WHAT WE FOUND: Joining Fast Cupid brings you into a fun atmosphere of singles that like to chat, create video introductions and blog about themselves to create a better than usual profile. We found the registration process easy but with a delay in the confirmation email before we were accepted as a member. We really like the blog feature, it adds a greater degree of personalization to member profiles and keeps you active in visiting profiles. There are three types of memberships available: Standard (or free), silver and gold. The free membership opens up all features including using the Instant Messenger service, upload a photo and a video to your profile but you can only reply to a limited number of messages each day, only see a member’s main photo not their additional gallery of pictures, and the Cupid matching system will only provide 10 possible matches to your profile as well as only search member profiles by city. Silver and gold members have unlimited send and receive capabilities, search members by distance and zip code, have over 30 (silver = 20 matches) Cupid matches emailed every day. Gold members have even more features including first listing in all search results, the possibility of being a front page featured member, priority profile and picture approval, and also have access to other members MSN, Yahoo, ICQ chat ID nicknames as you add them to your hotlist. We suggest starting with the standard membership and upgrading as you find interesting members you’d like to meet.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Free to join with limited ability to reply to messages. Upgrade membership for unlimited use of all features depending on upgrade level (silver or gold). Instant messenger, chat and video introductions available. Every member can create their own blog for a more personal experience. Straight, same sex and swinger personals.

WHAT WE FOUND: Fastlife hosts and manages speed dating events and social soirees for people in select Canadian cities. It’s free to register and browse available events but don’t expect a speedy time for you to start. It may take up to two weeks for you to be “invited” to a speed dating event, depending if you paid in advance for the next available event in your selected categories or if you are waiting for your invitation before making your event payment and registration. It sounds worse that it really is, here’s how it breaks down: Fastlife’s experience has shown that men prefer women just a few younger than them and women prefer men about their same age, with an event hosting 20 to thirty people (evenly matched women and men) the options you select help to determine the speed dating events participants. Based on your profile there should be a few people you are compatible with, and most participants end up with two dates from the event. Matches are made based on you, your preferences and the Fastlife system of bringing people together that want to be in the same group. Fastlife has made speed dating really work for Canadian singles, together with an event system that works well, a fun website that is easy to navigate (you may want to have your sound off if visiting from work) and I’m sure you’ll have a great time being a member.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Speed dating events in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Hamilton, London, Victoria, Quebec City cities currently, more areas will be added as demand increases. Free registration, advance payment required to participate in an event. Straight and same sex speed dating events arranged.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Basic membership allows messages and IM’s to be sent, membership subscription available for more points, searches and virtual wallet bucks to be spent in various dating games and rating games. Weird service, complicated navigation. Web games are great to match people up but used sparingly by members at off times of the day. Not a lot of information in the FAQ’s and it’ll take master to figure out the subscription plans. Straight and same sex profiles available.

Read our full review here

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Free to register, post profile and pics, search and view member profiles. Must be a paid subscriber to read or send messages, be on the top of search results, organize blackbook and participate in video chats. Three types of searches and profiles are simple and easy to read.

WHAT WE FOUND: One of the largest and best professionally maintained introduction services. Begin with a quick search of all the women available and ready to correspond with you. You can search by area of the world or by ID number if this is not your first visit. Flower and gift delivery available, as well as email delivery of your letters to avoid the long snail-mail wait times. Order women's address individually or become a member for better access to the addresses available. This service is one of the best and has been reviewed by top newspaper and television news shows in America! You will be fulfilling the dreams of the women available at A Foreign Affair when you start communicating with them and there are staffed travel tours are arranged often so you can go and meet the women you have been writing and talking with and take your romance to the next level. Travel tours are arranged on a regular schedule to Russia, the Ukraine and Latin America. Certainly the best service available for the single man, and one of the best we've ever reviewed. Be sure to read the media reports and client testimonials available if you are unsure if this is the right service for you.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: This is a large photo catalogue site that offers many services to contact Russian, European, Asian and even American women, regularly scheduled travel tours, letter writing tips, phone contact with the Russian and European women registered at the site as well as e-mail contact addresses available. Individual addresses available or memberships can be purchased for better access to the women you want to correspond with.

