BlackPeopleMeet.com is an online dating website which is specifically geared towards African-Americans and African-Canadians who are looking to find love and romance with other members of their community who are located nearby.
It’s known as being the largest online dating website on the Internet which is focused on a particular niche of members of the same race or ethnicity who are looking to date and have relationships within their community.
It has become increasingly more common for online dating websites to emerge, which cater to a certain demographic group whether it is based on race, ethnicity, religion or even body type.
While websites like Match.com and OkCupid.com focus on users of all backgrounds and personalities, BlackPeopleMeet decides to cater to a specific community for those people who only want to date other members of their own race.
In addition to BlackPeopleMeet, there is also SeniorPeopleMeet, SingleParentMeet, and BBPeopleMeet.
BlackPeopleMeet was founded over fourteen years ago in 2002 and has since become the largest ‘niche-focused’ online dating website in both the United States and Canada.
It is estimated that about five percent of the total African-American population visits BlackPeopleMeet.com every month and it’s also estimated that this particular website has over one million active members now.
This site is for black men, black women, along with gay and lesbian members of the black community who are looking to have dates, build a serious relationship, or just have fun and to pursue something more casual.
This website makes it easy to find other black people within your immediate community who would be available to go out on a date with due to their close location. Having the ability to connect with many members of the same race who live within a short distance is one of the perks of these ‘niche-specific’ online dating websites.
The mission statement of BlackPeopleMeet is known as “Creating Relationships, Connecting Lives.” This particular website prides itself on having people of the same racial background having the opportunity to meet and get to know each other.
There’s the expectation that you’ll meet new people and regardless of the results, you’ll be able to set up a profile, flirt, and arrange dates with other black singles.
It’s free to sign-up and you will even get the option of your profile being highlighted in the match results for free when you begin a membership of six months.
BlackPeopleMeet.com Review
Background
BlackPeopleMeet.com is an online dating website which is apart of what’s called the People Media network which owns a number of dating websites which are designed to cater to specific niches dealing with race, religion, ethnicity, and body type.
People Media is owned by Match.com which is apart of the IAC / InterActive group. People Media, which owns a lot of dating niche websites and was bought out by Match.com on July 7th, 2009.
InterActive group or IAC now owns both the leading websites in the general niche for online dating (Match.com, OKCupid.com) as well as the leading websites in the specific niche for online dating (BlackPeopleMeet.com, SingleParentMeet.com.)
People Media and its’ dating websites were able to be successful due to capital infusions amounting to around $60 million dollars. Investment firms like American Capital and then IAC bought People Media partly due to its focus on niche-focused dating websites as well as its scalable business model and low costs of maintenance.
These ownership groups would help to improve the standing of People Media by investing in the infrastructure of its’ dating-niche websites as well as forming a strong management team with known executives who have worked in Silicon Valley.
People Media first came into creation in 2002 when the website group launched niche dating sites like BlackPeopleMeet.com. BlackPeopleMeet was also the first of these niche online dating sites which was created by People Media and would help spur the creation of other websites because of its’ success and marketability.
Two entrepreneurs from Chandler, Arizona helped to create the People Media group soon afterwards. The founders of the company soon realized that there didn’t need to be much marketing involved when it came to niche dating websites like BlackPeopleMeet because there was likely to be the chance that members of these specific communities would be curious about finding other men or women for dating or relationships who lived nearby.
The appeal of that offering would not need to be marketed but rather advertised as offering a specific dating opportunity that you couldn’t find elsewhere on the Internet.
This guarantee helped to launch BlackPeopleMeet and People Media group as a reliable and trustworthy company that could provide for users looking to date other people from the same backgrounds. Several niche dating websites would soon follow after BlackPeopleMeet launched back in 2002.
Over the years since its’ creation in 2002, BlackPeopleMeet has been able to show exponential gains in both its overall popularity and total membership. This is partly due to the fact that the website has been able to form partnerships with other websites like AOL Personals as well as with being featured in a segment called ‘Radio Date’ on a popular TV show.
