Make Friends Online review

Overview

Make Friends Online is one of the larger online dating sites in the UK, established in 2001, and now boasting a membership of around 1 million people.

Free to join and with all the standard features, plus free events, chat rooms and private chat, as well as 'rich search' facilities, whatever that means. The ability to snag someone really loaded? Maybe that's it...

They offer a dating community where you can meet as friends, relieving you of the pressure of dating, or you can use the service simply to extend your circle of friends.

It's extremely quick to get up and running, and site navigation is faultless.

They also have some great features, and the 'Mutual Matches' feature is a great unique selling point. In terms of features versus subscription price, Make Friends Online certainly does well on value for money.

The subscription prices are some of the most reasonable in the industry for a company of this size, and the features and membership numbers are there to back it up.

N.B. Email alerts from Make Friends Online seem to be highly susceptible to getting caught in spam filters, so it's wise to add the relevant addresses to your safe senders list.

Who is it for?

This site is for those looking for a general online dating website, as well as those just after friendship. Seems like a great idea to combine the two. Or is it? I just wonder how well that actually works when not everyone on the site is looking for the same thing. They quite rightly suggest that relationships often start with a friendship, but in cyberspace it's different - on an online dating site, you kind of need to know that everyone has a similar agenda.

In our opinion, those sites that wholly concentrate on building friendships and allow relationships to develop naturally as they would in real life may help to avoid dashed hopes and disappointment. And say, your boyfriend signs up, 'it's OK, honey, just making friends...' Yeah right. Anyway, this is all pure speculation, please someone go and try it, and tell us what you think!

Profile creation

How long to fill out a profile? Approximately: 30 minutes

Before you can go through to your profile and begin searching the database, you need to complete the following 3 sections:

• Basic details
• Physical description
• Lifestyle

Perhaps this is a bit inappropriate? Such a question risks someone selling themselves short, or perhaps worse, appearing arrogant about their appearance. Apart from this one though, all the other questions are pretty much standard, and won't give you any surprises.

Lifestyle:
You're presented with questions around the following: Children, marital status, smoking habits, drinking habits, drugs, eating habits, level of education, political slant, religion, salary, star sign and occupation.

After completing the very quick and easy 'physical description' and 'lifestyle' sections, you're required to state your intentions, and disclose what you're 'using this site for', whether dating, friendship, or both.

Once this is all done, you'll have the option to upload an image at this stage, or skip this step until later, before being sent a confirmation email. After getting your password on email, you can log into the system and begin searching for members. After that you'll be able to complete the next sections of your profile, which are:

• Interests
• Personality
• Top 3
• Text descriptions

Personality:
53 questions to answer here, with drop down menus for each, split into categories as follows:

• Empathy and emotions
• Appearance
• Ability
• Outlook
• Opinions

Your top 3:
In this section you're asked to name your top 3 in each of the following categories:

• Authors
• Films
• Magazines
• Styles of music
• Newspapers
• Sports
• TV programmes

Text descriptions:
And finally, here’s your chance to write freely about yourself using the following as guidelines:
'Give a description of yourself'
'Give a description of your ideal partner'

Features

There are some great features on 'Make Friends Online', with many of them are unique to the site.

Scruples quiz:
This quiz tests your moral scruples. You have 8 questions to answer, for example: would you keep a rich person's wallet if they dropped it and would you sleep with your ugly boss to get a promotion, and so on. We like this feature; if you want to find out a little more about someone, you can compare their answers to your, and asses compatibility on that basis.

Mutual Match:
This is a great feature, probably one of the best we've seen on any online dating site. It allows you to mark a member that you're interested in, without them knowing about it, unless they mark you also, at which point you'll both be notified. The mystery of being ranked visibly by strangers is eradicated, and turned to great advantage in this most useful feature.

Meets Manager:
Great feature where users can create an event which then shows up on the 'Meets Manager' calendar page. The idea is that a number of singles meet up in the same place, allowing for a safer and more relaxed approach than the conventional one-to-one date. Typical events are pub meet ups, gigs/concerts and organised parties among others.

Photo feedback:
This allows the rating of members' photos, although any member can opt out if they don't want to be judged! Perhaps a little personal, it might risk damaging self confidence, the opt out facility if definitely a good idea for those less than brave...

Dating expert:
Lorraine Adams, Make Friends Online's resident dating expert has an informative page with some very useful dating tips - we like...

Make Friends Online lets you see who's viewed your profile, which most sites offer these days. Add to that a very good chatroom feature for fully subscribed members, which can be much more fun than simply exchanging emails and winks.

Searching

This site has a very solid search facility - users can search for those seeking dating, friendship or both.

The following searches can be performed:

• Basic search
• Advanced search
• Location search
• Photo gallery search

Advanced search
In this search you can pick and choose all the appearance and lifestyle choices available in a profile - hugely detailed.

Location search:
A location search is performed by county, not postcode, though you can select more than one. Postcode searches are becoming the norm these days, and give far more useful results - it would be helpful if this site used this method.

Photo gallery:
Great search feature which lets you see the latest uploaded images by members who fit your age range.

Users can also see who’s birthday it is on the search tool, as well as by username.

Viewing Profiles

In addition to browsing all the standard information required on all profiles, you'll be able to view members' additional profile details like personality and interests, tops 3s, personal descriptions, 'Scruples Quiz' scores, and additional pictures for those that have uploaded more than one.

Contacting members

There are various ways to contact members on Make Friends Online:

Quickmail:
This gives the lazy or time-pressed communicator a choice of 29 pre-set messages from a drop down menu, ranging from 'you’re cute' to the more serious 'I think we have loads in common', and so on. You can even reply with a few clicks of the mouse from a selection of drop down answers ranging from those that encourage more communication, to those that let your admirer down gently...

Mail:
The generic email/messaging feature common to all online dating sites.

One-to-one:
Instant messaging feature.

No extras here in the way of virtual gifts, video messages and 'winks' common on many sites these days, but since the usual communication methods are well and truly covered, such gimmicks could be considered unnecessary.

Email alerts

Like most other sites, you can customise your email alerts from Make Friends Online, partner sites, and any third party marketing. Mobile phone alerts are also available.

Value for money

Top score for value, we say! Make Friends Online is cheaper than all the big guys, including Match, Dating Direct eHarmony and Date the UK, for the 1, 3 and 6 month packages. Despite the low price tag, it ranks extremely well with these sites in terms of the features and service provided.

Being a little more expensive than Smart Dating Online's 1 and 3 month packages, and given that Smart Dating Online has more members and overall features, Smart Dating Online takes the top score for value, with Make Friends Online coming in a very respectable second. Just pipped at the post!

Best bits

The 'Mutual Matches' feature is a great way of initiating contact between two users, each of whom know that interest in the other is genuine, and has occurred without any prompting.

Worst bits

This site is really pretty good overall, and we've struggled to find any genuine problems. If we have to cite some, it would be the lack of video chat and video profile features, only because these features come as standard on most dating sites these days. Other than that, for some, the mix of members wanting friendship with those wanting a relationship could prove a problem as suggested earlier, though on the other had, it could work fantastically well. Your thoughts on that please! Anyway, in all, no major issues here, we like this one a lot!

Pricing

1 month: £24.95
3 month: £49.95
6 month: £