Love and Friends Review

Site address:

www.loveandfriends.com

What the site claims:

• . . . a great place to meet . . .

• Age wise we are open to members from 18 to 88 (and above!) and most of our members are well-educated, successful professionals.

• Our profiles go beyond what many other Internet dating agencies and dating services offer.

• We’re called Love and Friends for a reason – although most of our members are single professionals looking for dating, romance and a long term partner, you don’t have to be looking for a romantic relationship to join us.

Ease of use:

• Excellent FAQ page, very comprehensive, easy to read and understand.

• Every page has a Main navigation bar; and Submenu options.

• The site is really easy to use, and the FAQ give advice and guidance if you ever get stuck

Sign up process:

• Profiles are more detailed with this site, requiring more input.

• However, click on Quick Save – this checks what you have written so far, converts your checkbox answers to real words, and gives you a character count – whilst keeping you on the page. Very useful if you are worried about your Internet connection dropping.

• Each of the options allow you to either input as free text, or to use the tick boxes provided.

• The options are very interesting, and tell more about you than the usual, for example, asking who you would like to be in the next life?, if you were given a free holiday, what type would it be?

• Unfortunately, the site crashed at this stage, so I was unable to continue with my sign up.

Photo’s / Audio / Video

• Full members can upload additional photos, and have a private photo on the site only available to selected members.

• Private photos may be attached to messages to members.

• All photos immediately (no approval)

• Email or post photos to Love and Friends for them to scan & upload

Membership levels & price:

• Free membership:

• Send a limited number of short messages (max of 500 characters) each day.

• Simple search on basic criteria, age, location etc.

• Upload one photo for display on your profile (displayed once approved by site)

• Site is completely self service for free members – need to be a full (paying) member if you want he site to answer a question, or do something for you.

• Full membership:

• 1 Month – £16.95

• 3 months - £34.95

• 12 months - £95.95

• Occasional discounts offered ( currently £14.94; £29.94; and £69.94 respectively ).

Includes:

• Auto-billing for one or three month ‘subscriptions’.

• Send as many longer messages (max of 4000 characters) as you want, and be informed when they are read.

• Send e-cards (a picture with your message).

• Conversation screen - compose a message as you review your entire previous conversation with a member or look at their profile.

• Much more powerful and fun searching – detailed, matching or keyword searches.

• Psychometric/lifestyle questionnaire – to checkout how compatible you are with other members.

• Matching feedback – see how you compare to what other people are looking for.

• Upload additional photos (immediately displayed)

• Full members appear higher on search results.

• View and contact new members immediately (ahead of free members).

• Find out who has marked you as a favourite.

• Flirt via winks

Search Tools:

• Speedy search

• Detailed search

• Search by username

• Essential Match

• Desired match

• Who’s online

• Matchbot (currently offline)

Messaging / Instant Chat etc

• Standard messaging with the ability to include photos

• Forums for discussions

Extras:

• Advice on online dating

• Very comprehensive FAQ, written in plain English.

• Current special offer on membership prices.

• Ten different Forums

• Clubs (currently 6), where you can go to meet like-minded people. You can search each club for members and can post messages for other club members to see. A club can be based on an activity (e.g. Dancemonkeys), an event (e.g. Meet at Last party), or any other theme. Open to all members.

• Members profiles are ‘badged’ according to

• If their email has been checked

• If they are a full member

• If they have had their ID checked

• Cupids Arrow – available for Personal Members who have had their ID checked, and are also members of Drawing Down The Moon or Only Lunch. (these seem to be in person introduction agencies owned by Mary Balfour who is also a 50% owner along with Andy Maccabe and together make up Loveandfriends Ltd)

• Extensive members success stories

Number of active members:

• “ We reached the 70,000 mark in January 2005”

Average new sign ups per month:

•  “Typically we get 500-1000 members joining per week”

Additional information from site:

•  Love and Friends will help you set up your own dating site, they have the experience and expertise to ensure the site is a good one, whether it makes money will be down to your marketing skills

What we found:

• A really easy site to use

• Plenty of places to find help, and lots of suggestions to help you when completing your profile.

• The profiles do take a little time to complete, but this will make eventual matches more compatible with you and your interests.

• There are loads of extras on the site.

• Within one of the Forums, members can post about success (or other) stories.

• Achieved the highest percentage of all the sites we have reviewed to date.

Quality Award

Online-Dating-Reviews grading:

Overall score of: 90%

Date of Review:

25 th April 2006