Please – don’t do this at Vooji. Ever.

As most people know, there’s a world of strange to be found at Craigslist. For true connoisseurs of awful personals No wonder you’re single is a pretty addictive read.

The author dredges up the creme of the crap along with his own commentary. Ironically, some of the people featured must meet dates thanks to the unintended celebrity the blog delivers. That said, you really shouldn’t be dating these people, put down the keyboard.

If you like bedazzled style website design, whiskey and the Irish, Europe’s ‘biggest’ dating festival might be for you.

The month log revelry, held in Lisdoonvarna (which sounds more like a Finnish Death metal band than an Irish town) it’s a chance to stuff the coffers of visit a charming Irish town and perhaps make a drunken mistake which lasts a lifetime meet the person of your dreams.

Which woman wouldn’t trust a matchmaker for whom Willie Daly’s not a promise, it’s a name?

Blackstate has some interesting, counterintuitive, figures about interracial dating in America.

Asian women are most likely to marry outside their race, with 20.13% marrying white men and 1.12% marrying black men. Asian men are less diverse with 6.45% marrying white women and .28% marrying black women.

Black men marry almost identically to Asian men. 6.83% marry white women and .87% Asians. Black women are more conservative with only 3.16% marrying white men and .19% marrying Asians.

White men are the second least open group with a minuscule .24% marrying black women and a hardly impressive 1.27% marrying Asians – though that is the most commonplace interracial Asian relationship and represents more than a fifth of all Asian women’s marriages. White women win the prize for most racially homogeneous long-term relationships, .55% marry black men and .35% Asians.

I would have guessed these numbers completely differently. Even in 2009 98.49% of white men and 99.10% of white women marry people of their own race. It’s not much of a melting pot.

Possible reasons why? I’m not going to touch that with a barge pole. However, Jen Kwok does make a solid argument for dating Asian men in this YouTube clip.

The OKCupid blog has some casual research on the things that get the most profile responses in their system. The obvious winner is missing – a fantastic photo – but I guess they figure you’ve either got ‘the look’ or you haven’t.

Their other points are more interesting but I disagree with some of their analysis. Here’s an alternate take.

1. Be literate

They say: Netspeak/textspeak are a turn off (excluding “haha” and “lol”).

We say: Only Prince can get away with texting abbreviations in email.

2. Avoid physical compliments

They say: Saying “You’re gorgeous” is “icky”.

We say: Saying “Your’re gorgeous” is both insincere, based on a photo, and obvious. Don’t.

3. Use an unusual greeting

They say: “Hi”, “Hey” and “Hello” are all bad online openers.

We say: They don’t work because the messages that follow them are normally devoid of all original thought. Surprise people, pleasantly – and they’ll return the favor.

4. Don’t try to take it outside

They say: Don’t share email or phone numbers too soon.

We say: …because it’s spamy and desperate. You’re already on a dating site, play a little bit hard to get just so the people you’re meeting can retain a little dignity.

5. Bring up specific interests

They say: Discuss shared niche interests, show you’ve read their profile.

We say: Be interesting and demonstrate you can talk about something other than yourself. Passion – about anything – is attractive.

6. If you’re a guy, be self-effacing

They say: Vulnerability is attractive.

We say: Confidence is attractive and confident people can admit their weaknesses without feeling diminished by them.

7. Consider becoming an atheist

They say: Being an atheist is way more potent than declaring a religious affiliation

We say: Have you seen truly devoted evangelists? It’s not sexy. Additionally, as a relatively small slice of the population, atheists are likely to be highly responsive to anyone who won’t try to convert them.

You can read the full report here

I wish I read enough Japanese to know more about “Love Plus“, a virtual girlfriend program for the Nintendo DS which is ostensibly threatening relationships in Japan.

The game allows players to have a relationship with a computer generated avatar (hey, there’s a movie in that…) The problem seems to be obsessed men who refuse to be parted from their palm-sized entertainment devices to the chagrin of their flesh and blood partners.

It seems ridiculous today but falling in love with a pile of pixels will only get easier. It won’t be long before virtual people are as realistic as webcam images and many people have got on planes to meet lovers they’ve only shared email with.

Is it cheating?

(via TokyoMango)

The JDate blog is one of the best Jewish focused dating blogs out there. Unfortunately, or luckily, they don’t seem to be au fait with currently popular street slang.

Like I am.

Dude.

Their post titled, ahem, “Hot Lunch“, has nothing to do with, ahem, a “hot lunch“. They’re going to get a huge wave of totally inappropriate web traffic.

Don’t shoot the messenger.

Following Sabrina’s comment yesterday I made a couple of changes. She was right about the fonts, and it’ll help to make the cards consistent. The ‘all-sans-serif’ look is currently trendy thanks to a strong whiff of Pagemaker 1.0 retro-chic (if you don’t know what Pagemaker 1.0 is you’re young, go out and enjoy the sunshine).

I also changed the awful-horrible pick-up lines for worse ones because… well it was fun. Thoughts? I’m getting excited about this little project.

Some people have commented that the type on this last card is pretty small. It is, but relative to most business cards it’ll be the size you’re used to. It’s easier to read onscreen with the new fonts too…

Thinking of easy ways to promote Vooji while sitting in a coffee shop (or “The other office” as I like to call it) I started pondering flyers.

Flyers are pretty good marketing, albeit old-fashioned and unhip . They’re cheap enough to make really poor response rates viable. It’s hard to lose money unless you can get even one in a thousand people to pay attention plus, in today’s world with wi-fi hotspots all over, people can type URL’s on interesting flyers into their phone or laptop as soon as they pick them up.

The cheapest items you can print are black and white business cards. I’ve seen a thousand for $12 online. Assuming a thousand cards can get one person to Vooji, it’s only $12 per customer. If you can get two or three responses a thousand starts to look like a real bargain.

So the challenge becomes how to make a business card interesting. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. Here are my three first attempts. Cute? Funny? Lame? Ridiculous? Let me know what you think. Soon they, or something like them, will start to show up all over LA.

I’m showing both sides, the logo’s on the “back”.

Okay – I didn’t come up with that idea (Anonymous did) but genius steals right?

Some UCLA students told me that’s a cute idea. Do you agree?

This one was a lot of fun to research. Alternate pick-up lines appreciated.

The blog looks different today following a redesign. We think it’s a big improvement, let us know if you agree.

Yesterday there were some layout problems affecting people unfortunate enough to be using IE7 on a PC. Sorry. We’ve fixed it, but don’t hesitate to highlight any weirdness you spot.

Enjoy (and check out our Twitter updates at the top of every page).