Geek 2 Geek - First Impressions

Published on June 11, 2005 By CariElf In Dating

Zoomba happened to mention Geek 2 Geek in the #joeuser chat room on irc.stardock.com earlier today, so I went there and filled out a profile. A few of us in #joeuser have said that there really needs to be a way for geeks to find other geeks. I've even discussed starting up my own service, since I'm frustrated with the ones that I've been using that are more general. Starting my own service, however, would take up time that I just don't have, and most geeks are extremely busy people. So this site seemed like a good place to start.

The profile is adequate. It allows you to specify all the important stuff, like where you live, if you're a smoker, what religion you are, etc. I found it interesting, however, that they don't have checkboxes or fields for physical descriptions, not even height and eye color. There is no place in the profile specifically allocated for a physical description or a picture. On the plus side, that means that people aren't judging you by your appearance. On the negative side, geeks can be as shallow as non geeks, and they might dump you if they find you not up to their standards of physical beauty, which is worse than if they just skipped your profile. One thing that I would like to see added to all profiles for all matchmaking sites is an area for pets. I'm allergic to cats and dogs, and as much as I love them, I just can't live with them. I really don't want to end up in a situation where I have to break up with a guy because his pets make me literally sick.

The match list, however, need some serious work. There is no way to filter a list of matches, it often doesn't list the state with the city under location, and you can't even sort by distance. They do have filters for In My Area and Out of My Area, but MA is definitely more than 50 miles away from anywhere in MI.

My search returned better results than the general match list and listed the distance from my zip code, but it still didn't give me enough search options. C'mon, we're GEEKS, we want search criteria!

There doesn't seem to be any kind of fees associated with the site, and I haven't run into any ads yet. I'd pay a monthly fee for better search criteria and maybe a few other premium features. Premium or not, it could learn a few things from existing dating sites. Here are some features that I like in other matchmaking sites:

1) Chat rooms. An IRC server would be ideal, but even a java based chat room on the website would be a great way for us geeks to interact.

2) Icebreakers. A quick little message that you fill out canned messages to let the person know that you're interested in them. The site then e-mails it to the other person, and if they decide that you interest them, and you are added to each other's mutual match lists. It saves time from writing e-mails the other person may never even read, let alone respond to, and it gives you a way to organize your matches. Most sites offer Icebreakers free and futher contact comes with the monthly fee.

3) Better search and filter options. ALL sites could benefit from this suggestion. If it's something that is in the profile to be filled out, I want to be able to search or filter on it. For the geek site, being able to show charts or tables might be useful too.

We are, after all, geeks.

4) I'd like ways to organize my search results, like checkboxes for adding people to saved lists.

5) It's a site for geeks. Why isn't there a field to list your blog/live journal?

All of this being said, I think that the site has a lot of potential, and I'm going to do what I can to drive traffic towards it. If nothing else, maybe I'll make a few friends.

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