What a load of crap this instant buzz thing is. I was sent a link from some company I bought something from so I thought I’d have a look. It’s a toolbar that displays text ads and the more you look at of other peoples’ ads, the more your ads are shown on others’ toolbars. So far so good. So I downloaded the software, easy peasy. I started to install it and here’s where their rules are - no adult content. Well, instantbuzz doesn’t say what adult content they won’t allow, so even though I have no adult content photos, my blog does talk about some pretty adult things, hence I did not agree to their terms of service and closed the window. If they weren’t going to run an ad for this blog, they could go stuff themselves.

Guess what? Instantbuzz loaded itself on to my computer anyway. Ive got a big red instantbuzz toobar. Now if I had to agree to their terms of service to get this toolbar and I decidedly did not - what kind of crap is that? I was quite indignant that it could install without my even finishing the setup. I went to control panel and tried to delete the program. Instantbuzz pops up a window that says, “in order to uninstall instantbuzz you must reboot.” Ok, says I, I’ll reboot.

I get back on and here’s a window that says, ONE TIME ONLY.. UPGRADE TO whatever it is they are trying to sell at $97 a month! I’ll never see this offer again if I close this window. CLOSED AND QUICKLY SO ! Then I get another popup that says, hey wait — I have another offer and if you close THIS window you’ll never get this offer again. So I closed it and did it quickly!

Then I get another popup asking me to continue with my registration - no delete whatsoever. So I clicked control panel, uninstall instantbuzz and you know what happened.. go back to guess what and re-read cause it happened again and again.

Then I went to instantbuzz help desk. It says I must register in order to get a reply. I entered my details and clicked register. Thanks for registering, click here to submit your problem. I clicked here and I get back to the original login page that says, your details were not correct, please try again. I entered my details again and got to the next page that said welcome and then got sent back to the page that said my details were not correct. It did this 4 times before I clicked another link to do something else and got to the submit a problem page.

I still haven’t received a reply how to get this stupid instantbuzz toolbar off my computer. Instantbuzz is probably full of spyware too. Anything that you can’t delete is pretty suspect if you ask me. Anything that will install itself on your computer without you agreeing to it, is pretty suspect to. If you’ve got it on your computer, I hope it works better for you than it does for me. I’ll never click anything on it. What a waste of my time.

I feel better now that I’ve said all this here. What’s your experience?

***Added*** I still have had no reply from instantbuzz and it’s been nearly 24 hours. 24 hours with this stupid instantbuzz toolbar popping up every time I open a window. I have found that my spyware checker concluded that it was suspect and that I should delete it. Pareto logic who makes xoftspy said I could delete it using their program.

Uh oh, it didn’t delete. I tried again, it didn’t delete. So much for saying it would delete it. So off I went back to google instantbuzz yet again to try to get this damn thing off my computer. I’m using Vista (another problem altogether) which has Windows Defender and one of its favorite things to do is block your spyware program from deleting anything bad from your computer. I followed instructions I found on the net to disable Windows Defender and then ran Xoftspy again and VOILA!!! The damnable instantbuzz is finally removed from my computer. No thanks to instantbuzz.com though! Wankers

I know you’ve heard advertisers and marketers blow wind in your ears and eye with all sorts of magical ways to get more dates and maybe some of them work. I do know that if you can imagine the person in your mind that you’re seeking it’s a lot easier to find him or her. If you don’t yet know what sort of person would be a good fit for you, now is the time to sort that out. Some people have told me that all they want is a man or a woman, they don’t care about anything else. What hogwash! Nobody is okay with just anyone and if they were, who’s want to be with them anyway?

Get a pencil and paper and start answering these questions and it’s important to note which qualities you do not want as well:

Race? Body shape? Body size/weight? Hair color? Eye color? Education? Interests? Religion/spirituality? Occupation? Honesty Trustworthiness?

Sexuality Interest in sex Sexual interests? Respect? Sense of humor? Appearance/style? Automobile? Salary? Personality? Sensitivity? Intelligence?

Once you have this list made out, you’ll have a picture in your mind of the person you’re looking for. Ok, maybe the hair color will be a bit off or maybe the eye color isn’t important to you and you might not care about what car she drives or what he does for a living, but in all of those answers is the person you seek.

Read over your answers and close your eyes and see if you can see this person in your mind. Most people can.

Now I promised you three words that will get you more dates than anything else you’ve tried:

“Write to them.”

Simple, isn’t it? You would be amazed at how many people say they aren’t very lucky at online dating sites and a check of their account activity shows they haven’t written to more than 2 people in months. You don’t need Cyrano De Bergerac writing for you either. Be yourself, that’s the person others want to get to know. Keep those three words in your mind whenever you log in to your favorite site.

