Online Dating at Mate1.com
Greatest Strength: Highly searchable and provides several options for communication.
Greatest Weakness: Almost none of the communication options are available without payment.
Cost: Three-day trial: $1.95; automatically bills you for full membership if not cancelled within three days.
Full Membership: $49.95 per thirty days, automatically billed.
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Meeting and Greeting at Mate1.com:
 Mate1 has a sleek, sexy layout for sleek, sexy singles—for the most part. Because of its high searchability, it attracts all sorts of comers. Usually, the members of this particular online dating community seem to be those who are trying online dating as an additional option to their social life. Some also seem to join just to ride the latest fad. The age of the users contributes to this; though varied, Mate1 tends to attract younger singles. Because of the ease of signing up and searching as a free member, the easiest way to get a feel for Mate1 is to try it out.
If from you searching the range of profiles seems acceptable, Mate1 has a comparatively unique method of pricing. For a $1.95 three-day trial, Mate1 grants full paid subscription access. Be sure to watch your clock, though; if you miss the opportunity to cancel before the three days are up, Mate1 automatically starts charging your credit card for a full membership. Cancellation is available at any time, but they don’t make anything specific about refunds that we could find.
Now, that isn’t to say that you will want a refund. Paid subscribers get all the fun. Guest members at Mate1 are restricted to “saying ‘hi’” as their only form of communication. While it is true that the site logs everyone who views your profile so you can see who is interested, conversation is limited unless you hand over the cash. Once you become a paying member, however, Mate1 offers several different forms of communication. Not only are there standard email options, but Mate1 supports live chat. As both a paying and non-paying member, you are able to search by who is online and even narrow that search to those who live near you. This makes the chat feature very appealing. As for email, you have the option of sending isolated emails or asking to initiate a full correspondence.
Mate1 is an online singles community that requires you to do most of the legwork. They do talk about finding your “matches” but that option requires basically that you fill out what constitutes just another search form. When searching for matches, you cannot easily narrow the results by location; when searching by location, you don’t necessarily get access to the same match criteria.
With all of that said, Mate1 is a simple and effective option for online dating. The web site is uncomplicated, the layout is attractive—as are the singles—and signing up is easy. Unlike some sets of personals, Mate1 requires only a brief bio when you first sign up and it’s up to you to take your profile building from there. Take care that you build your profile well, though—Mate1 knows that when it comes to dating, you have the ultimate say on who you want. They leave the saying and the wanting up to you, but if you like the singles selection, mating and dating only a click and a search away. |
