The website www.lovemail.co.za has been around since 1999 and started out as the online personals for Junk Mail. Two years later they totally revamped the website and it became a fully functional online dating website with matchmaking technology and SMS capability built in.

Unlike other websites, Love Mail offers the users a choice between chatting via SMS or via the website. The website rated 71% in the Webagility analysis performed in July 2004. It was the highest ranked site, along with LoveFinda, narrowly beating market leader DatingBuzz, however, it still has a lot of room for improvement.

First off, the website doesn’t function properly when using a non-Internet Explorer type web browser e.g. Mozilla Firefox. And with Internet Explorer’s continued security flaws more and more people are starting to use other web browsers. A person can register using a cell phone by sending “chatmeup” to 33244 (cost = R1.50 per SMS).

You can also register on www.lovemail.co.za website which allows for more comprehensive searching and matching, while still giving you the option to search and flirt via SMS. One month will set you back R50 going up to R480 for 12 months (an average of R40 per month) and you get 20 SMS per month. One of the coolest features on Love Mail is ‘how hot?’ and this allows you to rate photos of men or women out of five. It can become addictive, to say the least.

After registration on the website you have to complete your profile. When filling out the profile some people may be annoyed with the request for their cell phone number. The verification code is sent to your cell, therefore this request is valid. It’s also a good way of preventing fraud and pranks. You can also choose whether or not you want your profile to be of an explicit nature. Again this is very different from other websites which are either ‘normal’ dating websites (match making), or a adult oriented websites for swingers and people looking for casual sex.

Love Mail also provides a good selection of free content which can be accessed without registering on the website. Everything from horoscopes, success stories, frequently asked questions, the ‘how hot?’ section, to how to ‘say I love you’ in 22 different languages. Once logged onto the website you can do quick search or a more comprehensive search. Although it’s easy to use, I found a problem with the detailed information in the profiles in the search results. There just wasn’t enough information to make an informed decision on whether this person could be a match.

Junk Mail, the owners of Love Mail, did not promote this service actively for several months during 2003 and 2004 and therefore many of the users are dormant. If they were to adopt a renewed marketing push is bound to bring more activity and more interesting users onto this website. There is room for improving the matchmaking technology and the ease with which users can search for matches. It is nice that you have the option of using SMS technology, but the ultimate goal is to use the website to get much more information that is not currently possible via cell phones. Things could change in the near future as the 3G (the next generation of cell phone technology) enabled handsets become more common, but for now websites and the PC rule supreme.

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The first Zulu language full length feature film, Yesterday, was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. This is film stars, Leleti Khumalo from Sarafina fame, as a young woman who discovers she is HIV positive. She aims to live long enough to see her daughter go to school. Brilliantly directed by Darrel Roodt, who also directed Cry the Beloved Country. As South Africans we should all be rooting for this Oscar after last year’s success with Charlize Theron winning Best Actress Oscar. Read this nice article from Reuters, South Africa Hopes for Movie Boom from Oscar Nomination. You can also read my 2005 Oscar predictions and let me know what you think.

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I know its 7 years after the fact but I finally watched the brilliantly beautiful movie Life is Beautiful starring the indomitable Roberto Benigni. This story is one of many, many Holocast stories but told with so much humour and emotion as only Benigni could pull it off. He is only the 2nd actor to direct himself to a Best Actor Oscar, the first being Sir Laurence Oliver, and also the only person to win Best Actor for a non-English language film.

The storyline is simply how a man with a penchant for comedy and creating memorable experiences, happiness and having fun. He meets a woman who he calls his “Principessa” from their first meeting. They get married and have a son. Soon afterwards the Nazi’s invade Italy and all Jewish people are sent to concentration camps. He’s wife is not Jewish but they share such a close connection she refuses to stay behind and goes with them on the train. To ensure his son doesn’t suspect anything untoward he creates a game. This game manages to keep he’s son distracted the entire time and looking forward to winning the 1st prize, a tank! Please go and rent this movie, find it, watch it, and share it with everyone you can possibly imagine. To my mind this is one of the most beautiful stories ever. I salute Benigni and look forward to watching his version of Pinocchio soon.

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As I thought about what to write on my BLOG this week I remembered a famous quotation by Winston Churchill, “Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” This is what I took from 2004, one of the best and worst years for me. In business I achieved some measure of success with my Online Dating project getting great media exposure in August 2004. I made the front page of now defunct daily South African newspaper ThisDay, and several stories in Cape Times, Pretoria News and a Durban based weekend paper. Interviews on P4 Durban, and twice on SAFM really allowed me to reach a wide audience but the cherry ontop was my interview for the eTV 7pm news! So I am eternally grateful to my mentor Arthur Goldstuck for his undying support in 2004.

Now on a personal note I broke up with two women and the last one was very traumatic. I never wanted to let go but had to in the end. Breaking my ankle in September 2004 certainly didn’t help the situation as I was left to my own devices hopping around like a mad cow around the house But during this time alone I taught myself how to cook, and now I really enjoy that. Finally I can put Jamie Oliver’s cook book to good use! So in 2005 my plans will be to find a new love, having found new happiness inside myself. All the self-help books, tapes and CDs are making a difference in my life. All those people who continue to believe in me, thank you again.

Forward we march to conquer more in 2005. Together we stand, etc etc…

Popularity: 9% [?]