FoundYouOnline

Note:This is a sponsored post

I was asked to review FYO1 (FoundYouOnline.com). It's the opportunity for me to discover yet another web site I can use to meet people online.

The first thought when you reach the web site is "Oh no how can it be so ugly". It's just blue, blue everywhere. The links are in a sort of green but underlined in yes you've guessed it blue! Ok... So if you can get pass the excess of ...blue, you are [I am] immediately attracted by the huge "FREE" at the upper right of the screen. Did they say free I just have to see that? And off I go to the registration page.

First disappointment, it's a US only website. It's probably easier for them to match people by location with their zip codes. And still I can't help but notice; this page is less blue but still quite ugly. I'm thinking, it might be Firefox. Yes, so many websites are optimized for Internet Explorer and this is one of them. Indeed, it looks better on Internet Explorer which is good, but knowing that an increasing number of people are using other browsers and by other browsers I don't mean only Firefox - I've recently had an increasing number of visitors using Opera - web masters should make an effort in making their websites look decent enough in more than one browser.

Now for a profile. Yes, it's pretty straightforward you are only asked for basic information. Though they do ask you for your address, it's unfortunate I don't like giving my address on the internet unless I'm making a purchase that has to be delivered... Why does a dating site need my address for anyway? Then I go to my profile and still I can't get over the look of the website, I might as well run away from it after all. No, I found the strength to go on and see, who knows, they might have a really interesting pool of members, and besides the service is FREE, remember.

Then it looks so complicated, all this text I have to go through, I decide to postpone my profile update until I'm sure this website is right for me.

Finally, the one thing that I've been wanting to do ever since I discovered this website, search for people... and here I go.

There are three search options:

• Single

• Classmates

• Military

I choose "singles" and I'm very disappointed. They only have a basic search feature by sex, zip code and also you can choose to view only profiles with photos. They have very few members and as oddly as it may seem they have more women than men. I've been on many such sites and they never, ever have more women than men. A total of 6 single men searching for women compared to 47 single women searching for men. Nothing to get excited about really.... There’s only one word that comes to my mind as I browse through the result pages seeing all those single women on the website: "fake". I just don't believe they are all real profiles. I may be wrong but ... I doubt it.

What more can I say. How can the site be improved. Because, yes indeed it can be. They desperately need more members. There are many ways to attract people -a negative review is not one of them-. The fact that the service is free is attractive but you get more service with a free account on a paid site. Let me try to make a list of what I think could help this website succeed.

1. Find more people. The site's owners should run an aggressive advertising campaign aimed at recruiting new members. because it's seriously lacking members. They should also in the campaign let people know that it's a service aimed at US residents only and not an international web site.
2. State the service clearly. The site's owners should clearly let people know what exactly is particular about their website. Why would someone join foundyouonline.com instead of any other free dating, military, and classmate or friendship site? Or whatever it is that this site is supposed to offer.
3. Improve the look. They can keep the blue if they want but make it easier for people to do basic task and find their way around. If it looked more attractive people might just want to spend more time on it.
4. Once they've improved it ask me to review it again though if it's well done they probably won’t need that....