Sunday, February 20, 2011

Practicum #1-Kristin


I picked Jdate.com to do my minority website practicum research on. I chose Jdate.com so I could compare it to eharmony.com to see how the minority sight was similar or different to a very large and diverse dating website. Jdate is a Jewish dating website and eharmony is a very common dating website that you've seen commercials for or probably know someone who uses eharmony. The reason I picked Jdate was because I could make an account to look for a friendship; on Jdate you have the option to look for relationships (long term or short term), friendships, or other interests. I wanted to be ethical, I could not pretend to look for a relationship when I'm not; however, I used my name with my friend's, who lives in Birmingham, AL, information. The reason I did this was because I already knew there was a large Jewish population in Madison and I also didn't want to accidentally bump into anyone, so I thought looking for a friendship in Birmingham might be interesting because I don't know of any Jewish people living in the South.

The way the Jdate website works is that you sign up and answer questions about yourself, such as where you live, what you like to do, your birthday/age, information about yourself as a student or your career, etc... What I found interesting after I signed up is that to read any message someone sends you on the website you have to pay! It never said it wasn't free and it never asked me for any payment information until I wanted to read a message. It is about $20/month for a 6 month membership and cheaper and as the membership commitment gets longer. I did not and am not paying to read a message someone sends me. You can look at people's profiles and answer questions on their profile page, like "who pays on a first date?" and other dating/relationship questions that if you answer you can see their answer. The website aims to set you up with what type of relationship you are looking for in your area. Within two days the website matched me up with two people also looking for friendship, whom I will not talk about to compromise their privacy. On both Jdate and eharmony the website encourages you to read success stories about all the couples who have met on the dating website and had a "happy ending."

-Kristin Schmidt

2 comments:

  1. Jdate.com seems really interesting, Kristin. As part of my practicum I have been using the social media networking site, Bebo. One of the features you can use on Bebo is the application feature. Zoosk, an online dating site was one of the choices, so I decided to participate for fun to see how it worked. I had to laugh because it gives you potential matches and doesn't tell you right away that you will have to pay in order to get in contact with the person. If a person was serious about using Zoosk and didn't know this, I couldn't help but think they would be disappointed if they found a match that seemed attractive and then realized they had to pay to actually talk to them.

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  2. When I first signed up for JDate.com it did not say anything about having to pay to be able to use all the website offered. That's why I chose JDate because at the time it seemed free. I was mistaken when I found out I could not chat in any chat rooms or send people messages unless I wanted to pay $20-$40 a month depending on how many months I wanted to register for. I think making members pay keeps people that aren't really interested in using the site from actually using the site. I think that's a good way to protect its members' privacy and prevent people who aren't seriously looking for a relationship from using the website.

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