Days of Swine and Roses

So I've been exposed to swine flu. I've had a few aches, couple of sneezes and a very slightly sore throat - and those symptoms are on the wane today. Is that it? Talk about an extreme range of consequences , from slight niggle to death. Imagine a computer virus like that , payload varies between slight pauses all the way to formatting your hard drive and stealing your bank details to pay someone to beat you up. Weird.

Well, thats the swine, now for the roses.

Is there some company that builds dating website software ? A quick google says yes, so that probably explains why they all have payment schemes like this

• £10/mo if you buy 12 months
• £15/mo if you buy 6 months
• £20/mo if you buy 3 months
• £35/mo if you buy 1 months
  

Good lord, Imagine this pricing from a petrol station (50p a litre if you buy a whole tank, 75p for half tank, £15 to fill up a small lawn mower). eHarmony does this, as does match.com and all the others. While £120 is a small price to pay for the love of your life, its big one when the same money will let you meet women in person and includes beer, food and dancing.

Here, as a consumer, is what I see as wrong with current crop of dating websites.

1. The pricing structure frankly looks greedy.
2. You've no idea if a member is a subscriber and thus whether they can reply to you or not.
3. Some of them don't even tell you if a member is active or not - are you looking at someone who signed up three years ago and never came back ?
   

Here's how I would do a dating website :

• The matching , photo and descriptions section wouldn't change. The current players seem to ahve that right.
• Instead of paying for time you pay for contacts. Pick a price, 10p, 50p, £1 whatever, but keep it on the low. £1 is ideal.
You buy contact credits in blocks or individually.

• Each contact credit can be spent contacting one member. This gives you a 30 day communiction channel to that member only.
  
• When you contact a member they don't need to spend a credit to reply, it's free but only to the person who spent the credit. I'm willing to bet that someone who gets a couple of contacts they can talk to for free would consider buying contact credits themselves.
  
• If you are lucky enough to meet the contact of your dreams and live happily ever after you can trade your remaining contacts in for flowers, chocolates, whips, whatever.
  
• If you don't sign in for three months then the site will stop listing your profile.
  

(I originally thought 50p a contact, with a contact credit being required to reply. But then it just seemed simpler to double the contact price and make replying free. Phone calls work the same way after all).

Is this a viable business model ? Do the existing players in the market really get most of there money from those that pay over £100 for a year of subscription ?

I think not. Mobile phones in this country didn't take off until pay as you go arrived, and this is just pay as you go dating.

I think this could be a winner, I just need a snappy name.....

CheapDate ? eMiser ? Ebenezer Scrooges Emporium for Desperate Loners ?

*sigh*