DiveBuddy
- Summary
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They say : For Scuba Divers only : Who’s your buddy?. Search divers profiles and find new buddies. Search scuba photos, videos and blogs. Send messages and post comments. Join dive clubs and organise events. Locate instructors and dive centers.
We say : Great social networking for divers that supports local dive centres and independant instructors. - Url
- http://www.divebuddy.com/
- Editor's rating
- 5.0what's the rating scale?
- Tags
- Published
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- 8 Oct 2007
- Updated 9 Sep 2008
- Comments
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- No Right of Reply
- Last comment 21 Jul 2008
- Related Reviews
DiveBuddy website reviewed by Scubafreebies Editor is marked up in microformats hreview version 0.3.
The review
They say
For Scuba Divers only : Who’s your buddy?. Search divers profiles and find new buddies. Search scuba photos, videos and blogs. Send messages and post comments. Join dive clubs and organise events. Locate instructors and dive centers.
What can it do for you ?
for the diver
DiveBuddy provides easy to use blog, photo gallery and searching for buddies near you. The blogs are a little limited – no formatting and only one picture but you can still share a lot. Your photos, blogs and dive trip reports are shown on your home page which other divers can find in their searches.
videos
DiveBuddy members can now share their diving videos as well.
classified ads
Anyone can list diving gear in classified adverts. Price negotiation and sales are organised off the site.
For dive clubs
You can create a home page which divers can join (rather like Facebook groups). Then you can add dive trips, photos and blogs just like a person can.
Calenders for dive centres and clubs
The calender function remains a stand out function still unique among social networking web sites. Its really most useful function for dive centres and clubs. You add your courses and events to the DiveBuddy calender. Everyone on DiveBuddy can see your events and you can put the calender onto your web site as well. This saves you time and gets it to more people for free.
New features – surveys and dive sites
DiveBuddy members can create surveys to poll other members about all things diving. For example how much do you spend on gear a year?= or what age will you quit diving?=
The dive site database is created by and for members. Searching by state makes sense in the United States because there are so many dive sites listed. For other countries like Australia or UK you are better just to list all in the country.
Is it easy to use ?
Yes it is very straight forward and Greg who runs the site responds quickly to emails. Read what the users say; how does it stand up against Facebook/MySpace and what do you really think of divebuddy?
Does it travel ?
Yes it does. There is no fancy scripting or heavy background images that would hinder using an older computer and slow connection.
Is your personal information secure ?
Privacy policy is short and to the point.
What do you agree to ?
That you are over 18 and that all your photos, blogs and comments will be available for the general public to see.
Users
several hundred, many of whom are regular users. It is predominantly an American site so buddy search in UK or Australia is thinner on the ground, especially when some American users have listed themselves in UK, its always a problem with drop downs!
We say
This is a very nice site. It is simple to use and the positive ethos shines through. There are gripes by some of the users about some of the functions but over all they are happier with a smaller focussed site over MySpace or Facebook which offer more function but are not focused on diving. If you want to find a dive buddy in the USA this is the best place to start.
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Thanks for the wonderful review. I aim to please. If it keeps divers active, well educated and safe…I’ll support it! You will love the changes to the site if you haven’t visited since April ’08! See you underwater, Greg.