mate1.com

All about the ladies. The homepage girl is as close to the ‘pammie’ as any of the broad range dating sites get. Blonde, cleavagey and beautiful. Not subtle. But when was dating subtle! Ads use a range of shots of different models, this is a more sophisticated, brunette, joyous spring afternoon picnic type.

perfectmatch.com

An enthusiastic scandinavian looking girl. Very wholesome! Perfect teeth. And potentially compatible with me too - as proven by a test. I gotta do that test!

Sugardaddie.com

This is about as blatant as advertising gets. Guys - want a gorgeous girl? Girls - want a rich guy? This is the site for you. All in a photo! Even has the chi-ching highlight on the shades!

matchmaker

A different take, all in silhouette. Subtle, EVERYONE can identify with having a silhouette. So no chance of alienating a potential single. Also do a range of more traditional ‘happy couple’ pics.

Datingdirect.com

Wow - thats a big forceful smile! And I’m guessing those teeth were photoshopped just a little. Another with no guy in sight though…

lavalife

I love this one. Polaroids of a succession of dates - nice idea. If it’s not moving below then refresh or visit the site to see it in full glory, as it pauses on the sign up message after a while.

date.com

Now this one kinda shows why it’s not usually the guy at the centre of the pic. He looks like he’s going to bite a chunk out of her fave - and actually she looks a bit like a lion. Not sure…

Ashley madison

It’s not just the slight ‘adult’ look of the pic, it’s the line. This is pretty in your face stuff. But then dating for cheats is going to be in your face, but behind someones back! I think its the eyeliner that seals it!

Terror firmly struck into the heart of everyone. Very few people enjoy making a speech, least of all to ALL of your friends and family. There really is nowhere to hide. Speech writing service weddingspeeches4u offers a pretty comprehensive service for under $20. If you can face the fear of being caught out using a speech writer.

Now THIS testimonial is where I think this product really shines. If you have enough time you’ll be able to come up with something yourself, or from free sites. If not…

“Wow! Great product, it’s worth every penny. I was the best man for my friends wedding and I totally forgot about the toast till the day of the wedding when the groom reminded me. I literally had about 2 hours before the wedding to prepare my speech, I was sweating bullets, so I did a quick Goggle search and yours was the 1st site I opened. I quickly paid the $19.95 and instantly went to the pre-written speeches, I copied and pasted parts from the 1st five speeches. Then I spent about 15 minutes editing this information to fit my occasion and wah-la. I had a perfect speech for the wedding. I spent a total of 45 minutes preparing this speech. ”

Also a great gift idea for your best man / father of the bride to help destress what can be an emotional time.

It’s always worth checking who they expect to sign up when considering a new dating site - to make sure you fit the bill and won’t be too unusual. Unusual can scare people! “Our typical members are in a profession such as accounting, law, media, design, or run their own businesses and most are graduates”. So better have a degree then.

They’ve been around since 2002, so must be doing something right. Look at the party / event overviews and you get a feel for the level of detail they put into organising these. Strict age group limits, themes, and a schedule for the evening to let everyone know what to expect. Free drinks to discourage latecomers should make sure of a quick start.

But how do you judge your own profile? It’s pretty hard. When very few emails come through it’s easy to think ‘I’m hopeless’ not ‘my profile is hopeless’. Trust me - it’s almost always the profile.

A new service called ProfileHelper to the rescue. They look at your profile, interview you, and point out whats right and wrong. They write you a punchy new description of yourself complete with attention grabbing headline. They even tell you which profile photos to get rid of, which to keep, and what kind of thing you should take to improve your profile.

This would seem to marry perfectly with the lookbetteronline service we reviewed previously which takes a new set of profile photos for you.

If you have a parent getting back into the market - this would be a great gift for them. Combined with a ‘its your sucky profile, not you’ message it’s bound to give them a lift. If not, have a cake on standby. NOT in the shape of a heart.

Sounds good? - grape vine social organises exactly that, an extended wine tasting session combined with an informal speed dating session. Multitasking just got fun!  Have a look at their upcoming events listing to see if they have a tasting near you any time soon, and the kind of thing on offer.

If the company isn’t up to scratch you get to taste some nice wine. And if the company IS up to scratch you get to taste some nice wine while chatting to them. Events are pitched at all levels, so even if you know nothing about wine other than that you like white but don’t enjoy reds there’s something for you.

