In the Computer Dating Game, Room for a Coach

NY TIMES -- Mar 12 -- Dating-Profile.com, ProfileHelper.com and E-Cyrano.com turn stale profiles into eloquent and ads for $39 to $2,000. LookBetterOnline.com and SingleShots.com, sell professional photo shoots. Dating makeovers are hardly new. High-end offline dating services have long provided help, said Mark Brooks, of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com, "The promise of Internet dating is you plug in your profile and you send a few e-mails and you have got a date. It's not as easy as that."  Jim West, 43, a divorced engineer, struggled to get beyond the first "hello" e-mail when he started online dating.  He paid $49 for a critique from Eric Resnick, of ProfileHelper.com. The advice: when sending e-mail messages to women, ask them questions about their profiles so they are more inclined to reply. Match.com CEO Jim Safka says, online dating is like being on stage and being viewed by thousands of people. "Wouldn't you spend some time backstage getting ready?" Match is testing 'Match Platinum' in which professional matchmakers interview clients, coach them on appearance and style and then sift through Match's database of 15 million members to find a compatible date for $500 to $2,000, depending on the level of service. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES

Comments

[Kathryn Lord]

I loved seeing that the NYT wrote about my profession, coaching for singles. But I hated that the author did not contact me, now really! I am not hard to find -- I am all over the web. Anybody have an email address for the author JENNIFER ALSEVER? I scoured Google, but she is going incognito as far as an email address is concerned.

Yikes about those prices quoted for coaching costs, though! Evan, are they accurate??? $1000 a month would buy almost 14 coaching sessions with me. I do profile reviews and write ups for $99 -- and I do them, not a free lance writer. I'd hate to have potential clients think that $1000 a month is what all coaches charge. $2000 would get a single about a year's work with me.

Just in case anyone is looking for me, my email address is [email protected], and my website www.Find-a-Sweetheart.com Or you can Google "Romance Coach" -- I am all over the first page.

[Al]

People should also take a break from the seriousness of dating and have some fun with like they can on the latest dating idea to hit the web, the real Internet Dating Game . Net.