AD sites: Favorite/ Least Favorite Features

[JustAskJulie]

Let's talk personal ads! What is your ad site of choice and what your favorite and least favorite features that it offers (or that others offer)?

We use Swing Lifestyle primarily and while I prefer the layout of the way that search results are returned and for the most part the ad display themselves. Their message/email system drives me nuts. The fact that once you read it you can't mark it unread and there's no way to really sort messages other than newest to oldest (and when you view them they typically show oldest first).

[bellady]

We are on Swing Lifestyle also and I agree about the email.. it took me a while to figure out where they went after I read them
...We use AFF mostly.. There seems to be the most activity there, you can do many things and what I like about the email is that it saves your previous emails with new messages so you can read a back and forth conversation with out opening and closing a lot of emails...

[cplnuswing]

Originally Posted by bellady

...We use AFF mostly.. There seems to be the most activity there, you can do many things and what I like about the email is that it saves your previous emails with new messages so you can read a back and forth conversation with out opening and closing a lot of emails...

Just a note - Swing Lifestyle does this too, just click on the envelope icon for a cumulative running history of all emails exchanged with that person/couple all on one screen. We like that feature.

[JustAskJulie]

Originally Posted by cplnuswing

Just a note - Swing Lifestyle does this too, just click on the envelope icon for a cumulative running history of all emails exchanged with that person/couple all on one screen. We like that feature.

that would be the envelope icon at the top of the users profile....

[Dynamar]

I'm on both Swappernet and Swing Lifestyle. I prefer Swappernet as it seems to have more and better quality people from my area.

I like the Groups feature on Swappernet. I also appreciate that you can rate profiles, as well as having a friends list. One thing I dislike about Swappernet though is the fact that they removed the line on the profiles that indicates when the last time was that the person logged on. They also changed the way that Friends List and On Friends is displayed, and I liked the old way better.

I do like the Swing Lifestyle feature of keeping the mail history so you can see the back and forth communication without opening tons of windows. This history does not stay forever though... it seems to disappear after about 18 months or so. It's also nice to be able to be a free member there and not have to pay for two services. There isn't much you can't do as a free member, that you could as a paid member. I guess I never used the differences in the features when I was a paid member, therefore I don't miss them.

[ncmd_couple]

We joined several sites and dropped all of them but Swing Lifestyle. The reason that we did so is that most of the sites are regional. We are planning on moving from Maryland in the near future and wanted a site that was not so regionally focused.

Julie, yeah, their mail system sucks, but you can click on "Order: DESC" in the mail view and it will flip the order to most reciently received.

[cplnuswing]

Originally Posted by JustAskJulie

that would be the envelope icon at the top of the users profile....

It's on the mailbox screen too. When you have a message, just click on the envelope icon and it shows the back and forth history including the new message. Interestingly, it doesn't mark the new email as opened when you do it that way.

[Bama0468]

been a member of a few, and I like Swing Lifestyle as that you can be contacted AND reply, or even contact as a free member, I really hate the ones where you get a message and then can not reply.

[good times]

I like Swing Lifestyle best, overall they have the best features of the ones we have tried, and I think because of their free member policy they also have the most members in our area. they also have that cool club game.

[two4youinswva]

We use Swing Lifestyle.

We like the Events Calendar setup, and the ability to add your name to the list of attendees (which works pretty good for the most part around here).

We do not like their forums. They aren't organized, and are cumbersome to navigate.

We like that it is easy enough to tweak who you do and don't want to see your profile.

We like that relative to other sites, the membership price is fairly reasonable. I think we paid about $100 for a lifetime membership, although the cost has gone up since then.

Still yet, you can get several months for about $30 if you don't want to drop the cash for a lifetime membership. As others have said, even the free membership is pretty good as freebies go.

[two42lovers]

By far the best site we've been on was Lifestyle Lounge - it has an absolutely great email setup, a great forum, and lots of awesome features throughout the site. It definately is a cut above in every way - except one. We rarely actually met anyone off LL -lol! It seemed like the vast majority of people on LL tended to meet at conventions and lifestyle parties. We were on LL, AFF, and Swing Lifestyle for the first year we were in the lifestyle. We dropped LL after a year.

In contrast, Swing Lifestyle is a lackluster site feature wise, and has terrible email, but it's VERY inexpensive and has many, many real people who really meet. AFF has more features than Swing Lifestyle, but has terrible email and runs very slow. AFF also has lots of real people who really meet (among lots of posers and wannabees.) But AFF costs more per year than Swing Lifestyle's lifetime membership. In our experience Swing Lifestyle is the better value.

[WesternSwing]

We're on Swing Lifestyle, Swappernet and Swingular. We like Swing Lifestyle allot, but Swingular seems to be the most active in our area, probably because the site owner lives in Utah. Swingular has some things that work really well, though, and it is attractively put together.

[JustAskJulie]

Originally Posted by WesternSwing

We're on Swing Lifestyle, Swappernet and Swingular. We like Swing Lifestyle allot, but Swingular seems to be the most active in our area, probably because the site owner lives in Utah. Swingular has some things that work really well, though, and it is attractively put together.

What are the things you find "work really well" on Swingular?

[Pensacolapair]

We have tried all of the sites mentioned here... and when the dust settled we chose Swing Lifestyle as our primary site. We agree that it could benefit from some of the features we've seen on other sites and some of it's policies probably make it more annoying than it could be. However, for some reason, our experience has been that we have far more contacts via Swing Lifestyle.. and more importantly, fewer 'fantasy folk'.

Of the ones mentioned so far, for us, AFF was the biggest waste of time. Great features... but no contacts from anyone who didn't come across as fake as the Venus Di Milo with arms! Personally, no one we know has ever actually met someone via AFF..but apparently others have had a different experience with them.

Swappernet is OK, but we found it a bit clumsy to use. We met some nice folks via Swappernet... but also found that compared to our Swing Lifestyle experience, they were overrun with 'fantasy folk' too.

We are on Swingular, primarily because some friends recommended it a couple years ago when they were running a super-low price on a Lifetime membership ($20 or so). Other than a couple of emails from couples we already knew, the only emails we have gotten on that site have been from their admin trumpeting contests, site changes, etc.

One thing that we found strange is that while people we have met may have been on the other sites while we were on them, they chose to contact us using Swing Lifestyle. We got quite a few emails that would start with, "Hi, We are ______, we've also seen you guys on Swingular (or swingers date club, Swappernet, etc)" After we got to know them, we'd usually ask them why they didn't just contact us there? The answers were good for a few laughs between us.. but it's one of the reasons we decided to cut the other sites loose.

[xyzzy07]

We gave up on Swing Lifestyle because there were too many fakes on there. Actually, we don't use Internet sites much anyway (prefer face to face meetings in clubs) so perhaps it doesn't matter. I agree about the email, though. It is lame, and emails seem to disappear (although they show up in history).

Tried Swingular, but it seems mostly a Utah site. Don't have much to say about the features.

Regionally, playfulswingers.com and the new wickedgarden.com seem to be the best. Many of the people we meet at parties are on one or the other. Also, the interfaces are much more modern in appearance and functionality. PS has a good email systems with folders. Wickedgarden as a good chat feature.

Oh, one thing that is very good in Swing Lifestyle is the listing of parties (events). That's where we look to figure out what to do on a free Saturday.