WHAT WE FOUND: Fotolog is where you share your daily life one picture at a time, once a day, with your family, friends and the Fotolog members. Fun, yes! Although Fotolog takes a little getting used to (it’s rather basic presented at the time of this review) I can see this being an addictive service for those that are photo-oriented and expressive. The basic member limit of uploading one photo a day at first use seems restrictive and counter-productive to making this type of social website work well, but once you start, you’ll find yourself being very selective of the photos you do decide to share with your friends, and the Fotolog audience in general. I am impressed that Fotolog expressly states that this is not a personal photo album service. No hundreds of photos of granny’s 80th birthday party will be found here. You won’t waste your one-a-day limit uploading those pictures unless you’re very, weirdly, compulsive. You will find Fotolog a free service that allows you an expressive environment that your family and friends (and growing social network of other Fotologgers) to display the best of your images as well as ample space for your comments about your pictures and room for guests and your Fotolog network to comment on your pictures. Beyond the free membership (with the one-a-day photo upload limit) is the Gold membership which gives you more freedom of uploads (six images a day) as well as more customization of your Fotolog member page, a listing in the Gold member directory, thumbnail image of your photo beside your Fotolog name and a few other goodies that would make the very low monthly fee a reasonable expense for the truly Fotolog converted. Get out your camera and share some pictures!

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Free membership is great to use and very functional, Gold membership available for some fun extra features. Upload limit of one picture a day for free members. Great social network for a daily diary of you in pictures. Service is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese. Adult images and themes will get you banned.

WHAT WE FOUND: 4PPL is a basic free dating service with an interesting Google map mashup that shows you were members are located. Joining is easy enough, a one page form to complete and you’re a member. We like the ease of use that 4PPL has, getting around the site is fast, browsing and searching is easy to do. Having displayed which members are online is great and, since it’s a free service, there isn’t any memberships to pay so you can start meeting people almost instantly.

WHAT WE FOUND: With more than 4 million members and a great free trial you should sign up and see all that FriendFinder has to offer. Your free personal ad can include your picture and even your video! Hang out and chat, read the Relationship magazine, browse the personals of others, you can even suggest a FriendFinder Poll Question! Pay particular attention to the Cupid Service and the new Members listed at the bottom of the front page, they'll be delighted to hear from you! You are not signing for a paying membership by filling out the profile form, so feel free to do it once you enter the site. Good Luck! Sign up for a GREAT FREE MEMBERSHIP PLAN!

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Free membership includes picture and video personals, chat rooms, e-mail ad match service and a newsletter.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Free to join, post your profile and add pictures. Free to send and respond to “Show Interest” teasers. Become a paid member to send and reply to messages. Straight and same sex personals available.

WHAT WE FOUND: At Forcespenpals you can be military personnel searching for others in the armed forces or a civilian looking to meet members of the military. Your first move is to join as a free member since only registered members can access this service. Free membership allows you to browse and search through the service, complete your profile to match for like-minded members and send unlimited flirts to members that you’d like to meet. Forcespenpals started as a snail mail service for members to send messages to the UK troops stationed overseas and has grown to the current online service. You are still able to get addresses of members and send letters to them when the address is available. This is a great personal touch to online meeting. Paid memberships allow you to send more flirts and messages to other members, enter the chat room and use the forums. Because you have to pay to use these features you generally won’t find people that are just wasting time but sincere people that want to talk and meet. You can also upload several pictures to add to your profile. We liked the service overall but it does take a little getting used to the jargon used in the menus. HQ is home page, COMMS is communications etc. Just keep clicking buttons to find all available features. That’s what we did and we were happy with all available features of this service once we found where they were hidden.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Free membership to post your profile and pictures and send unlimited flirts to other members. Paid memberships allow full use of the service including sending unlimited flirts and messages, use of the chat room and forum.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Free to join with limited use of all features for free members. Upgraded members enjoy unlimited use of messaging features. Straight and same sex personals available.

Read our complete review here.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Free to join, flirt and blog but you must call a phone number to register. Nicely laid out profiles. Four types of searches. Photo gallery, rate photos, blogs and live phone chat.

