Good grief, I barely know where to start! I guess the easiest way is to open my MS Word program and find synonyms for the word awful!

Since I have to start somewhere, let’s begin with the name. SYL which is short for Search Your Love. The acronym itself puts me in mind of some horrible sexually transmitted disease, and the full blown version isn’t much better. If I’m going to “search my love”, I’d rather he were in the room with me so we could take our clothes off in front of a nice cozy fire and get busy.

The pages on this site are incredibly slow to load. It took easily between 30 seconds to two minutes between pages, which is incredibly irritating and just makes me want to go somewhere else. In the grand scheme of things, two minutes isn’t a long time, but in the online world, it’s an eternity.

The search function is an absolute joke. Apparently the developers are unable to count past fifty, since that’s where the age range stops. Whether you’re 50 or 85, SYL classifies you at 50+. So if you’re looking for a 60-65 year old guy, you’ll get more than you asked for. Past country, and in some cases, a city, there is no further geographical filter. There’s no filter for interests or relationship type, just sex, age range (limited), country, city and whether or not the profile should have a photo.

At first glance, it appears that this site has quite a lot of content. Once you take a closer look though, you’ll find that the content (for lack of a better word) is limited in scope, of very poor quality, and the most “recent” articles date from 2006. In internet terms, they’re from the Stone Age. It’s evident that the site is run by people for whom English is a second language, and they have not taken the time, nor spent the money, to ensure that the translation is up to par. Pages are littered with spelling and grammar errors, which, when all is said and done, is in keeping with the overall lack of quality on this site.

Where designed is concerned, the developers weren’t. Other than an okay logo, the site’s layout is generic without original or innovative concepts. It’s boring and unimaginative.

Site navigation is easy enough. I mean how difficult can it be to click on a tab? Where it bogs down is in the page load time as mentioned above.

Given all its shortcomings, and there are many, this site just feels sordid and more than a bit shady. Hey, you can even pimp your own photo and become a “leader”! According to the explanation you can “Become famous and promote yourself! The rules are simple. Make your bet higher then any of existent, and you’ll become a leader. Each minute you’ll be charged with 1 bet.” (see what I mean about the grammar!?). Each “bet” will cost you $1.00, and they’ll be more than happy to accept PayPal. Geez, I’ll sleep easier tonight knowing that, thanks. A scam is a scam is a scam. ‘Nuff said.

This site claims to have over 2 million members. A quick search through the profiles reveals that a lot of them are duplicates, and I recognized quite a few photos that were ripped off from modeling agencies websites. If you’re a legit user of this site, do yourself a favor; delete your profile pronto. There are a number of reputable free internet dating sites, but SYL sure isn’t one of them.

Launched in late 2007, it didn’t take long for online speed dating’s Speeddate.com to generate controversy, and not in a good way! If you were one of hundreds of thousands of Facebook members who used the “Have You Ever”, “Would You Rather” or “Romantic Gifts” apps, you may remember feeling rather hijacked when you logged into Facebook last fall only to find that your participation in these apps meant that you were now signed up for Speeddate.com. Whether you wanted to be a member or not, there was no choice given ahead of time, and users were notified only after the change had been made. I can only imagine some of the discussions (aka fights) that resulted in relationships around the globe. I’m sure that more than a few people were handed their walking papers after their partners discovered their dating site membership! Hardly publicity of the good kind.

Speeddate.com is a serious competitor to woome.com, and like its opponent differs from traditional dating sites just as in person speed dating differs from regular dating. It won’t appeal to everyone, particularly those who appreciate the relative anonymity of traditional internet dating sites, people with limited computer access and/or skills, and those who don’t want to have to worry about having a bad hair day.

Their sign up process is simple enough and membership is free but, and it’s a BIG BUT, you’re only notified AFTER you’ve signed up for a “free” membership that there is in fact a two tier membership structure. The withholding of this information by companies and websites in general drives me crazy. I know you want members but I have to say that you’ll turn a lot of people off with this kind of nonsense. I for one cancelled my membership as soon as I found that premium memberships are pricey; $15.99/mo for 6 months, $19.99/mo for 3 months or $24.99 for one month. Payable via credit card.

Even then it’s not really clear what the exact differences are between free and premium memberships. There’s a list of benefits associated with a paid membership, but I’d like to see an easy to understand chart that compares the features available for both types.

The look and feel of the site is okay, but nothing special. Given that this site is just over a year old and is tapping into the supposed next phase of internet dating, that’s a disappointment. I’d expected something with a bit more edge.

Navigation is pretty easy, all areas of the site being readily accessible from your home page with the use of clearly labeled tabs. The search feature is seriously flawed. Geographically you can search worldwide, in your country, or near you. Which means that if you live in the States and want to speed date with people in Germany because you’ll be spending some time there next month, you’re out of luck. Similarly, you can’t filter by interest, ethnicity, religion, the list goes on. A major turnoff in my book. Without these filters, the speeddate.com matching system will parade an endless list of “dates” for you to either okay or reject. And that kind of defeats the whole purpose of speed dating doesn’t it? Which is to save time!

Besides being disappointed in the look of the site, the content of the site (besides the profiles) is limited to poorly moderated forums. After going through them I have serious doubts that anyone on the back end is even looking at these. Scores of unanswered questions to the site administrators, objectionable language and name calling seem to be the order of the day. Thanks but no, I graduated from Grade Two years ago!

Speeddate.com, an interesting idea with flawed execution.

Woome.com launched what it calls its online introduction platform in November of 2007. According to the site Woome.com uses video and allows “users to meet, see, and hear people live in 1-minute conversations. Users can instantly experience the exhilaration of meeting five people in five minutes in topical sessions straight from their webcam. “

Online introduction platform? Meet five people in five minutes? Sounds like internet speed dating! This is essentially what this is. Think video conferencing meets speed dating.

After a very quick sign up process, less than 30 seconds including the mandatory photo upload, you can basically dive right in and join one of a number of sessions, or start your own. Your home page has a list of sessions and a countdown to when they start. Simply click on the join button and wait for the session to begin. Hover your mouse over the thumbnails to see who’s already joined the session. Once it starts you’ll have five minutes to talk to five people. That’s it, time’s up! Seriously though, there is an option to dramatically increase your chat time to a whopping three minutes. Talk fast.

There’s a handy link on your homepage that you can use to check that your microphone and (optional) webcam are functioning properly. You don’t have to have a webcam to join Woome.com as there are audio sessions available, but really, what would be the point?

You can also search for members geographically, by sex, and by interests, but the geographic search for anyone outside of the USA and the UK is severely limited. If you’re in Montreal, Canada and want to hook up with others from your city, well, good luck scrolling through all those Canadian profiles.

Site navigation is quick and easy with tabs that expand when your mouse is placed on them. The overall look here is cool and modern. The layout is definitely designed for the younger generation whose attention spans are notoriously short.

Free to join, and free to use and woo, if you decide that you want to exchange personal contact information with anyone they will ask to you cough up a dollar, a euro or a pound, depending on your geographic location. I’m curious as to how they enforce this. I mean what’s to stop me from telling someone my email address in an online conference? And of course nowhere on the site are the mechanics behind this explained. What can I say, I’m a stickler for detail.

Woome won’t replace traditional internet dating sites, it’s a different, faster and more immediate experience, and likely won’t appeal to older users or to anyone who prefers the anonymity and privacy afforded by the traditional sites.