Friend Finder (Friendfinder) Review

The Friend Finder site is an attractive, user friendly, and very popular online dating site. Designed around those seeking friendship, dates and serious relationships, this personals site has all the tools you need to meet and develop relationships online.

The dating site is associated with the larger "Friend Finder" network that links people from all over the world in various types of interest and national groups. You can invite friends, or invite yourself, to a growing network that brings friends of friends together. This is useful for more than just dating.

Everyone is welcome to sign up for the free membership. It's great for checking out what features are available but somewhat limited if you are using the service to meet someone. For one, if you are a non-paying “Standard” member, you have almost no ability to search. You’ll only be able to look at picture profiles of those members that have paid memberships, and can’t search by any location smaller than state or province. On the plus side - free users can send instant messages, respond to email, mingle with other members in the chat rooms, post on message boards, and access the interactive Magazine.

Paid memberships are either “Silver” or “Gold”, differences being mainly in efficiency. Gold members have their names at the top of searches, have more search options (i.e., by distance, which is invaluable unless you want to commute to your boyfriend by airbus), and are apparently given more general attention by the administrators of the site. Friend Finder also has some extra pay features such as the ability to allow Standard members to contact you, or getting your profile highlighted by a color so it is easier to see in searches.

What's FREE!

• Free to post a profile
• Use basic search
• Browse profiles
• Send instant messages
• Access chat rooms , message boards
• Respond to email
• Post or answer advice questions in Magazine

It may seem that profiles are fairly plain on the Friend Finder site, but if you get into all the site’s nooks and crannies, there are all sorts of ways to define yourself online. Your “topics” section has a wealth of information including lifestyles, activities, hobbies, music/t.v./film preferences, personality quirks, physical traits, dreams and goals, and so on. The site automatically matches many of your major characteristics to theirs, quickly allowing you to see where you (or your potential date) may or may not suffice.

Your Personal Profile

• Include up to 5 pictures
• Voice and video introduction
• Personality type  questionnaire
• Add Bling and show off your personality

And this dating site doesn’t advertise just how many methods of communication you can use. “Winks”, emails, instant messaging, chat rooms, audio greetings, and videos can all help you decide whether or not this guy is “kick to the curb” or “who cares about those crumbs, anyhow?”.

I also particularly enjoyed Friend Finder's “Relationship Magazine”, which is basically a forum for members to post questions (or answers), jokes, poems, advice, stories, or whatever. It’s a little messy – of course – but many members seem to relish the opportunity to open up to fellow daters.  There's also a "Relationship Workshop" where you can learn how to improve your dating and relationship skills for free.

So, the final verdict on Friend Finder depends a little on whether or not you’re willing to put in the effort. If you put some work into your profile and get a Silver membership, there’s no question that a few of those million+ active members will come a-callin’.