Average life of an on-line profile

[SW_PA_Couple 4,024]

While using the features at Web sites like SLS or SZC that allows me to see on-line profiles that are recently created, I notice that many are active for a few days then show notes like, “last on-line 25 days ago.” I suspect that people's expectations after creating a profile are that they are going to receive dozens of inquiries. When this does not happen they give up on the idea.

[Judy39 145]

Do you mean on this website, or generally?

[SW_PA_Couple 4,024]

Do you mean on this website, or generally?

Web sites like SLS and SZC.

[Fundamental Law 2,885]

While using the feature that allows me to see on-line profiles that are recently created, I notice that many are active for a few days then soon after begin showing notes like, “last on-line 25 days ago.” I suspect that people expect that after creating a profile that they are going to receive dozens of inquiries and when this does not happen they give up on the idea.

 

It's an hypothesis. There are others. Some people likely create profiles to wander around the website looking for photos. Others may be looking for (evidence of cheating) spouses.

 

 

An alternate hypothesis is that there are at least three populations within a board:

 

1. Those who frequent the boards and are sustained/sustaining participants.

 

2. Those who are longer-term members and drop in occasionally, either just to check in or else for a specific purpose (such as looking for a 'hot date', party, or just to locate someone(s) and send a message).

 

3. Those who join briefly to accomplish some specific purpose and then vanish.

 

One suspects that the webmasters have data on intervals between logins and duration of logins; on frequency of any positive activity (sending a note, posting a date, posting a photo); responding to an ad (e.g. for a cruise); and so on. They need such data to sell the popup ads. As a consequence, they likely know who constitutes their high-value customers.

 

There is likely a correlation among all of the above behaviors and with pay status: lifetime members, paid members, free members, and free members with multiple names from a single IP address. The latter is important, as advertising rates have to be calculated, and the people who pay for ads worry a lot about actual eyes on the ad not to mention eyes that might spend.

[lnw 145]

Fundamental Law has the topic pretty well covered.

 

Personal experience:

Was just starting to poke around and thinking about the LS so created our initial profile on several sites (5 or more for sure). They were free profiles to begin with. As we learned more about what we were looking for, we also learned more about the various sites. Some sites delivered while others did not and we ditched those. We became lifetime members on 3 sites and paid for a membership for 6 months on another site but we ditched that one later for a variety of reasons.

 

But we do believe there are a number of profiles created by lurkers just to see what they can see and then move on to other target rich areas.

[JustAskJulie 2,595]

I agree that I think a lot of it is people creating free profiles just to see what they can learn. It's the downfall of sites requiring you to create a profile to even see if there are people in your area. No, we don't want our profiles fully accessible to everyone, but there does need to be some balance for those who aren't ready to dive in yet to actually see if even getting on the site is worthwhile. My guess is often they sign up, look around, don't see what they are looking for, and then move on to greener grass.

[hkdilbert 182]

I agree that I think a lot of it is people creating free profiles just to see what they can learn. It's the downfall of sites requiring you to create a profile to even see if there are people in your area. No, we don't want our profiles fully accessible to everyone, but there does need to be some balance for those who aren't ready to dive in yet to actually see if even getting on the site is worthwhile. My guess is often they sign up, look around, don't see what they are looking for, and then move on to greener grass.

 

Some sites are easier than others to delete profiles as well. I'm sure many just walk away from accounts they are not interested in without trying to delete, but there are some (like us) who try to clean up after finding a site is not to our liking. And then there are sites that no matter what you do won't let you delete a profile short of an act of god. We signed up with one to check out a while back (POF) and no matter what we did we could not remove the account or get the daily emails to stop. We finally had to install network blocks on our servers to get the job done.

 

At the end of the day if the profile has little to no information and/or the account has not been accessed for six months or so it's probably safe to assume it is a dead account.

[Erik13 157]

I suspect a lot of profiles on SLS are men doing it without their wife's knowledge. I have had a few chats turn into texting, then when it came time for the wives to chat they vanished or made up excuses.

[njbm 2,871]

Bingo, Erik 13. When the “rubber” hits the road, the men cannot make a date to meet because they didn’t tell their wives they were trolling for dates. I wish these guys did not bother us, but we can generally sniff them out. No certs is one giveaway.

[lnw 145]

Wish there was a way to flag or somehow log those we run into on a list for others to see and save a lot of wasted time. But with experience they do become easier to spot.

[2NoLimit 95]

We agreed to not log into our SLS account for a little while for one reason...lack of time due to having already made a few recent contacts with couples that we have had chemistry, and are currently dating. Limited to only a few days a month it was starting to get overwhelming trying to schedule so far ahead, that we didn’t want to put off couples by telling them that we can only schedule a meet in the next few months (that would turn us off as well). It doesn’t help that we don’t play on 1st dates. But that is our comfort level, and we “are” finding what we set out to when we started our account (FWB). We prefer a small circle of friends over a notch in the bed.

[cplnuswing 4,713]

We agreed to not log into our SLS account for a little while for one reason...lack of time due to having already made a few recent contacts with couples that we have had chemistry, and are currently dating. Limited to only a few days a month it was starting to get overwhelming trying to schedule so far ahead, that we didn’t want to put off couples by telling them that we can only schedule a meet in the next few months (that would turn us off as well). It doesn’t help that we don’t play on 1st dates. But that is our comfort level, and we “are” finding what we set out to when we started our account (FWB). We prefer a small circle of friends over a notch in the bed.

 

That's very similar to where we find ourselves. We periodically check it, maybe once a week tops. But, online profiles were a big part of getting us where we are at now, so they remain a very important part of swinging, but for some, that importance may come and go through their swinging life. At some point in the future when we have more time available, I wouldn't be surprised if we don't get more active again using the online route.

[Judy39 145]

I get more attention/requests than I can use, so when I get enough contacts and dates for the next 2 months, I give up on visiting the site because I can't fit in any more meets anyway and arranging a meet months away from now is not very effective or exciting.