For several years, I’ve wanted to create an online dating website. After starting over several times as I learned more and more about web development, I began once more last year with what would become the first public release of Black Book Singles.

Black Book Singles officially launched on July 10th. As with my original intentions, the site remains a 100% free online dating service. My intention is to generate revenue via ads, primarily through Google Adsense initially. While my choice of advertising provider may change, the method of monetizing the dating service will definitely remain the same as it grows.

To get an idea of how the basic profile layout appears, check out my dating profile, or simply take a look at the screenshot below.

In addition to profile creation and member searching, Black Book Singles members will be able to send private messages to other members, participate in public discussion via the dating advice forums, and read frequent dating tips and advice in the blog.

Although Black Book Singles still off to a bit of a slow start, the dating service has 77 registered members and 49 total profiles, 47 of which are publicly viewable. Considering that the primary incentive in joining a dating service is to meet others who use the service, and considering that most of the initial members won’t be able to fulfill that hope, these numbers aren’t too shabby — especially considering that the site was created by a one-man team with virtually no cash to put into advertising.

For those who are curious about some of the technical details regarding Black Book Singles, the site utilizes a LAMP system architecture. Here’s a bit of a breakdown of what runs the dating service:

• coded in PHP5 using the increasingly popular CakePHP framework,
• utilizes MySQL 5 for data storage,
• runs on Ubuntu linux, using Slicehost for web hosting,
• HTTP request handling performed by Apache 2,
• Sphinx full-text search engine used to perform quick location lookup, and
• memcached implemented for partial geographical data caching.

So if you’re hoping to find local singles or are simply looking to help an aspiring entrepreneur, why not go ahead and sign up today?