BOSTON GLOBE – Aug 22 - OKCupid has begun publishing statistics about its users’ behavior on its blog OKTrends, and using the numbers to generate real-world advice. For example: Men get more responses from women if they don’t smile in their profile pictures and women are more likely than men to send messages to people they don’t find attractive. The blog has also uncovered some trends about lying: All users add an average of two inches to their height and a 20% raise in salary. OKCupid can also analyze user communications to see what works and what doesn’t. The word choices most likely to kill your chances of getting a reply are bad grammar and “netspeak,” like saying “ur” for “your.” Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist, used data from a different website to analyze which attributes determine the success of men and women in getting responses from the opposite sex. For both sexes, the attractiveness of the photo was the most important trait. Beyond that, men’s height was the most important feature to women. FULL ARTICLE @ BOSTON GLOBE
Category: OkCupid
Dating Services Shed Stigma
CHICAGO TRIBUNE – July 23 – Online dating is now an accepted and commonplace way to meet someone, having largely shed its stigma as an option for only socially stunted nerds. Match.com celebrated its 15th anniversary in April. Online dating has grown into big business. Match.com is part of IAC/Interactive Corp. and recently became the exclusive dating service on Yahoo, while eHarmony has acquired other Web properties related to weddings and parenting, including Weddingbee and JustMommies. Another twist on the model was launched this year through WinkVid, which offers online speed dating through webcams, with each date lasting four minutes. Although some dating sites brag about their ability to match up life partners, other services acknowledge their limitations."I really think of our responsibility as 'no bad first dates,' which seems like a low bar, but the reason is we can't promise you a soul mate," said Sam Yagan, co-founder of OKCupid. "That's ridiculous. That's chemistry and what happens when you see each other."
The full article was originally published at iStock Analyst, but is no longer available.
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OkCupid Uses Click Data To Match Most Attractive Users
MASHABLE – May 25 – OkCupid sent an e-mail to some of its users
nforming them that they’ve been placed in the top half of users in
terms of attractiveness by its algorithms. As a result of the
categorization, the attractive users will be more likely to see one
another in match searches, while the users who are in the lower tier
will not see a change. The e-mail specified that the determinations
were made through analysis of clicks on users’ photos and reactions in
the Quiver and QuickMatch features. Those two tools ask users to
quickly respond positively or negatively to photos accompanied by
segments of profile text. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE
OKCupid: Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating
OKCUPID BLOG – Apr 7 – eHarmony claims over 20M members on their homepage, and their CEO, Greg Waldorf, reiterates that number regularly in interviews. This sounds awesome until you realize that most of these people can’t reply, because only paying customers are allowed to message. eHarmony closely guard their number of paid subscribers. We are able to deduce their base from known information. eHamorny yearly revenue was $250M in 2009, the minimum average monthly fee is $29.18 so they have at most 719,652 subscribers. That means only 1/30th of the "20 million users" they advertise is someone you can actually talk to. Match.com's numbers are just as grim. It turns out you are 12.4 times more likely to get married this year if you don't subscribe to Match.com.
The full article was originally published at OkCupid Blog, but is no longer available.
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The Science Of Online Dating
TIMES ONLINE – Apr 11 - Relationship science is an increasingly respectable field of academic study. Dr Gian Gonzaga and his team at the eHarmony Labs promises to match its customers using its patented 29 dimensions of compatibility, including sexual passion, anger management, appearance, intellect, obstreperousness, spirituality and emotional health. Other dating sites also employ complex algorithms based on psychometric testing, such as PerfectMatch, Chemistry, Plentyoffish, True, Parship and Matchaffinity. They all like to dismiss each other’s compatibility models. Plentyoffish, for example, thinks people should be matched on their differences. The exception is OKCupid, which is strongly against psychometric testing because, according to Sam Yagan, one of the Harvard mathematicians who founded it, “eHarmony’s patronising belief is that they know what’s best and you need help. We believe you know what you’re looking for and put the power in the user’s hands”. The industry analyst Mark Brooks sees psychological testing as an important part of their increasing credibility and market growth. “Internet dating services will get amazing,” he says. “The science will develop.” Brooks believes personality profiling is the future of matchmaking, and agrees with the eHarmony line: “People don’t know what they want. They need help.” FULL ARTICLE @ TIMES ONLINE
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Internet Dating Industry Weekly News March 15th, 2010
This is the news for March 9th through March 15th, 2010. Here is the news we covered:
- Zoosk ranked #42 in Wall Street Journal’s top VC backed companies
- AreYouInterested.com iPhone App going strong
- Sex.com domain up for auction
- Match & Meetic partner in Latin America
- Zhenai.com posts strong growth numbers
OkCupid’s Yagan On Great Hill’s Offer For Spark
THE DEAL – Mar 11 – OkCupid CEO Sam Yagan said he was surprised private equity firm Great Hill Partners made an offer to acquire the remaining 56% stake of Spark Networks it does not own. Spark is the parent of online dating sites JDate, BlackSingles.com, and ChristianMingle.com. The proposal, valued at $3.10 per share, is not receiving much love from some shareholders. Yagan gives his thoughts on the offer in the video below.
The full article was originally published at The Deal, but is no longer available.
Internet Dating Industry Weekly News Feb 22nd, 2010
This is the news for February 16th through February 22nd, 2010. Here is the news we covered:
- PlentyofFish, Match.com and eHarmony target growing UK dating market
- eHarmony announces 2009 revenues
- Match.com acquisition rumors: is SinglesNet next?
- MeetMoi partners with Time Out New York
- Hubspot’s social media survey
- OKCupid – ultimate blog success story
- iDate2010 Miami: video and pictures
The Trouble With Web-Traffic Numbers
WSJ – Feb 19 – "comScore says OKCupid had 735,000 unique visitors in Jan, up from 538,000 a year ago,” the Times reported. OKCupid CEO Sam Yagan “said comScore was significantly undercounting the site’s traffic.” He also supplied Google Analytics numbers that show a much higher monthly count – ~4.3M last month. ComScore and Nielsen have long said that sites’ own numbers overstate matters, because what look like unique U.S. visitors could be automated programs known as bots, or the same person using a different computer, or the same computer after cookies have been deleted, or logging in from overseas. "This is a longstanding dispute", said Matt Belkin, VP of emerging business for Omniture, which helps sites manage their traffic numbers. Other traffic monitors take different approaches. Compete uses a panel, like comScore and Nielsen, but also Internet service providers’ logs. Quantcast taps into its wide network of cookies embedded on partner sites to create a mathematical model to correct for all the factors that make cookies overstate traffic. FULL ARTICLE @ WSJ
OkCupid Scores By Teaching
37SIGNALS – Feb 17 – If you’re
a dating site, you’re going up against much bigger competitors,
like Match.com, PlentyOfFish and eHarmony. You could spend big bucks on
advertising and marketing. But what if you start promoting by teaching? You’ve got a treasure
trove of data. That’s
exactly what OkCupid has done at its blog with posts like
The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures, How Your Race Affects The Messages
You Get, and Exactly What To Say In A First Message. The blog, which OkCupid
started in Oct, has helped get the company’s name out on other blogs
and social networks. Since OkCupid started its blog, the number of
active site members has grown by ~10%, to 1.1M,
according to the company. FULL ARTICLE @ 37SIGNALS