Dating - it's like riding a bike. That's reassuring...

When you've been in a relationship for a while, it can be difficult to remember how tough dating can actually be. I fell into this trap last weekend when one of my old university friends was in London and we had a catch-up over a lovely long lunch.

Casually asking after her love life, she said she was single and hadn't seen anyone since her last bloke. That ended *ages* ago - I won't say quite how long, to preserve some kind of mystery to this whole situation..., but we're talking months. And double figures at that. OK, mystery's pretty much gone.

When I'd picked my jaw up off the floor I tentatively tried to work out why she was still unattached.

When you meet her, she's friendly, bubbly and pretty. Good start, I'd say. If she realises that any kind of attention is on her, she gets a bit self-conscious, but not cripplingly so. I might be biased by the fact she's my friend, but all in all, I'd say she's a catch. (And she's 27, for anyone jumping to any conclusions about age...)

Her reason for prolonged singledom is that she moved to a new city about a year and a half back, so she spent a while getting on her feet and exploring there, and wasn't that concerned about playing the dating game while there was so much for her to discover, an exciting new job to be getting on with and new friends to be made. Now she's more self-assured, settled into her new life, and wanting to start meeting new (male) people. All well and good.

Her biggest worry? (And, believe me, she's worried about this.) That, in terms of dating, she's so out of practice that if you were to compare the situation to the proverbial "it's like riding a bike, you never forget it" analogy, she'd be terrified to remove the stabilisers and really go for it. Stuck forever on the rickety supporting wheels that might keep you safe and upright, but never let you really enjoy the freedom of cycling, with its wind-in-your-hair exhilaration and, yes, danger of falls.

That made me think - it's been a while since I've been outside the security of a relationship, so I couldn't really offer much advice, just reassurance that a) she's gorgeous and will find someone and b) she's not a complete freak for feeling so unsure of herself in that situation. I'm sure I would be too. Obviously, the stabilisers have to come off for biking to be fun, but how you get there is a personal thing, surely? So, has anybody out there got some tips for her (or others in a similar situation)? I'd love to hear from you in the comments or at anna@youniverse.com

Take a Real Shot

Creative and visual beans on Youniverse and, indeed, the interwebs, take note... an ace new photography site has just been launched.

Welcome to Real Shot.

This is the amazing brainchild of the creative team at Imagini (the company behind Youniverse's VisualDNA personality quizzes). The aim is to remove the posed, airbrushed elements often found in stock photo libraries and instead create a vibrant, exciting and very real collection. 

Every week, a new statement will be chosen. All you have to do is capture and upload an image that fits the statement for you. The winner will receive £100, and you could see your work used in Imagini ad campaigns. Just to give you an idea, Imagini have already worked with brands as diverse as mydeco, lastminute.com, Pepsi and hotels.com. You can find out more here. 

Interested?

Join Real Shot on Facebook, Flickr or follow them on Twitter - celebrate real life with a real shot.

Youniverse's personality quiz comes to VisualDNA Shops, as do a whole load of exciting new features

Lots of hard work from our team over the past few weeks has resulted in a ton of new features and fixes for our VisualDNA Shops widgets. For those of you who don't know what our Shops are, they are mini VisualDNA quizzes (of the sort you get on Youniverse) which profile your personality and recommend things you might like.

You can put one of these as a badge on your blog, and then every time someone buys a product they like from your shop, you make money as an Amazon affiliate. It's completely free to set up, although if you want to get more out of the experience, you can subscribe to our Professional Edition. This gives you the option to add specific products you think your blog readers will like, the ability to assign them to different personality types, and a detailed analytics page, so you can learn more about your users. If you're a Stephen Fry fan, let him give you a brief intro and a guide to adding products.

But I digress slightly... What I really wanted to do here was tell you about the new VisualDNA Shops features launched yesterday.

1. We've added a new shop! For people who wanted a more general widget to place on their blogs, we've developed a special version of Youniverse's personality quiz for our Shops repertoire. Perfect for fans of Youniverse and personality quizzes everywhere!

2. Our VisualDNA Shops homepage has been given a snazzy makeover to make it friendlier and easier to use.

3. You can customise a splash to fit your widget, so it can sit on your web page and fit in with your site's design.

4. Professional Edition users can also now turn off our VisualDNA product recommendations and only show their own assigned products. Personalisation at its best!

5. We've also added a VisualDNA Shops favicon. 

And you thought Chrome OS was big news! Ahem...

Spotting spammers - Youniverse Community Guidelines

I've written posts along these lines before (here and here, for instance), but you can never be too careful - so today seems like as good a day as any to jot down a few musings about keeping safe online.  There are a few general points here,  then it's tailored for Youniverse.

Firstly, while social networks like this one work really hard to prevent spammers getting in and spewing their drivel all over the place, they can always find ways to get in. Yes, even on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and the big social network players. Also, there will usually be something in the terms and conditions of a site (which you agree with when you sign up) that says they are not liable for any interactions you have on the site. So... it's important to take responsibility for your welfare by being informed of the sort of things that can go on online in the way of phishing and scams.  

Here are some pretty good places to start: BBC's Crimewatch guide to online scams, Scambusters' tips for avoiding being taken in by scams and good old Wikipedia's Internet Fraud entry...

Armed with a bit of knowledge and awareness, you can go a long way. The following tell-tale signs of dodgy Youniverse users and profiles will then be so blindingly obvious... yay! On their own, they're not much, but combine them together and you've got one seriously dodgy user - handle with care (if at all, to be honest).

1. Check the profile picture. If it's airbrushed to perfection and/or grainy and pixelated because the image size is too small for the site, that suggests it's not exactly bona fide. Probably nicked from some website somewhere.

2. Quality of English on a profile... English obviously isn't everyone's first language and it can be tough to get all the phrasing right, but something like the following in both "About Me" and "Interests" sections of a profile should ring a cacophony of alarm bells: 

          "i am a nice and easy going young girl and i am here to meet with my love i am a nice and easy going young girl and i am here to meet with my love i am a nice and easy going young girl and i am here to meet with my love i am a nice and easy going young girl and i am here to meet with my love i am a nice and easy going young girl and i am here to meet with my love."  

And yes, that's happened on Youniverse.

3. Personal details on a profile: See if these have even been filled in. If they have, how genuine do they look? How many people do you know who believe that Alabama is a city? (Again, this actually happened on a profile).

4. Profile name: Sweetbaby, Joy4u, Babygood etc. To me, those are ALL DODGY. If you use this sort of username, please accept that I think it looks spammy and so probably won't talk to you.

5. Someone been in touch by telling you they like your profile and are looking for a serious commitment, no games and all that matters is love (not age or colour or distance)? Lucky you. Admirable though those sentiments may be, it's not the most personal of letters is it? Wait a while before replying to see how eager they really are for your affections.

If you're unfortunate enough to get hit by a spammer whose profile is cleverly constructed enough to fool you into talking to them (and sadly, this has happened), then there is one golden rule to remember above all others...

NO MATTER WHAT, DO NOT SEND MONEY TO ANYONE YOU'VE MET ON THE INTERNET, NOR GIVE OUT PERSONAL DETAILS LIKE BANK CODES OR ADDRESS ETC.

That is all.

Stay safe, kids.

anna@youniverse.com