harryh ([info]harryh) wrote in [info]brokedowndating,
@ 2005-09-09 00:16:00
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Entry tags:nerve, online dating

The Death of Nerve/SpringStreet Personals
So it looks like Nerve/Springstreet just did a huge redesign and I'm sad to say that everything that used to be good about the site has changed and it will now surely die. I met a few cool people, had a couple of hot makeout sessions with girls I never saw again, and generated more than my fair share of brokedown stories based on meeting people there and it's a crying shame that someone has gone and screwed the whole thing up.

They completely changed the payment model. Instead of being able to join, post a profile, and search for free, only paying on your first contact with someone they now have a horribly complicated system that mainly just boils down to having to pay a monthly fee (and a steep one at that). This will quite obviously decrease the number of people on the site, leading to it being less useful and fun, and starting a downward spiral of membership. In addition they now have a system where you can pay for a higher ranking in searches. How ridiculous! It's already weird enough getting a date over the internet. Knowing that I'm only noticing your picture because you paid an extra 30 bucks to show it to me isn't gonna help anything.

They've revamped the profile section of the site adding a huge number of questions. The very simplicity, sassyness, and sexiness of the former site was what made it great. It was quick, to the point, and gave you just enough of a glimpse of the person to get you enticed. Show me too much and I'm not going to care anymore. Don't they understand how this works? It's about mystery, not a corporate merger between two people that have been identified by a computer to be made for each other. Sheesh. It looks like match now (all they're missing is the blantant "what's your income?" question).

And to top it off they've even screwed up the basic UI of the site. It's now incredibly complicated to navigate the damn thing. Things look bad on the page, and it's all just horribly confusing. And if it's confusing to me, a pretty competent computer user, I can only imagine what everyone else thinks.

They have a blog feature now (is this at all useful? who would keep a blog on a personals site?) that the CEO is using and his is flooded with comments from users that are universally complaining about the changes. I wonder if they'll listen? I bet they won't.

I don't even know why I care. I haven't been doing the online dating thing for months, and the only reason I logged in was to check out the new system. I guess I'm just bummed that something that made my life better in interesting and unexpected ways has been flushed down the toilet.

Anyways, that's my rant for the evening. Anyone else take a look? What do you think?


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[info]oatmeal_texas
2005-09-09 01:29 pm UTC (link)
It's a damn shame. I met my boyfriend on that website and still go there to look at cute boys when I'm bored at work and play the "would I date you if I were single" game. The new site sucks!

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[info]fambai
2005-09-09 02:01 pm UTC (link)
what happened to you last night? did i drunk dial you?

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[info]harryh
2005-09-09 02:31 pm UTC (link)
I tried to meet up with you @ Niagra around 10:30ish, but you weren't there!

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[info]fambai
2005-09-09 02:42 pm UTC (link)
aw, man. that's annoying. i was right next door. sorry! i was drunk and confused...

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[info]dangerboy
2005-09-09 03:54 pm UTC (link)
haha. i must have run into you right after that on my way out of Hanger Bar.

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[info]fambai
2005-09-09 02:03 pm UTC (link)
dude, that sucks. it's a good thing you are not on the prowl these days. have i mentioned i have a headache?

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[info]dangerboy
2005-09-09 02:13 pm UTC (link)
ugh!

i first put a profile up on nerve in 2000 when most of the other people using the site all worked for other dotcoms, start-ups, design agencies, and media companies. it was then a somewhat cool community of intelligent, open, and slightly geeky people... who were often at many of the same parties and events anyway. and i actually made several good friends while out on dates (many of whom were already within one or two degrees of social separation, but it was good to know who was single and available).

over the past few years, i had heard that the pool of people had changed as they expanded their market. but that's the nature of business, and you could always just filter your search criteria down to be more specific. a few times this summer, i had randomly gone there to simply browse and see who else was out there.

of any of the personals sites, i often considered nerve to be the only one i would use or recommend to any friends interested in trying it. admittedly, i had a soft soft spot in my heart for that site.

i heard about the change earlier this week. what the fuck? it's terrible. the usability is trashed. the elegance and wittiness are gone. the ability to casually browse has pretty much been destroyed. it looks like it went from a "dating" site to a strictly hook-up site with a payment model more appropriate to a porn site. i define large scale and complex web applications for a living, and that thing is a train wreck. i may have credits leftover from 2002, but i want my money back. i never want to go back there again.

i suppose the only good thing to come out of it is that at least the market is now possibly open for a new dating site that doesn't suck like all the rest.

i'm a high level IA who's been a senior producer for some major agencies. i'm sure there are enough other geeks out there. anyone want to gather up a little funding and try to do it right? something simple, slick, cool, and witty? something a little more elegant and focused than friendster, myspace, and the old nerve. it's not like we don't have a nice little test market in this city alone. and it's not like there isn't a freshly opened niche market for it.

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[info]harryh
2005-09-09 03:36 pm UTC (link)
anyone want to gather up a little funding and try to do it right?

I don't have the time.
I don't have the time.
I don't have the time.

That being said, I'm tempted.

[info]endquote should be involved. It's right up his alley and he just quit his job. You reading this Josh?

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[info]dangerboy
2005-09-09 04:00 pm UTC (link)
yeah. on the one hand i don't have the time.

on the other, i just finished defining an internal profile, skills and job site (with administrative tools) for 60,000 employees located globally (who are also multilingual). comparatively, a "new nerve" would be a piece of cake.

*sigh* if only to have a little bit of funding and time. i'm actually vaugely tempted to blueprint and pitch the thing.

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[info]harryh
2005-09-09 04:23 pm UTC (link)
Ya, I'm not saying it would be terribly difficult, from a technical standpoint at least. Just tossing up a a quick-n-dirty but still useable MySQL/php app is something I could prolly do all by myself in a sufficiently caffeinated long weekend.