WHAT WE FOUND: Friendster is currently in beta mode, which means it’s free to join and make contact with others that are members. This is a connecting community based on friendships and friends of friends. When you join you are creating, or joining, a network that only works as hard and as good as you do, since any and all contacts you can make have to be in your Friendster ring of interpersonal friendships. Think of the ‘degrees of separation’ game that allows you to be a friend of a friend of anyone in the world. At Friendster, if they are a member, you can meet them too! To make this service work for you, you will invite others to join or have been invited yourself. Your membership consists of a gallery that has the information of members in your network, a message center to check incoming emails and save replies to messages, an events calendar that your network of friends puts together and an online store of recommended merchants. You can have up to 5 pictures available in your profile. The profile questions are quite basic, but allow you to describe yourself well, leading to introducing yourself to others. 3 types of searches will help you create or join your network of friends, search by email address, name and by interests but remember, they have to be in your network of friends before you can find and contact them.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Friendster if currently free (while in beta mode), has the basic features of an online service that allows you to create a network of friendships to meet people. If your nervous about joining and don’t want to have to email a lot of your friends before you can see what it’s all about, follow this link and you’ll be invited into the aLoveLinksPlus.com network of friends. Straight and same sex contacts available, depending on your network of friends.

WHAT WE FOUND: 1stserve / Date A Tennis Player is a very comprehensive tennis players web site and dating service for people that want to meet to play a few sets, join a tournament, or to meet and possibly go beyond a relationship only on the courts. With a 6 month free trial period (remember to select ‘check’ as your payment option when joining to receive the 6 month free trial offer) this is place to post your personal ad and meet others that share your passion for the game of tennis. You can have 2 profiles among the 4 total categories (men seeking men, men seeking women, women seeking men, women seeking women) to help you find a good player match, add up to 12 pictures to your profile photo gallery and even have 1stserve automatically email you matches to your first (or any) profile search as new members join. The profile form will take a few minutes to complete, beginning with your tennis experience, likes/dislikes of the game’s players and personalities, what type of tournaments you like to play, then moving on to 4 essay-type questions to really help you describe yourself and your likes/dislikes. Searches are easy to do and can be as exacting as you want them to be, as well, you can save your selection options to be your default matchmaker settings and have matches automatically emailed to you every week as new members join. The main tennis information web site seems to be extremely informative and newsworthy. If you want to keep abreast of the tennis world news, this is the place to do it. (We only reviewed the dating area.)

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: 6 month full access free trial. Membership gifts with upgraded membership purchase. Chat rooms, calendar of events, message board, member tournaments and tennis store. Complete and informative tennis players web site. Straight personal ads with same sex player matches depending on your profile choices.

WHAT WE FOUND: With a variety of women waiting to meet you, Filipina Ladies has a lot to offer you. Browse the catalogue of women and plan to start writing someone who attracts you. Contact can be made through regular mail or email and you get one free address with every order of addresses that you place. Information at the service about the Filipina ladies you can meet will help you to discover this very romantic part of the world. They will even help you to place an ad in a local Philippine newspaper for local  exposure of your personal ad. Also available is posting your own personal ad at the service.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Addresses of Filipina women for sale. Many contact methods available. Lots of help with your search for the right woman. Free email address available too.

WHAT WE FOUND: A dating service is included in Flirt's vast categories of entertaining and informative content. It's free to join Flirt and post your own personal ad and your membership is good as long as you login a few times every 90 days to keep your membership active (no stale personal ads here). You can read responses to your ad, but you have to become a paying member to send replies or to make first contact with someone you'd like to meet. Other Flirt categories include: advice, forums to chat and have your say, Flirt TV, style news and ongoing contests. A great service to keep you interested and "Flirting" online.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Free trial to place your personal ad, paid membership required to make contact. Big website with lots of information relevant to singles and people with style and fashion sense. Straight and same sex personals available here.

WHAT WE FOUND: FriendCircles.com offers all the features you’d expect in a first-rate networking website. You create your account and unique home page for free. Invite friends, relatives to join your inner circle. As they join and add friends your outer circle (the network) grows. The profile information you provide allows others to learn about you and you always have control over who can read your profile, your journals and blogs. Separating profiles into the type of member you are (looking for social friends, business, dating, etc) makes the service more reliable and better prepared about the other members you’ll meet. Features include online photo albums, Instant Messenging and email, file sharing and a calendar. We found Friend Circles easy to use, and the features a lot of fun. Joining groups that were of topics we are interested in and creating our own group, is a magnet that will keep us logging in again and again. We really like the easy to remember home page ‘username.friendcircles.com’ that isn’t common with most social network services.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND: Free to join and grow your network. Features include instant messenging, email service, groups, calendar and online photo album.