Archive for July, 2010

SkaDate 7.5.1933: Minor Fixes

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

We have released another build of SkaDate Dating Software – 7.5.1933. It doesn’t include new features, and is aimed at eliminating all those little imperfections that caused you and your members any inconveniences while using the site.

Find the list of fixes and improvements below:

  • Possibility for members to turn off/on the Friend Request notifications.

Surely not everyone wants to receive Friend Request notifications to their email addresses. For different reasons. We feel obliged to give your site members the right to choose.

  • Ajax Chat and IM query optimization.

We have slightly increased the intervals between Ajax Chat and IM queries to ease your server load.

  • Ajax Chat and IM smile set fix.

We have put the smile set in order. Now it looks just the way it should :)

  • Adjustments for IE 8.

A few more improvements to make SkaDate Dating Script performance flawless in Internet Explorer 8.

  • Possibility for members to prolong their paid membership type before the expiration date.

If your site member wants to take care of prolonging his paid membership before it expires, he can easily do that in advance.

  • DreamDate template improvements.

We have made our beautiful template even better by adding an inventory line, language selection box for members, a few keys and components.

  • Deleted Members thumbnail fix.

If your members happen to look through their mailbox conversation with a deleted member, they will now see a special ‘Deleted Member’ icon instead of just nothing (in Frefox) or a not-so-attractive red cross (in Internet Explorer)

  • MailBox: New Message notification fix.

If a member’s message gets caught by a spam-filter, the intended receipient will not see a notification about it on the site. We thnk this will help the users avoid confusion.

  • ‘Virtual Gifts’ component on the Profile View page improvement.

If your site users want to keep their virtual gifts to themselves, they can easily remove the ‘Virtual Gifts’ component from the Profile View page.

  • Video Upload: configuration of the max_filesize fix.

Before, if you changed the maximum allowed file size for uploaded videos, the system could still not allow you to uoload the desired video, because cache did not clear automatically. Now it does after every max_filesize customization, so you will face no more throubles with this.

  • RSS cache lifetime fix.

Checks and renews the third-party RSS feeds on a constant basis, thus keeping your content fresh and up-to-date.

  • Search by miles from a certain city/zip fix.

Your members can search by miles from zip with no more issues.

  • Photo view comments fix.

A member can now view the comments to his photos even if they are password-protected or ‘friends only’. We find that more than reasonable.

  • Latest Activity component improvements.

Your latest activity will now display friendly URLs if you choose to enable them on your site.

  • OpenInviter optimization.

We have taken over all the issues with inviting friends from Yahoo!.

  • Sitemap optimization.

Now your site will become even more SEO-friendly, because your sitemap finally can include friendly URLs.

  • Mouse cursor over the Facebook button fix.

That is just to show your site members that the Facebook invite button is actually clickable. The mouse cursor will indicate that.

  • Status line fix.

We totally think that every member has a right to leave his status line empty.

We can’t call this build feature-oriented. But it still contributes to making SkaDate Dating Software more stable, robust and user-friendly.

We hope you enjoy using our platform!

Choosing Dating Script II: 5 Things That Make a Big Deal

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

Let’s imagine you have already looked through a heap of dating software reviews, visited a number of vendors’ sites and narrowed your options down to a couple of noteworthy community/dating script providers. Here is what you should pay attention to when comparing software solutions to power your online dating site:

1. How long the dating software vendor has been in the market. This aspect is important because:
- The company with a long business history deserves some trust credit, because that it lasts in the competitive software market means that there is some demand for their product.
- New developed dating software is usually not even half as stable, robust and user-friendly as the one that has been polished up for years.
- A time-tested dating/community script will have a significantly larger support community, more plugins and add-ons developed for it.

2. Access to the software source code provided by the dating/community script vendor. An open source code means:
- Nearly unlimited possibilities for customization, and free branding removal. Just make sure that it is 100% open, and has no licensed or encrypted files.
- Complete data ownership. You won’t need to worry about what will happen if your dating software provider goes bankrupt, or simply abandons the product you are using for other business goals.
- Freedom from customization and support rates of the script vendor. A 100% open source code allows you to refer to any third-party programmer for assistance.

3. Participation in exhibitions and conferences, awards and other signs of recognition. If a software company participated in an industry-related exhibition, won a nomination, or its representative was assigned to speak at the conference – that should tell you something. This means that the software is reliable, the company is legitimate, and is recognized in the world of business.

4. Dating software provider’s guarantee for free bug fixing. That’s important, because shows whether the vendor is ready to take responsibility for the product, or just wants to leave it on your shoulders.

5. Portfolio of the sites powered by the community software of your choice. One live evidence is worth a thousand words. Check the web sites built on the platform you are considering for your project, even if they are added to be nothing more than a testimonial. Register a profile, check the features, look through all pages to have an idea of what your future site will look like.

All those little things mean a big deal, because they indicate how trustworthy this or that dating script is. In other words, they are a guarantee to stability of your future online dating business.