To the best of our knowledge Datepad has become the first Dating Application on Facebook to receive Verified status. What does this mean? The folks over at Facebook have a list of requirements, some of them we now know and some of them we’re still not too clear about!. Depending on how your application works this process can be a tad arduous; for Datepad it wasn’t too bad.

Facebook is  trying to make the application network a better place. One of their major concerns is spam; they don’t want apps sending more notices and friend requests than need be. Many apps that have been successful on the network simply won’t qualify. Sadly these spammy practices are the main reasons many applications have done so well.

During the verification process Facebook was also concerned about the look and feel of the application; they don’t want users to think the apps are created by Facebook. Many developers have made their applications practically mimic the exact look and feel of a Facebook page. For the average none tech savvy user this could come across as misleading so I understand why Facebook is doing this.

The big question is was it worth it? It’s too early to tell and this might be tough to measure regardless. Facebook has added special areas within the application directory to highlight Verified apps, so in theory this should drive more traffic. Truth be told most applications growth is through the news feed and through friend requests. What I do know as a user is that if I were faced with two similar applications, one being verified and the other not,  I would be inclined to go the verified route. Building credibility in any market is tough and in the online world, whether it is a social network or a dating site, one could argue it is even tougher.

Facebook has made some changes over the past couple of months and I thought I would take some time to let you know how Datepad has changed with them. The first change  was the launch of Facebook “Pages”, which basically revamped the old “groups”. Pages are very similar to user profiles expect they are public. The brand, in this case Datepad, has a much better way to communicate with our fans as well as giving us the ability to add more features than were  previously available. Today we are posting some of our articles on the “pages” which gives another way for us to share and be a part of the users experience with Datepad.

Another more recent change was to the application directory and the application profile pages. The directory has moved its focus towards the verified applications. These applications have been verified by Facebook. What does this mean exactly?  Aside from a developer paying $375 USD, we’re not totally sure. Datepad has been told by Facebook that we’re in the queue and hopefully that means we’ll receive our verified application status shortly!  The profile pages are now more similar to the public profile pages mentioned above and again this gives Datepad the ability to better communicate with our users. If you have any questions about the application or just want to make a comment, this is the place to do it.

We are always looking at new ways to get the word out about Datepad; more members are always our focus. Providing Facebook pages and applications that have value added features and content will continue to be our goal going forward.

In the coming weeks we have some big news, so stay tuned!

All the best,

The Datepad Team!

Things are moving along nicely in the FB application world.  We’re quite excited about the rapid growth we’ve seen over the last two months and look forward to unveiling new features to Datepad and to our Facebook application.

So far we’ve hit the 6 figure mark and today we sit at 110,106 monthly active users which puts us as one of the more popular dating applications. From a development stance we continue to tinker with the communication we have with our members. It becomes a bit of a fine art as you don’t want to overdo things and spam your members nor do you want to give up getting users back to the site. We hate applications or web sites that send too many notifications and emails and, trust me, in this industry there are plenty of them, especially on Facebook.

With Facebook ’s new streaming API more developers are going to come up with clever ways of using the feed. We have implemented a new horoscope widget that isn’t growing exactly how we would have hoped but is driving traffic to the application. While the new stream capabilities will give many app developers the ability to drive traffic through the feed, dating is a personal experience and does limit a dating application’s ability to exploit the stream. We do have some great ideas in the queue and will share them with you in future posts.

We now have many competitors that are doing very well with the iphone application network and some of the new design ideas and apps are quite good. The future is, without a doubt, in applications and making your site and systems accessible through more than just one channel. Web sites need to be more than just a web site; social media is forcing us to become more of a brand than just a single domain. Setting it and forgetting it just doesn’t work anymore!.

As always we appreciate any feedback you can give us; on the site, our application on Facebook and anything else you wish to comment on.

Today is the one year anniversary of the death of our larger than life friend, David P. Nichol.

No one will ever forget the over 500 people who paid their respects, who cried over the loss of you and who rejoiced in your ‘can do’ attitude that touched everyone you met and everything you did.  There have been a lot of changes here at Datepad over the past year, and we have you to thank for the inspiration behind what is becoming a growing force in the internet dating world.  Thank you Dave, we miss you!

Most of us at Datepad have been using Twitter on and off for some time now and while the verdict is still out as to whether this is more of a time waster or something that is value added remains to be seen. Datepad has embraced social media especially with Facebook and our application and Facebook Pages.

We have to admit it took us a little longer to start using Twitter.

Our Twitter page is DatepadDating. We will keep this profile busy with our daily dating articles, news happening on the site and any other interesting tid bits about running a free internet dating site.

I thought I would take some time and share some of the more frustrating aspects of running a free dating application on Facebook.

First off let me tell you first that the Facebook developer network is an amazing tool and truly is a win, win. The developer has the ability to access the 200 million or so active members currently using Facebook, this is much easier said than done but there are very few opportunities where a company can immediately have access to such a massive network. I have to applaud what Facebook has been able to accomplish is such a short time. Nothing is ever perfect and there certainly have been a lot of users complaining about the recent changes to the feed and home page. In the end Facebook IS winning the social network war because the product is, well, really good!

And on Facebook’s side they win because the developer network and it’s 60 thousand or so applications have had a major impact on their growth. When applications become popular it keeps users on the site longer and in the end this equates to more revenue for Facebook.

So here are some of the issues - more so areas I think Facebook could improve on.

1.    The new user review system – Every application has an “About Page” within this page users have the ability to rate an application on a score of 1 to 5 stars. What has changed recently is users that don’t have your application installed have the ability  to vote. On top of this they don’t have to leave a comment when voting. I have no issue with a user leaving a candid comment about our application, but the minimum requirement should be that they have actually used the application. This would alleviate some of the random negative reviews that all developers have recently seen a surge in.

