Free World Dating Sites

Online Dating Services – Live Free or Die

International singles, dating, personals, marriage, and matchmaking sites are hanging onto an outdated model of charging clients for initial contact information, either postal mailing address or email, in an age where social media communication can bring down governments. Mail order bride catalogs are dead. Get over it. The more clients you connect, the more need they will have for valuable services like translation, tours, airfare, hotels, apartment rentals, guides, immigration advice, and more.

8 Reasons Why Online Dating Services Should Go Free

1. Spirit of the Internet

The Internet started as a free service that developers in the Defense Department gave back to the public. Free content has been the coin of the realm from the beginning. As Internet access becomes cheaper and available to more people worldwide, if you do not provide an easy and free way for men and women to connect, they will turn to social media like Facebook (many already have). Your free service can be more targeted and useful for your clients.

2. Value is in the Network/List

Internet marketing gurus have made fortunes by building email lists. The value of a network or list is in the number of people who sign up free and who open emails. Once you have a huge network of Western men looking for brides abroad, you have a perfect list you can rent to advertisers or for marketing affiliate products on your own account. Joint ventures with other list owners are another possibility for monetization.

3. Demographics

Nothing is more valuable to advertisers than information about potential buyers. Dating profiles are an ideal tool – users voluntarily give up mailing addresses, email addresses, age, marital status, income level, whether or not they have or want children, and more. Your list can be sold over and over to marketers who can target the right individuals for their products and services. Since it’s free, and if you disclose that you will share their profile information with selected merchants, most people will understand that you need to make money to provide a free service.

4. Create a Niche Social Network

By using a service like Ning or even a free forum/bulletin board software platform, an online dating service can create a safe, secure environment for members to connect. Ning used to be free, but now costs a bit.

“Create a perfect social website to bring people together. With your own look and feel, and choice of social integration, Ning opens new doors to revenue and involvement.”

Instead of maintaining your own databases and servers, a site owner can host up to 10,000 members for $25 a month. And here’s the real value of social networking – your members build the site for you. How can you get that type of value trying to do it all yourself?

5. No IMBRA Issues

The “International Marriage Broker Regulation Act”, or IMBRA, proves that good intentions make bad law. Or more like evil control over the rights of individuals to meet and marry whoever they choose. In short, IMBRA prevents American men from filing K-1 fiancee visa petitions for foreign women if their marital and criminal backgrounds were not given to the woman before first contact, and she has given written authorization to receive the first letter, email, or phone call.

Supposedly, men who pay for the international dating service to introduce them to desirable matches have a “power” advantage over the woman abroad who joins free, which can lead to abuse. The law is so wrong on so many levels, I will save a detailed review for a later article.

An exemption was made for online dating services such as Match.com or Plenty of Fish which charge the same amount for both men and women, and for certain non-profit organizations which introduce singles. If your international dating service goes free, you can forget about the background checks for American clients unless you provide overseas socials that may be attended by hundreds of women who have no prior contact with the American customer.

6. Email

Snail mail is a relic of a bygone age. Even in poor countries, women who are desperately seeking a Western husband will find a way to set up a free email account on Gmail or Hotmail or whatever. It may be through a friend, Internet cafe, smartphone, or work. If she is too poor or too unconnected to have email, she is not ready for prime time international dating.

7. Control

Traditionally, local marriage agencies around the world recruit girls for the websites, set up their profiles and photos, and share revenue with the large agencies like AnastasiaDate or A Foreign Affair. All contact is made through the agencies who charge subscriptions or per item fees for email, phone calls, translation, and other contact. A free service run on a forum or Ning site allows a woman to set up and control her own photos and profile, and to communicate inside the network without exposing her info to non-members.

8. Freedom

Free means freedom. Every man or woman is free to make contact with anyone in the network who strikes their fancy. We are all adults. In what I believe are hard economic times ahead, finding your perfect spouse without shelling out tons of money just to see if she is interested makes sense.

In the Internet age, mail order bride catalogs are out, and free flirting online is in. International dating services need to use low cost tools like Ning to build their niche social networks and build profits that go way beyond selling addresses.