To an extent, yes.
My friend gave me access to her OKC profile, and I've spent the last couple days filtering through the approaches and profiles of other guys on these sites. There is a lot of bland, negative, and just bad approaches and profiles.
A lot of guys don't know how to sell themselves to women. You want to minimize negative things about yourself, or spin them in a funny self-deprecating (but not overly deprecating fashion).
For me, for example, I've lost 80 pounds in the previous three years. But I still have 20-30 to lose, right? So I was honest about that:
"Love working out and getting fit! That James Bond body is coming
"
So yes, I'm overweight, but I'm working on it. Not everything can be spun, but you want to minimize putting yourself down.
Maximize your best qualities, your interesting hobbies and likes/dislikes, and show yourself to be either:
a) a fun and funny guy to be around
or
b) an interesting and compelling person to be around
I've found that these two approaches seem to at least gain the notice of more women more often than not.
You want at least three good pictures. A good close up, an active picture, and a body shot. Don't do the myspace angles, it's dishonest and most people see through it.
You also have to go into it with the mindset that you're going for broke, but have to be okay with failure, otherwise it can get bitter quickly. Be bold, send jokes to women, actually read their profiles, see what you guys have in common, and remember:
You will be ignored. You have to go into it realizing that a lot of women may ignore you, but there's two things:
1) rejection can be good. It keeps incompatible people apart
2) women are inundated with messages. In the last two days, my friend's account (she's a very cute girl) got 200 messages on OKC, nearly 500 likes, and 600 something views. How's a girl supposed to keep up with all that?
Online dating can be a cesspool, but a lot of the time it's bitter or dumb guys who don't know how to talk to women or approach them that are poisoning the well for themselves.