It could be as simple as writing:

“Hi, I’m Ted and I saw your profile and want to say you are one good looking woman. If you aren’t overwhelmed with email, I’d appreciate it if you’d check out my profile and photo and let me know if there is any interest. I’d appreciate a reply even if it’s to tell me how to improve my profile!”
Women love flattery and they like to help people so you’ve done both in this simple email. You could also try:

“Hi, I’m Ted, a single guy living in Phoenix. I love to watch auto racing and go to the races every chance I get. If you like auto racing and would like to accompany me to a race, check out my profile and get back to me. I checked your profile and see that you’re only 18 miles from me and you’ve got a great smile that got MY motor going!”

No more excuses, you can have a wonderful relationship but you must take that first step. Don’t say that dating sites are too expensive - compared to a night out, they’re cheap. Don’t say they take up too much time - you’re alone for pete’s sake, you have time. Don’t say there are too many fakes - maybe there are, but there are real gems there too and you can find them. Good luck!

Adult personal sites are overflowing with very explicit ads, but do they work? Most of the time the answer is no. The majority of hardcore ads are written by men who think because it’s an adult site, ads like these work. The only group that has some luck with graphic sexual language are couples seeking other couples for adult fun. That’s not surprising since the ads are usually written by the husbands and replied to by the husbands.

So what kind of ads ARE replied to by women on an adult dating site? Frankly, the same kind of ads that are replied to on non-adult oriented sites. People are the same everywhere and even if a woman joins an adult site, she still wants to be treated respectfully. She’s on that adult site because she’s acknowledging she’s a sexual being and wants to ensure she finds someone who also wants sexuality and passion to be a big part of their next relationship.

Imagine a woman reading two different ads - can you guess which one she’s most likely to reply to?

1. Well hung divorced man. I’m looking for a woman any age, any race, any religion but she must like to fuck and take anal.

2. Attractive 35 year old male who loves sailing, watching football and going out with friends seeks sexy woman around the same age. If you’ve gone too long without passion and tenderness, so have I!

As a woman myself, I can tell you that no woman I know would answer ad #1. The guy only speaks about sex and any woman is ok as long as she’s breathing. That wouldn’t be an ad for me as I want someone who’s a bit particular about who he spends his time with and who he has sex with. I don’t care how well a man is hung until I know if I like him and once I know I like him, unless he’s teensy weensy, sex will be good. Unless I want to talk about fucking, both vaginally and anally, there’s not much to start a conversation with this ad.

In ad #2 I know his age, what he likes to do, that he has friends so he’s not a loner and he’s looking for a woman like me. How do I know that? I’m sexy! Seriously, the ad makes me feel sexy so I’d probably write a short note about one of his activities - for instance I’d ask where he likes to sail, or what’s his favorite team or where are his favorite spots to meet his friends.

So if you’re looking for a woman who wants to stay sexy and passionate, write your ad to speak to her. She wants to be wooed and feel respected as a human and once you get her behind closed doors - she’s an animal!

There’s a new online dating site on the net every 36-72 hours. Few people would consider joining an online dating site with no members, so what do many of these new site owners do? They “create” a database of about 50,000+ fake members. They know that without *active* members, nobody will join. It doesn’t seem to matter to the webmaster that none of the members are real. They also charge for membership from $4.95 to $29.95 a month. For nothing!

It’s gotten so bad that two credit card processors, 2checkout and Google’s Checkout both forbid dating sites to use their service. Too many scammers are spoiling it for those trying to provide a good service. In addition to having fake members, there are several sites that pay women to contact men upon joining. The trick is that the men can join for free but they have to pay to read their mail. Once they join, all those 22 year olds aren’t so interested in a guy 45 - not until it’s time to renew. Then there are the sites that make the cancellation links really difficult or even impossible to find. All these things add up to more people asking for their money back and the resulting chargebacks are more than the credit card processor will bear.

How popular are dating sites?
In a recent survey by Ipsos-Reid, an international market and social research company, 44% of Americans believe they have a better chance at finding a new relationship on the Internet than a singles bar. Some are meeting through traditional dating sites like match.com or lavalive.com and others are meeting through social networking sites like myspace.com. They want to meet real people for real relationships and many will tell you that they’re sick of wasting their time and money on slick-looking sites with no substance.

How do honest dating sites compete?
It’s not easy. We started SexyAds.com back in 1997 when the web was new and you could start a personal ads website for next to nothing. There was no software in a box like they have today. Everyone back then had to develop their own software and start out with zero members. Over the past 10 years, the first dating sites each accumulated well over a million members but we all did it one member at a time. Success came from advertising, affiliate programs and word of mouth. I’ll admit that it’s tough competing against slick scammers who use email spam, gorgeous fake members who send fake emails and who do their best to beat the search engines.

Where’s it going?Competition is a great thing, it keeps everyone on their toes trying to be a bit better than everyone else. When sites are adding new features, providing a better infrastructure to make connecting easier and producing effective advertising campaigns, everyone wins and reputations are secure. I believe that all these new sites with no substance will drop by the wayside, one by one. We’ll start seeing them come on the market for sale, first at ridiculous prices and then fade away when nobody buys them. The sites’ value will be the worth of the domain name.