Beardar

POPULATION:

I wasn't expecting to do one of the smallest bear profile sites as the first of the free sites I was reviewing. I remembered joining Beardar about a year and a half ago after hearing Vito on Bearpodcast during the IBR 2006 episodes. I had some expectation that it would have grown in over 18 months, but it looks like there is less than 1600 bears currently and they average 5-9 online users at the times I've checked, with 2 of those being Texan, including me. It appears there are less than 75 Texans on the site, but I can't verify that as the page 1 of the search gives the first 25 results I want, but selecting any other page, the results default to the entire database.

PROFILE:

The "My Profile" page gives options to select Modify Profile, My Photo, My Video Clip, Preview Profile, Suspend My Profile or Re-Activate your profile, or Cancel your membership. The profile lets you select a large number of details such as drinking habits, smoking habits, relationship status, plenty of appearance options, personal background options, what you're looking for, what you are, your interests. Several of these areas include a series of check boxes and pull-downs as well as a free-form text field to tell more about yourself. I remember being particularly intimidated that I had to write 3 paragraphs about particular aspects of myself.

Under "My Photos," you can upload, set or edit a description, mark some photos as public or private with a password. You don't have to have a photo set up a profile on Beardar. There is a size limit for photos, but it is not explicitly detailed while a limit of 20 photos is mentioned on the home page. Editing your photo's description may require administrator approval. You can also upload a video. The format must be MPEG or AVI, but no other formatting or size requirements are mentioned. While the video seems an innovative feature, there's not a mechanism to search for bears who have made a video clip available.

"Suspend" seems to be for those occasions when you make your profile unavailable without having to delete it. For example, you've just hooked up with a new boyfriend and you want to take yourself off the market for the time being to see how it all goes. You can cancel your profile later if it gets seriously monogamous. However, you don't have to go to those lengths, you can change your "Privacy Settings" to control how invisible you appear on the site.

SEARCHING:

The "Search" option here has plenty of features. In fact, it might have too many features, but I've generally found them pretty intuitive. If you were overwhelmed by the level of detail asked during the profile creation phase, the advanced search uses all those fields and choices. You can save and name your searches. You really have to save your search if you want to look past the first page of search results. You can delete or re-run your saved searches from the "Saved Searches" link naturally enough. Beardar offers or plans to offer an offline search feature that notifies you of new matches by e-mail called alternatively "Bear Locator" or "Matchfinder." Basically, you can select most of the search criteria as a sort of an ongoing matchmaker, although I'm not sure how useful it is with the current userbase and growth pattern.

You also have links to "Hot Lists" which includes Members Who Have "Messaged You," "IM'd You," "Viewed You," as well as those you performed the same actions toward. Looking at the list of people who have "viewed you" without contacting you is kind of interesting and bittersweet. Why didn't he contact me? Should I contact him? You might need to prepared for the answer if you decide to pursue it. You might also check the date he looked at your profile. The Address Book is just the list of guys you've contacted and Blocked Users are the ones you've deliberately ignored. When viewing another member's profile, you can add him to your Favorites list.

MESSAGING:

Messaging uses the e-mail model more than the instant message model. You get plenty of history to follow the thread of your conversations. It's a basic inbox with the ability to delete messages, send new messages, or check your sent messages. While you get the Favorites list in addition to the address book on your Mailbox page, you don't get the option to contact the user from the Favorites list, but you can go to his profile and do it from there.

You may send a "Virtual Kiss" for those situations where you want to let someone know you are interested without having to write any kind of message. The member is notified of who sent the virtual kiss by regular e-mail rather than the in-house mailbox.

There is also supposed to be a "Live Chat" feature, but I was unable to get it to work in 2 different browsers on various occasions.

PREMIUM:

There does not appear to be any premium services on Beardar currently. They are showing to be setup to use iBill whenever that gets implemented.

MOBILE:

Beardar does not appear to offer a mobile-compatible version of the site.

WARNINGS:

The only warnings I have about the site are related to its small userbase and relative newness. Some of the bugs I found on the site would probably have been addressed sooner if more people were using it regularly. I'll be happy to update this review if Beardar grows sufficiently or remodels significantly to warrant.