the contacts might go up... I for one have emailed with two different men asking them about their membership, which according to them was bogus.
None of this so called 'data' can be conclusive because of the nature in which it was garnered... You give out free 'serious member' status, randomly, so by virtue of the fact that it was free and random, and given the fact that we all know it, makes any conclusion as to the benefits therein worthless...
CC.. | |
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