The first versions
The first version was called “Single K@fe” and had personal ads with box number replies, a photo album, postcards and an events calendar. In November 1999 the site held more than 5700 ads, in June 2000 more than 13,000. The TV channel 3sat ran a report on it at the time. The 2001 version added a matching service and a chat corner.
The diploma thesis
I studied mathematics at the HFT Stuttgart from March 1994 to February 2000, with business as the main subject. My diploma thesis was called “E-Commerce am Beispiel einer Online-Community für Singles” (e-commerce, using an online community for singles as the example). The example was Singlekafe.
New version with a member area
Version 4 went into beta on 4 August 2001, with a completely new member system. The site ran on classic ASP and VBScript in a frameset.
- Registration, member area and login from the start page.
- Search by gender, postcode area and age, gallery by age and region.
- MatchMe, a matching function as the counterpart to the search, with matching mails and auto login.
- Encounters and a premium membership with a detailed search and a top position in the search results.
- Chat, help and FAQ.
- A partner program with Adbutler from February 2002.
In 2002, at times more than 1000 members were online at the same time.
An exciting first web project.