2.    Commenting on reviews - Another area I would love to see added is the ability for an administrator to comment on a review, much like commenting on a wall post. We have had some users complain that our application is lacking certain things or that we are doing things that go against our privacy policy, in all of these cases this simply wasn’t true. Because of this I would love to be able to reply to a users comments and let them know how to access a certain page or feature. This would help other users and give us and other developers the ability to retain a client and/or mitigate loosing potential users from not joining because they see a negative review.

There are of course some technical issues with the Facebook developer platform, we’ll leave those comments and review for another post.

Overall things are pretty good in the Facebook developer world, like any piece of software nothing is ever perfect. The good news is software is always an evolving entity and we fully expect Facebook to continue making improvements. Maybe if we’re lucky one of the decision makers will read this post. Fingers crossed!

For some of us the internet can be an intimidating place; what sites do you trust, what things should you look for before joining a site and, more importantly, before giving a credit card? All of us at Datepad understand this concern and because of this we have taken some extra steps to ensure you feel comfortable using Datepad.com and our Facebook application.

It was important for us from the beginning to always be above board when it comes to your private information. And while we don’t ask for very much information compared to a paid dating site your personal information should always remain just that, PERSONAL! Because of this Datepad adheres to the highest privacy policy standards in the industry and for this we have attained a Truste certificate.

I wanted to also take some time in this post to discuss what goes on with our Facebook application and give our users some information on how the Facebook application network operates.
When you install an application, any application, on Facebook you give the developer, be it Facebook themselves or Datepad Inc., the authority to post on your wall. To be very clear Datepad will only post on your wall for the following actions.

-    When you first install our application
-    When you send a nudge or a message to another user on Datepad

Please be advised that you can remove these posts from your wall at any time,  you always have the right to remove any application from your profile. Please also be advised this is a standard practice within the Facebook developer community and we here at Datepad only do this so we can grow our application and give you, the user, a larger member base to find that special someone.

As always we welcome any feedback about our site and our Facebook application.

Thank you from all of us at Datepad.

At Datepad we believe by posting regular updates about features on the site, progress in our membership size and of course posting reviews of other dating sites is something we not only love doing we believe it is value added. In continuing those efforts we have recently built our Facebook “pages” which is a great way for us to communicate with our members that use Facebook  and more importantly our Facebook Application.

On our “pages” we will post our daily dating articles, blog posts and continue an open dialogue with our members and fans. We encourage all users to become a fan of our pages and as always feel free to leave a comment or suggestion.

We have some new features in the development pipe that we look forward to telling you about in the very near future. Thank you as always for your continued support!

A relative newcomer to the online dating industry, DatingDNA was launched in December of 2007 and bills itself as ‘Social Networking’s Free Dating Service’.  Incorporating a Facebook application and a recently launched IPhone app, DatingDNA allows its users to ‘integrate all their dating information across the web with one 9 digit number’.

Visually the home page is gorgeous!   The PacMan ripoff logo notwithstanding, the home page layout is extremely easy on the eyes and very well laid out.

The whole point behind DatingDNA is the compatibility score which is a number between 0 and 10 that’s generated when two Dating DNA numbers are compared.  The higher the compatibility score, the greater the likelihood for compatibility between two people.  And therein lays the catch.  The questionnaire that must be completed prior to being assigned a Dating DNA number is monstrous!  Seriously, it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to complete this thing and is very similar to the Eharmony sytstem!

The questionnaire is also used to create your ‘compatibility threshold’; again a number from 1 to 10 that each user sets for themselves and which defines the level of compatibility that other members must meet in order to view your complete profile and communicate with you.  Which is actually not a bad idea!

However, where the whole questionnaire things falls short is that you can actually go back and change any or all of the answers on your questionnaire.  Which basically means you can tweak your profile to your heart’s content in order to increase or decrease the number of matches that the system generates for you.  And so can everyone else!  In other words, if you’ve spent an hour filling this thing out, only to find that there are just a handful of matches for you, with a couple of quick fixes – presto chango you’re a ‘new’ person with a whole new set of matches!  It also explains why someone could show up on your matches one day, and be gone the next.

The questionnaire takes the place of the search function found on most other dating sites, and no such function exists on DatingDNA, although there is a basic search function available from the home page, placed there for non members to get an overview of the site.

For all of the company’s talk about bridging dating and social networking, DatingDNA’s Facebook application is an exercise in frustration.  Despite loading the app and specifying my Facebook profile URL on my DatingDNA profile, and having a friend do the same, this thing just plain doesn’t work. It’s full of bugs and doesn’t load more often than it does.  It’s really nothing more than a redirect to the website, and not a true application.  I expected better!

While I didn’t have access to an iPhone during this review I was able to view a short video demonstration of this application. From what I saw the iPhone application works much better than the Facebook app and appears to be well designed.

Aside from user profiles, the site offers its members four areas for discussion; three forums; Users helping Users, What’s New and Site Suggestions and Feedback, and a Chat Wall where you can post to your heart’s content about anything.

There is currently no advertising on the site, and it is free to join and free to use, for now.  A quick look at the FAQ’s reveals the following ‘using advertising or charging fees at some point can’t be ruled out.’  Fair enough, we all have to make a living!

Overall, the developers are on the right track in their approach to integrating dating and social networking.  The execution however requires further tweaking in my opinion.

After 3 weeks on the Facebook application network we are pleased to announce that our application went from 0 to 4,651 active users. Our goals are modest, we want to become the largest free dating application on Facebook and we believe we are well on our way.

You can visit and install this application here.

As always we look forward to any suggestions or comments you  may have about the Datepad Facebook App!

Thanks from all of us at Datepad.