These academic takes on app-dating are generally out too lunch.
In particular, there's been a ton of effort to try to figure out personality and make matches, and they've all failed.
OkCupid has tons of interesting questions that they ask, and they've found that almost zero of the questions are relevant in terms of predicting outcomes. Funny enough I think there were only two questions, one of them was 'do you like watching horror movies' ! Literally of all the questions about politics, marriage, income, alcohol etc. - the question 'do you like horror movies' was a subtle predictor of compatibility.
In general, there's a crude correlation between overall profile ranking mostly determined by attractiveness, i.e. lining people up by their super-ballpark estimation of overall attractiveness would be a very rough good start, but even then, it's a crapshoot.
In reality, dating is by far mostly a game of 'meeting people' and that's it. All of the questions, implications, descriptions, photos - almost none of it makes up for spending a few hours with a person in some interesting context.
I don't believe that any of the analysis offered in the article really amount to that much.
From a business perspective, it's also about creating critical masses. POF, a self-funded business with one of the most original and ridiculous UX's imaginable, was as successful as OkCupid, with some of the most thoughtful UX. But POF did the basics: photo, profile, message the person, which is 99% of what the value is.
I don't think there will be any special sauce in online dating. It's just a way to filter out some very obvious mismatches, but otherwise, really meet people and the reality can hit the road only at that point.
In particular, there's been a ton of effort to try to figure out personality and make matches, and they've all failed.
OkCupid has tons of interesting questions that they ask, and they've found that almost zero of the questions are relevant in terms of predicting outcomes. Funny enough I think there were only two questions, one of them was 'do you like watching horror movies' ! Literally of all the questions about politics, marriage, income, alcohol etc. - the question 'do you like horror movies' was a subtle predictor of compatibility.
In general, there's a crude correlation between overall profile ranking mostly determined by attractiveness, i.e. lining people up by their super-ballpark estimation of overall attractiveness would be a very rough good start, but even then, it's a crapshoot.
In reality, dating is by far mostly a game of 'meeting people' and that's it. All of the questions, implications, descriptions, photos - almost none of it makes up for spending a few hours with a person in some interesting context.
I don't believe that any of the analysis offered in the article really amount to that much.
From a business perspective, it's also about creating critical masses. POF, a self-funded business with one of the most original and ridiculous UX's imaginable, was as successful as OkCupid, with some of the most thoughtful UX. But POF did the basics: photo, profile, message the person, which is 99% of what the value is.
I don't think there will be any special sauce in online dating. It's just a way to filter out some very obvious mismatches, but otherwise, really meet people and the reality can hit the road only at that point.