BlackPeopleMeet.com became part of this radio segment known as ‘Radio Date’, which has been very successful over the past couple of years. Different black singles have had the chance each week to be featured on this radio segment and could win an in-person meet-up with another member of the website if they are so lucky.
Many dates have been produced out of this radio segment and some matches have even led to successful relationships after being chosen by the host of the show. By creating these partnerships and nurturing them over the years, BlackPeopleMeet has attracted millions of unique visitors per year and holds a growing membership of more than one million unique users total.
The resounding success of this niche-dating site has led to People Media group creating other similar websites to address the needs of other communities. By continuing to improve the design of the website, making it free to sign-up, and having an easy to use layout,
BlackPeopleMeet has been able to corner the online dating market for the African-American community.
Free Features
- Create a personal profile
When you sign up for free on at BlackPeopleMeet.com, you have access to a number of features including the ability to create a personal profile.
When any free user creates a profile, you include personal information about yourself in the main description such as your username, e-mail address, gender, age, date of birth, country, and zip code.
You’ll also be asked to cite more specific physical characteristics such as hair color, eye color, height, body type, marital status, children, smoking and drinking habits.
Lastly, it’s optional to fill in but you can also state your income, occupation, religion, relationships, and whether or not you have any pets.
- Leave a greeting
In addition to describing your background and your physical characteristics, you also have the option to leave a greeting and a written description about who you are.
In this greeting, you can talk about your career, hobbies / interests, likes, dislikes, what you’re looking for on the website, etc.
You should indicate to other users whether or not you want a long-term or a short-term relationship along with the personal characteristics and qualities that you’re looking for in a romantic partner.
In order to improve the compatibility of your matches, it would be good to list your favorites such as the activities, movies, books, music, restaurants, sports, etc. so that other members will know what you like and what you’re interested in.
- Answer multiple-choice questions
BlackPeopleMeet also offers multiple-choice questions for free users about their personality qualities and characteristics.
These questions are used to assess whether someone is more extroverted or introverted, whether they are romantic or low-key, if they enjoy going out or staying in, etc.
These topics include what you want from your dates and relationships and how much or how little you enjoy doing activities, sharing hobbies with somebody else.
When an interested user sends you a message on the website, you may give them four different questions that they should answer about themselves in order to assess their compatibility with you.
It’s easier to sort out those members who message you when you can get to know a little bit more about them before you decide to meet for a date.
- Add a background image
To make your profile stand out more to interested members, you can implement a background image or wallpaper to display on your profile page.
This image can be as creative or normal as you want but it may help you garner some more attention and more responses to your messages to other members.
- Add photos
In addition to this full, personalized profile, you also can upload your photos to the profile or e-mail them to other members who you have matched with.
- Add audio or video recording
Lastly, on the profile, you’re allowed to do an audio or a video greeting where other members can either see what you look like, or hear your voice, and to really get a better sense of who you are as a person.
Both free and paid users are given the option of uploading either an audio recording or a video recording to their profiles.
- Send flirts
Any registered user can initiate a ‘flirt’ option, which can be used to get the attention of other members who have caught your interest and who you may be attracted to.
This ‘flirt’ option is very similar to the ‘wink’, ‘like’, ‘heart’ options that have been found in many other online dating websites.
- Add to bookmarks
You can also bookmark or favorite any members whom you would like to come back to later and re-visit their profiles or send them a message.
- Search
The ‘search’ function is fully activated for both free and paid users who need it in order to find other members without scrolling throughout dozens of pages.
Similar to Google, BlackPeopleMeet does a good job of making the ‘search’ function more specific in terms of being able to narrow down the categories which other members fall under in order to have a successful search.
Paid Features
- Unlimited communication tools
As a paid member, the big difference between you and a free user is that you have unlimited means to contact other members of the website without any problems.
