Spark.com overview, online dating site review

Spark.com overview

Spark.com
a fun site for serious daters

Spark.com overview:

Spark.com is another heavyweight of online dating, with over 7 million registered users. It recently took over AmericanSingles.com and still focuses very heavily on American Singles. However, although the majority of the users are from the US and Canada, the site does have plenty of members in over 200 other countries around the world, notably the UK, Australia and some parts of Europe.

To sign up as a free or paid member you need to choose a username and password, fill in your e-mail address and date-of-birth, answer some mutiple choice questions about yourself, write a one or two line introduction to yourself and upload a profile photo. After that, you will have full access to the site and you can begin searching for other members in your area immediately!

Spark.com is a very user-friendly site - there are no banners or advertisements, the layout is clean and tidy and the site is extremely easy to navigate, even for internet newbies!

Spark.com Features:

• Over 7 million registered members
• Members mainly from USA, but also from 200 other countries around the world
• Sign-up for free.
• Flirt feature allows you to send any one of a number of pre-written one-liners to another member to signify your interest in them. Choose from any of 50-60 one-liners, divided into the following categories: Sincere; Romantic; Humorous; Flirtatious; Poems; Movie Lines; Holiday/Seasonal; and Songs. Available to free members.
• Click feature allows you to quickly express an interest in someone else. At the top of every member profile you'll see the question "Think you'd Click?!" to which you may answer yes, maybe or no. If you answer yes, then the person is automatically informed of this by Spark. Then he/she can choose to answer the same question on your profile. If she clicks yes on your profile then you will be informed of this and you can both then choose to take things to the next level if you desire by upgrading to premium membership and making first contact. This is a great way to break the ice and a great way to know whether it's worth upgrading to paid membership or not.
• Five Month Promise - if, after you sign up for the five month membership plan, you don't find anyone in those five months then Spark.com will give you an additional five months absolutely free! Now there's no arguing with that!
• Free members can read all member profiles in full, perform advanced searches and view all member photographs.
• Free members cannot access the audio/video messaging tools, access the chat rooms, instant message other members or freely use the email tools. Only subscribed members have unlimited use of these features. However, if a subscribed member contacts a non-paid member, the non-paid member can reply to the email without having to pay for a subscription.
• Subscribed members may use internal email to contact whomever they like.
• Subscribed members can access the chat rooms where you can chat publicly or privately with other members. Divided into rooms based on location, age range, interests, etc. Don't find anything interesting? Start your own chat room!
• Subscribed members can instant message other members.
• Subscribed members can use video and audio messaging facilities.
• Add members to your hotlist, ignore list, and see who's online.
• See when members were last online. This can be a really useful way of knowing how active a member is on the site and whether or not it's worth e-mailing them. For instance, it may be pointless e-mailing a member who hasn't been online in 6 months.
• A record is kept of who you hotlisted and flirted with, as well as who hotlisted and flirted with you (you can view these lists at any time).
• Color Code personality test is a unique matching system that tries to match you with other members.
• Choose (as many as you like) from the following types of relationships you wish to search for:

  • a date
  • long-term relationship
  • activity partner
  • friendship
  • email/chat
  • intimacy/physical chemistry
  • marriage
  • marriage and children.
• Sort matches by newest, most active, closest to you, and most popular.
• Create and send customizable e-cards to other members.
• Complete privacy protection - no one will know your identity unless you explicitly tell them!
• Excellent technical support.

  the table below, you can see which features are available to free members compared to subscribed standard members or premium :

What you get	Free Membership	Standard Subscription	Premium Subscription
Read and reply to Email	Yes	Yes	Yes
Test the waters with Flirts	Yes	Yes	Yes
Find secret admirers with Click!	Yes	Yes	Yes
Review your Matches by Mail	Yes	Yes	Yes
Search by Keyword, Photo, or "Online"	Yes	Yes	Yes
Initiate Email Conversations	No	Yes	Yes
Connect with Instant Messaging	No	Yes	Yes
Enjoy full access to message boards	No	Yes	Yes
Create customizable E-cards	No	Yes	Yes
Member Spotlight	No	No	Yes
Highlighted Profile	No	No	Yes

Performing a Search on Spark.com:

• A full search facility is available, allowing members to search by:
• gender
• age range
• marital status
• location to within 1 mile of where you live
• whether the member has pictures posted
• ethnicity
• smoking
• height
• plus any other features of a member's profile

Although, Spark.com has all the features to be a great online dating site, it doesn't rank top of most online dating sites lists for a few reasons. Firstly, you must complete the sign-up process (which includes a profile photo) before you can see the pricing plans. Although, on their homepage, Spark.com make a point of being cheaper than some of their competitors, they fail to list their pricing plans there. Also, unlike some of its competitors, Spark.com does not offer an online webzine with articles, tips and stories available. Whether this is really a disadvantage will be totally up to your personal preferences - some people love the webzines, some people never read them.

Having said all that, Spark is easy to navigate, easy to use, has a massive database of over 7 million members, and is very competitively priced. If you sign-up for the 6-month standard membership plan, you will get membership for $54.94 per month, and will also get the option to renew at the very low rate of just $9.99 per month. That's one of the best value membership plans around!