Just make sure you’ve brushed your teeth if there are reds on the menu - you don’t want to have black teeth in front of your potential future significant other!

As date ideas go this one takes the pressure off, gives you a distraction if things go badly, and an excellent focus when things go well. Grape vine social have all the details on their website.

Nice CC wine tasting pic from http://flickr.com/photos/banky177/2658734520/sizes/o/

This book from ‘that guy off ophrah’ has 300 novel date ideas, to help you make a bigger impact. This sounds about right to me, and worth a try. If you have some imagination I’m sure you can just take the idea and run with it, but for those of us that get a little brain tied this could be a life saver. Consider it a cookbook for dates. Feeling uninspired, just flip open to a page and go for it.

The idea is simple. Ask someone out on a general date and they might say no. Ask them out on a balloon ride date and they might come just for the balloon ride. But hey - that gives you time to charm them and make them interested.

The site also has the funniest testimonial I’ve read in a long time:

” DUDE - U Rock. I had no prob. getting chicks to go out w me one time but they never wanted to go out again. We would always just go catch a flick at the movie and talk a bit and go home.

NOW after I have been putting a bit more effort (and less $$$$) into the dates - the LAST THREE girls have called me to ask ME OUT for the second time. They say that NO ONE has done a fun date like I did. THANKS DUDE. My reputation is SOARING. And I’m having more fun too. ”

As with all these things, for the price of a pair of tickets to a movie you get a mass of ideas for more creative dates. Add them to your arsenal to get one step ahead. The dating world is a warzone people - make sure you got the best weapons. Buy the book here.

Nice balloon pic from http://flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/2647199367/.

If you are going to use this remember, you have to wear your nickname on your chest. So don’t pick anything too fruity unless you are happy to be seen as a ‘foxbunny69′ in walmart on your way home.

The funniest thing? They even do undies! There aren’t that many situations where someone seeing your undies doesn’t know how to contact you, and even if they don’t, will they be looking at your name and writing down a domain name? I don’t think so.

Of course! It’s for you to leave behind! lol

The ‘magic of making up‘ claims a lot. Not least to almost guarantee that you can get your old relationship back on track. There are a few caveats. Little things like “This is NOT FOR -Stalkers -Ex Convicts -People with severe mental problems -Other Crazies, Cuckoos or Whack Jobs“. Well that’s nice. So we’re talking ross and rachel not glenn and michael.

There are a few videos, and testimonials on the site which seem to back up the claims. 6100 satisfied customers in 67 countries can’t be wrong.

This one falls firmly in the magic bullet category. But as we’ve said before, magic bullets can work. Just look at laser eye surgery - seems too good to be true - but it works.

Wow - I sound like my old economics tutor. But if you spend enough time on your profiles trying to find love might think that it would be simpler to just start a dating site yourself, earn a million, and put THAT on your profile along with a photo of you standing alongside your Aston Martin DB9. Hmmm I wonder if THAT would be a better profile pic.

So there are a lot of sites offering a quick start for new dating websites. eMeeting dating scripts is one site which seems to place customer service higher than sales - which is unusual. The clearest sign of this is the extensive knowledge base and support features which are available to anyone - not just customers. Being confident to show this stuff publicly is a great sign.

While the dating space seems crowded, I’m sure there are gaps in the market. Maybe you are a gardener, and want to hook up with another gardener. Register ‘ilikegardeners.com’ (it’s available, I checked!) and buy the dating scripts, spend some time with photoshop and a day later you have a business. Assuming of course that there are enough gardeners sharing your liking for gardeners.

The video tutorials on setup, using your site, and the various other aspects of managing the business are pretty comprehensive. They take you as far as most people will need to go, and if you need to go further the feedback sections indicate that the company is helpful in pointing you in the right direction and even making changes for you.

We’d love to hear from sites out there using eMeeting - we’ll link you up and hopefully do a quick interview about your experiences. Get in touch below.

Credits for the pics used in the ilikegardeners mockup go to http://flickr.com/photos/ubookworm/244736087/sizes/l/, http://flickr.com/photos/herlanieship/2608670317/ and http://flickr.com/photos/emoore/2502912373/