Do Your Research: Pick the website with the best features

Instant Contact - There's no doubt the instant messenger services provide the best and most accessible way to find people on the internet. However easy and convenient the messengers are they in of themselves don't guarantee that singles are easily found on these services. Enter the online dating services. Most of the better online services provide a method of contact either in a chatroom setting or an instant messenger solution. Some of the better sites allow you to use your favorite instant messenger onsite.

"Send a Rose"- a great way to let someone know that you are interested. Some sites call them "icebreakers" or "kisses" or "winks". Some of the better sites allow you to send multiple icebreaker messages with the ability to block unwanted messages.

Custom Search - search with as many criteria as you like. Choose from a location, sex, sexual preference, age, ethnicity, as well as profession, appearance and even personal qualities. Not many websites allow you do that. Most allow you to search by gender and you spend a lot of your time paging through profiles that you aren't interested in Look for a good advanced search system because it will save you lots of time.

Singles Events - Speed dating parties, traveling agencies for singles and other entertainment events. Great for those who live in a big city, so there are many single people in your area. Only your most top quality sites have the resources to sponsor travel events or speed dating events.

Video Dating - they use live video technology and/or you can record your own audio and video clips via your webcam and upload them to your profile. It's a fairly new service offered only by the better quality dating websites.

Audio and Video Chat - live audio chat rooms where you can talk to many at once or privately one-to-one all without exchanging telephone numbers and incurring long distance charges using the internet's newest technology Voip (voice over IP). Video chats using the same technology as the audio with the added component of live video. It's a new service offered only by top-quality dating websites.