BUSINESS INSIDER – Feb 8 – The popularity of Grindr, an app that helps gay men find nearby lovers, shows the power of combining location-based apps and dating. So far, there have been 3M downloads in 192 countries. RndVoo is a matchmaking service that matches friends of friends and gives personalized date ideas to try in the real world. OkCupid cofounder Sam Yagan wrote in an email: "Mobile dating is the future of dating. Period. Think about it. Dating is one of the few applications of technology that pretty much requires an in-person meeting for success. Amazon can send your item from a warehouse in the middle of nowhere, but your date sure as heck better be close to you. And not just close to you sometimes, close to you…now."
Category: OkCupid
Who’s Telling You The Truth About Dating Algorithms?
FAST COMPANY – Jan 27 - Dr. Pepper Schwartz is the author of The Love Test, The Great Sex Weekend, Everything You Know About Love and Sex is Wrong, and more. She's a professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle who mugs on behalf of PerfectMatch.com, where she co-developed The Duet® Total Compatibility System. On the final day of the iDate conference, Schwartz told the audience her system is based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Joining her was Dr. Eli Finkel who staked out his own territory as industry-scold, denouncing eHarmony. eHarmony has refused to reveal its algorithm, Finkel said, and therefore the company should not advertise a scientific approach to matching until it can show, publicly, that its system works according to the standards of scientific rigor. Today it's not the professor-backed dating sites but the ones run by math geeks that seem to be on top. Sam Yagan, a cofounder of OkCupid.com (sold to Match.com for $90M), responded to Drs. Finkel and Schwartz with an occasional eye roll. He dispatched a very brief, slide-assisted explanation of OkCupid's matching process. The users are not required to answer any questions. But the site is premised on the idea that the more questions users answer, the better OkCupid works for them. For each question, users provide three answers: (1) their own answer, (2) the answers they are willing to accept from a match, and (3) the level of importance they attache to the question. The innovation of OkCupid lies in its pliability.by Dan Slater
See full article at Fast Company
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Social Networking Apps Bring The Close Closer
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD – Nov 25 – Blendr enables users to check their smartphones and then text other users a few metres away. If they hit it off, they can meet up for a date within minutes. Blendr is the heterosexual version of Grindr, which has more than 2M gay users in 192 countries. Joel Simkhai, who founded Grindr and Blendr, says the main difference between the two apps is that the straight version is less focused on casual sex. Other geosocial networking apps, such as OkCupid Locals and HowAboutWe are popular.
by Rachel Wells
See full article at Sydney Morning Herald
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5 Location-Based Dating Apps Worthy Of Your Love
MASHABLE – Nov 22 – A study by Skout noted that 69% of people were comfortable meeting up with someone they met on their iPhone, and 40% were using a mobile dating service while out at bars, clubs and restaurants.
1. Brightkite – It isn’t a “dating” app per se, but rather, introduces local users on a basic level.
2. MeetMoi - The company’s goal is to “strip down dating to what’s essential — the introduction.”
3. OkCupid - OKCupid introduced its geo-location app to help users keep watch for local singles in July.
4. Sonar.me - By connecting to Facebook and Twitter, the app lets you see, in real time, how to connect with those physically around you.
5. Skout - With ~1M users, the service hosts one of the largest and most popular location-based dating apps on the iPhone and Android markets.
by Layla Revis
See full article at Mashable
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OkCupid Sets Up San Francisco Labs
ALLTHINGSD – Nov 18 - OkCupid has ventured from New York to San Francisco to create a freshly staffed outpost of start-up folks in order to brainstorm the site’s next act. They call it OkCupid Labs. OkCupid was bought by IAC’s Match.com for $50M in February.
Study Reveals Racial Segregation In Online Dating
THE GRIO – Nov 16 - After analyzing 1M+ profiles on a mainstream dating site, researchers at the University of California Berkeley, concluded that whites are highly unlikely to initiate contact with black people. 80% of the communication initiated by whites was to other whites. Black members were ten times more likely to contact whites. According to a 2009 analysis, black women on OkCupid.com get the "cold shoulder" from everyone, including their black male counterparts. Ron Worthy, a spokesperson for Blackpeoplemeet.com, a subsidiary of Match.com, says that this illustrates the importance and increasing popularity of niche dating sites. AfroRomance.com is specifically geared toward interracial dating. Rob Thompson started the AfroRomance.com because it was difficult to tell who was truly interested in interracial relationships on conventional sites. He went onto meet his wife, who is from Kenya on AfroRomance.com.
by Chelsea-Lyn Rudder
The full article was originally published at The Grio, but is no longer available.
Match.com Reports Q3 Results
PR NEWSWIRE – Nov 4 - Core revenue increased 15% to $102.5M driven by increases in subscribers. Developing revenue increased 8% to $18.7M primarily due to revenue from OkCupid. Core and Developing revenue collectively increased by 14% to $121.2M. Meetic had revenue of $11.1M which was negatively impacted by the write-off of $9.6M of deferred revenue in connection with its acquisition.
Match Core consists of Match.com in the US, Chemistry.com and People Media. Match Developing consists of OkCupid, Singlesnet, mobile-only products and non-Meetic international operations.
The full article was originally published at MarketWatch, but is no longer available.
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Instant Date With An App
NY TIMES – Nov 3 - The idea of meeting someone through a mobile app may seem like a risky proposition. But the operators of these services say they are aware of the potential pitfalls and allow users to control how much information they divulge. Some of the apps are stand-alone, while others are new features of established dating sites; including Blendr, OkCupid Locals and HowAboutWe. OkCupid Locals is part of OkCupid, a larger dating site, which says a tenth of its 2.5M active members use the location features in the mobile app. HowAboutWe began a little over a year ago as a site where people post suggestions for dates they would like to have.The trailblazer among these services is Grindr, which is geared toward gay men and has signed up 2.6M members. In late summer its creators released Blendr, aimed at a broader audience.
by Jenna Wortham
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Online Dating Matures: 5 New Sites That Will Get You Lucky
FOX NEWS – Oct 16 - For decades, the online dating scene was limited to a handful of trusty incumbents: think Match.com, LavaLife, eHarmony. But a bevy of new sites are looking to offer the granularity users are now craving.
Here are five sites offering a fresh approach to finding “the one” online.
1. Best Concept: HowAboutWe (400K dates posted. $28 per month)
– One of the fastest growing sites in the scene. Proposing a date gives singles an immediate topic of conversation for emails and way to connect.
2. Best Elite Site: Sparkology (Service has not opened to general public yet)
– The community is invite-only and men must be verified grads of top universities.
3. Best Mainstream Site: OKCupid (7M members)
4. Best Alternative: Ignighter (2M members)
– Allows groups of friends to collaborate on a group profile.
5. Most Buzzed About: Meexo
– Meexo isn’t out yet. Meexo is attempting to bridge the gap between location-based gaming and romance.
by Alex Liu
See full article at Fox News
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Top U.S. Websites, Including OKCupid, Share Visitor Personal Data
WSJ – Oct 12 - A study shows that 45% of the top 185 U.S. websites transmit identifying details about their visitors to at least four outside websites. The data transmitted was primarily a “username”. OKCupid sent the gender, age, zip code, relationship status and ‘drug use frequency’ to two companies that sell personal data in auctions, BlueKai and Lotame. Lotame confirmed that it has a data licensing relationship with OKCupid, but said it does not use data in the “drug use category.” BlueKai said that it does not buy or sell data attributes like “drug use frequency” from OKCupid.