You can type a message, flirt, shoot a text, favorite them, and even read message receipts whereas a free user only has the option to hit the flirt button and maybe send only a basic message.
This may look like a small difference to some people but being able to communicate freely with all members is a big feature that certain users would be willing to pay for.
Free vs. Paid
In order to get the full experience of BlackPeopleMeet.com, it’s necessary to purchase a paid membership in order to have access to all of the known features of the website.
Pricing changes every now and then so make sure you check the website before you whip out that credit or debit card. The most recent costs of membership were updated in February of 2016.
When you pay for an upgraded membership, you get full access to the free features as well as the additional paid ones that allow you to get more out of the website.
You can send an unlimited amount of messages to other users and be able to receive as many as you want each month. You will also know when other members will have read your messages after having received them.
You can also see messages that were sent along with the flirts, favorites, and likes that visitors to your profile will have bestowed upon you. You can also make yourself be at the top of the search listings so that your profile can gain more views and visitors.
You can view all video and audio greetings from any other profile and be able to make your own greetings as often as you would like. Compared to a free membership, a paid membership will allow you to communicate with other members in multiple ways.
You can send texts to interested members, start an audio or video chat, and also send them private messages through the website’s messaging system.
BlackPeopleMeet.com Costs
As for the actual costs of a paid membership on BlackPeopleMeet, it really depends on how many months your subscription is when you sign-up.
A month-by-month membership subscription will cost about $17 per month total. You can renew your membership each month or cancel it whenever you’re done with using the website’s services.
The cheaper options includes a six-month membership at $7 per month which would be $42 total. There’s a second option for a six-month membership at $12 per month, which costs $72 total and includes the ‘profile highlight’ feature.
BlackPeopleMeet.com allows all users to purchase virtual tokens for money, which would allow you to buy premium features such as ‘Promote Me’, ‘Notify Me’, and ‘Virtual Gifts.’
You can buy anywhere from 25 tokens for $1 to 280 tokens for $10. For other additional features, you can purchase some of them for a flat free of $5 when you’re a paid member.
These singular features that you can purchase include highlighting your messages and highlighting your profile. When you pay for anything on BlackPeopleMeet, you will be billed one time for your total subscription period and/or feature purchase.
Your membership to this website will automatically renew each month unless you decide to cancel.
Lastly, you have the option of paying by credit or debit card and Western Union is also an option if you don’t have access to your credit cards.
Positives and Negatives
Positives:
BlackPeopleMeet.com has a number of inherent positives that has made it one of the most popular niche online dating websites on the Internet.
- Biggest online dating site for African-Americans
This website’s popularity continues to increase as more than one thousand people become new users every day and there is an additional million people visiting BlackPeopleMeet.com each month.
If you’re African-American and are looking for a popular dating site that focuses on your race and community, BlackPeopleMeet.com is currently the biggest online dating website for black singles.
- Video and audio greetings
Unlike other online dating sites, you can post video greetings and audio recordings to other users who you are interested in getting to know better.
- Include questions
When you a message another user, you can include some questions for them to help steer the conversation in new directions which will make it easier to form a stronger connection with a member of the site whom you would like to get to know better and maybe even meet in person.
- Select who can view your profile
Along with having access to a detailed profile regardless if you’re a free or paid member, you can select which members can see your profile.
Negatives:
- Matching system
The main negative of this website is that the matching system could be improved to become more accurate.
The algorithm that is used is known as being a bit basic and could use more in-depth and detailed questions regarding personality traits and characteristics.
The ‘My Match’ feature isn’t considered to be very accurate or exact when it comes to overall compatibility when it comes to Match.com or eHarmony.com.
If you’re looking for the best possible matches, BlackPeopleMeet.com may not have what you need.
You may also like our Big and Beautiful dating site, BBPeopleMeet.com review.
Have you signed up and used BlackPeopleMeet before? If yes, did you have a good experience with this dating site? Don’t be shy, leave your comments below. I’d love to hear your thoughts and advice.