PR NEWSWIRE -- Aug 20 -- According to a research by a new online photo verification site, http://www.
CheckedProfile.com works with the following 5 steps:
1. Users upload a picture they want to verify
2. CheckedProfile gives them a unique code
3. Users take another picture holding the unique code
4. One of CheckedProfile.com's experts immediately checks that both images are the same person
5. If successful, they are given a unique stamp which they can upload onto any website
Mark Brooks: 80%??! Your comments please.
Seems like a misleading headline. 80% of users think *other* people's profiles are fake. Maybe only 1-5% of profile photos are fake- however most people have come across these.
Seems like a bad business to me. Most fake profiles are of really hot women. Do hot women really need this service to be successful on internet dating site?
Posted by: mike | Aug 21, 2009 at 11:01 AM
Interesting article and reinforces some of our thoughts on the value of a photo in the online dating 'game'.
Check out our recent article on exactly this topic...
http://listmanager.co.il/fb/fb/userFiles/71/zoozmen/myphoto.html
Darren Gladstone
VP
www.zoozamen.com
Posted by: Darren | Aug 21, 2009 at 11:39 AM
I read the long version of the press release. I think what it is actually saying is 80% of the gorgeous women you saw on plentyoffish.com and true.com who said they thought your profile HHOTT, were fake.
I'm surprised checkedprofile is so clueless in the approach (pay us to verify your photo in your profile, in an environment where 8 of 10 are not...der, not a good investment)
Posted by: Nancy | Aug 21, 2009 at 01:23 PM
What I find most interesting is that women and children do not have to pay to use this service and yet men have to pay $0.99...
I would have thought that both sexes suffer from this in equal amounts.
Either way it would be interesting to see what sort of API they offer for photo upload verification. And on most dating websites people have more than one photo uploaded.... so do you have to pay that for EVERY photo you want verified...
A lot of money for not a lot of benefit.
Unless we get to a stage where you have to submit your passport number and biometric information on registration!!
Posted by: Rick Seymour | Aug 21, 2009 at 04:01 PM
I call BS on the research, but it did get our attention. I used the service yesterda and my "verified" (it's not, really) photo is now my Facebook profile shot. Most dating sites throw their logo exactly where the identifier text is, which is far too small to actually read when the photo is shoehorned into a profile, plus site tend to optimize photos, making the text illegible.
This will go away like most of these 1/2-baked ideas. I do like the website though, clean and simple and easy to use. Too bad the concept is fatally flawed.
Posted by: David Evans | Aug 21, 2009 at 05:33 PM
Yup this is a bit load of horse crap.
It's one way for CheckedProfile to get attention, but they're about to get a very nasty shock in a couple of weeks when a much superior implementation of photo verification is launched with the support of a number of dating sites.
Nice idea in principle but a flawed concept as David says - would have done better to get the support of online dating sites and their ideas prior to launching so it didn't waste investors funds.
Posted by: Ross Williams | Aug 22, 2009 at 05:26 AM
I don't believe they'll have any kind of sucess. First of all people don't even wanna spend time going to another website to verify their photo. And it's also so easy for the dating sites themself to create this functionality directly on their sites. On Netdate.dk we've had a feature like this, combined with live-check of social security number (checks age, adress etc.) to make it even safer. We're implementing this in a downscaled version on both dating.co.uk and dating.se soon (since they do not allow the social security number checks, as far as I know).
Posted by: Jones | Aug 24, 2009 at 01:55 AM
I was supposed to say that we HAVE a feature like this.
Posted by: Jones | Aug 24, 2009 at 01:56 AM
I can see how it would be useful not just for online dating but other stuff like social media and forums etc, gone are the days when people can just set up annonymous accounts.
Posted by: twitter.com/locspoc | Aug 24, 2009 at 05:39 AM
I tried the service on Friday. I am still waiting for my photograph to be verified. I guess as a free user I'll have to wait for few days or pay for Priority verification.
Posted by: irena | Aug 24, 2009 at 10:36 AM
Don't believe everything in the net. There are lot of posers even in online games like WoW or Aion where men or gays pretend to be whatever they want them to be. That's why you need to know the person first and see them in person before letting yourself fall for that person.
Posted by: aion kinah | Aug 24, 2009 at 03:53 PM
I think it should have read, "80% of profile pictures are BAD." The problem is when online daters actually believe their photos are good. They don't have the insight to understand how others "read" and react to photos while surfing profiles.
I think a better service would be to have a bot to screen photos to identify flattering vs. bad photos. Because while you can now upload a real photo with checkedprofile.com, it could still suck.
Janice D. Bennett, Ph.D.
http://www.DoctorLoveCoach.com
Posted by: Janice D. Bennett, Ph.D. | Aug 25, 2009 at 12:23 PM