You wouldn't need that much funding for equipment. Bandwidth could get a little pricey.

There is that time thing.

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[info]alafairnadia
2005-09-09 07:11 pm UTC (link)
I've got some $$ for this sort of thing, and a lot of non-technical opinions on the world of internet dating. very few technical skills, tho.

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[info]billyfleetwood
2005-09-09 06:35 pm UTC (link)
I think it would definitely be fun to do...but then again, there are still other sites out there using the old spring street engine, no?

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[info]harryh
2005-09-09 06:39 pm UTC (link)
Nope (i'm 90% sure).

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you're probably crazy
[info]endquote
2005-09-10 04:13 am UTC (link)
I wasn't, because I think all personal sites are lame, and none have proven useful for me.

The first thing I would ask is if there's *really* nothing else better around already. I think consumating.com is clever (good? debatable), and they haven't made a ton off of it. Are the CL hipsters really crying out for an alternative to be created, because nothing else will do? (And don't those people do just fine IRL anyway?)

The Stranger's new ones seem pretty good, based on something called Gryobase?

I'd be interested in helping out just for kicks to some extent if you decide to actually do it, but I've got zero time til 10/1, and even then I'd have to lose sleep to do it. Bang out a feature list, figure out who's doing what, and convince me that anyone will use it, and I'll put some time in.

It sounds like a fun project, but I'm extremely skeptical of it going off. Personal sites especially don't get interesting until you've got a few thousand people on there, and you get that with marketing dollars, not a few hipster-nerds telling their friends about it.

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Re: you're probably crazy
[info]alicetiara
2005-09-10 08:02 am UTC (link)
(I already shot this idea down in person with Harry tonight)

I agree with Josh 100%. I don't think there's a need, there's certainly no VC going to personals sites right now b/c of the oversaturation of the market, the bandwidth costs would be retarded and.. again, it seems like reinventing the wheel to me. I'm positive something will spring up to replace this, and I think our creative assets could be used to better effect.

(Although I *do* agree that we (collectively) could create something *really* kickass.. which I would love to do someday. Just not this.)

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[info]watchamacallit
2005-09-09 03:10 pm UTC (link)
i'll have to check it out. but, i must say, the people on there have gotten lamer and lamer over the past few years. and the same people have been on the network for so many years it's depressing.

ah well. i'll always have the foggy memories of makeouts in bars with random dudes from the internet!

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[info]harryh
2005-09-09 03:35 pm UTC (link)
the people on there have gotten lamer and lamer over the past few years

I think that's just an inevitable consequence of something getting bigger. There just aren't enough cool people in the world.

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[info]betchka
2005-09-09 04:22 pm UTC (link)
I agree--I rarely see anyone on there anymore that I'm remotely interested, and when I do they're more interested in picking up 19 year olds.

(hi everyone, I'm new!)

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[info]watchamacallit
2005-09-09 05:09 pm UTC (link)
hey there lady!! did you just join up in here?

now you can hear about all of my deep dark secrets on lock down outside of my journal.

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[info]billyfleetwood
2005-09-09 03:39 pm UTC (link)
I was actually gonna make the same post yesterday. The new site isn't just bad, It's catastrophically bad.

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absolutely horrible!
[info]daisynme
2005-09-09 04:33 pm UTC (link)
i was checking it out last night. hate it!
- new responses were missing, old ones were marked as new.
- don't know where my $24.95 (-1 response) went 'cause it doesn't show up anywhere.
- you have to update each question about your account individually.
- it defaults to letting people know you have them on your hot list.

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Re: absolutely horrible!
[info]suzybuzz
2005-09-09 10:45 pm UTC (link)
someone should send this entire thread to nerve

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Re: absolutely horrible!
[info]daisynme
2005-09-10 03:29 am UTC (link)
i do plan on emailing them when i have a minute.
would love to know what happened to my $!

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[info]billetdoux
2005-09-09 05:12 pm UTC (link)
It's bad because they don't have Toby anymore. Toby rules.

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[info]harryh
2005-09-09 05:14 pm UTC (link)
Who's Toby?

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[info]billetdoux
2005-09-09 05:21 pm UTC (link)
A former developer @ Nerve who wrote much of the old personals. We have him now. ;)

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[info]harryh
2005-09-09 05:25 pm UTC (link)
Ahhhhhh. Is he sad to see what has become of his creation?

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[info]billetdoux
2005-09-09 05:30 pm UTC (link)
Asked and he said he hadn't seen it yet. He's gonna check it today...

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[info]mizrobot
2005-09-09 07:18 pm UTC (link)
It is really confusing! It sort of made my head swim trying to figure it out.

I had a few messages that I still wanted to reply to, but they aren't in my box anymore. I seem to have lost all my messages from September. That sucks! I wonder if I can get my money back, because I had just signed up for a paid account to write one stupid guy back and so it was barely used.

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[info]daisynme
2005-09-10 03:28 am UTC (link)
EXACTLY the same story with me. grr...

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[info]suzybuzz
2005-09-09 10:44 pm UTC (link)
i'll have to look but i don't want to, as i've been a member of nerve.com for years, and i can't handle any more change in my life.

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[info]skamille
2005-09-09 11:09 pm UTC (link)
That sucks. I never really used it but I did peruse it a few times and it always seemed like the best of the online personals.

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[info]endquote
2005-09-10 02:22 am UTC (link)
Send everyone to Consumating?

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Nerve in Exile
(Anonymous)
2005-09-15 04:04 pm UTC (link)
drop by http://www.livejournal.com/community/nerve_in_exile/ and see whats shakin' with the ole nerve personals crowd

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