14 ms·
Can Women Build A Better Tinder?
- vox_mollis 11y agoWhen a 34-year-old biologist is asked what she is looking for in a man, she doesn’t respond with a height requirement The research on the topic is quite clear that across all ages, across all cultures, and across all races, heterosexual womens' unspoken but critically important criteria in mate selection is height.
- stoffie 11y agodo you even have proof?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- beachstartup 11y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/short/search?q=women&restrict_sr=on https://www.reddit.com/r/short/search?q=women&restrict_sr=on i'm not short (i'm exactly average) but this pops up a lot on the subreddits i frequent.
- vox_mollis 11y agoHere are a few: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/223514620_Factors_influencing_preferences_for_height_A_replication_and_extension http://www.researchgate.net/publication/223514620_Factors_in... http://news.rice.edu/2014/02/10/is-height-important-in-matters-of-the-heart-new-study-says-yes/ http://news.rice.edu/2014/02/10/is-height-important-in-matte... http://jfi.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/01/12/0192513X13519256 http://jfi.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/01/12/0192513X1351... http://www.medicaldaily.com/short-women-still-prefer-taller-men-how-height-preferences-havent-changed-search-love-269037 http://www.medicaldaily.com/short-women-still-prefer-taller-...
- badsock 11y agohttp://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online-dating/ http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online... Not especially good evidence that women care, but it certainly looks like men do.
- FilterSweep 11y agoThat doesn't invalidate his comment. You have to ask yourself _why_ are men exaggerating their height by two inches on average? They wouldn't exaggerate their height if it wasn't an important factor in potential mates. And the data confirms it: "We've found that taller people, up to a point, have more sex". You see on the graph that the "frequency of sex" (unlabeled y-axis) increases for men up to 6'8".
- brighteyes 11y agoYou're right, of course, but the article was talking about a specific woman there. It's very possible that women care about men's height, on average, but that particular woman does not.
- freyr 11y ago> heterosexual womens' unspoken but critically important criteria in mate selection is height. Your impression may be biased, in part, because it's easy to measure height and create studies based around it. My friend is handsome and rather short, whereas I'm tall and average looking. Despite what the studies say, women throw themselves at him whenever we go out, and he has a ridiculous match rate on Tinder. While height may be one of many factors influencing attraction, it is in no way an overriding critical factor as your statement suggests.
- enraged_camel 11y ago>>While height may be one of many factors influencing attraction, it is in no way an overriding critical factor as your statement suggests. He didn't say overriding critical factor. He said a critical factor. Yes, short but handsome men are also attractive. But nowhere as attractive as they would be if they were taller.
- freyr 11y agoAnd tall and average-looking men are nowhere near as attractive as they would be if they were tall and handsome. What's your point? Poor and handsome men are nowhere near as attractive as they would be if they were rich. And rich and timid men are nowhere near as attractive as they would be if they were confident. In real life, being handsome generally wins out over being tall, despite many men who fixate on height as a critical factor holding them back. Why is this? Maybe it's easier for someone to imagine himself as taller rather than as more handsome. You could be taller without altering the physical traits that you associate with your identity. Or perhaps most men think of themselves as handsome, whether or not they really are. > "He said a critical factor." >> "heterosexual womens' unspoken but critically important criteria in mate selection is height." I stand by my assertion that his phrasing implies height is the critical criteria. Of course, this doesn't quite make sense grammatically.
- enraged_camel 11y agoHandsomeness is subjective. Height is objective. You're comparing apples and bananas.
- ocfx 11y agoAsk Whitney Wolfe
- kazinator 11y ago> When a 34-year-old biologist is asked what she is looking for in a man, she doesn’t respond with a height requirement or a hair color. She pauses for a moment, reflecting on a divorce and the French man who came after. He needs to be there for her; she has to be sure of him. But the most important thing, she says, as she points to her head: “It’s all up here.” Yeah, but that's merely what the woman says she wants. That doesn't reflect what she might be impulsively attracted to.
- mtgx 11y agoWomen tend to make all these "lists" for what they want in a man, and then fall for the "bad boy" that may match nothing on that list.
- whalesalad 11y agoYour anecdotal remarks would appear more credible if you skipped out on the "air quotes" http://frivolousquotationmarks.tumblr.com/ http://frivolousquotationmarks.tumblr.com/
- Jtsummers 11y agoMen do the same thing. Though perhaps not the "bad girl", but we often fall for a type (of the many types) that's a lot of fun but terrible for long term relationships and leave the ones that have better long term potential out.
- Excavator 11y agoHave you met men who says otherwise? Isn't that why you have the meme "Don't stick your dick in crazy"?
- Jtsummers 11y agoYou mean men with a list of what they want but never end up dating women that match it? Yes. Though less at my current age, most of my friends are married at this point.
- vkjv 11y agoI remember reading that Netflix practically ignores what you rate shows when generating recommendations, that using what you actually watch is much more accurate. You may have gave A Clockwork Orange 5 stars, but you binge watches Jersey Shore. I imagine the same applies here. You might say height isn't a factor, but only picked men over 6'.
- theseatoms 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference
- striking 11y agoThere are a number of things I disagree with in this piece. (I will mention that I think trying different approaches to online dating is a great idea in and of itself. I don't disagree with the app's existence, but rather the way it is being presented here.) > The mainstream online dating technologies — OkCupid, Match.com, eHarmony — were all founded by men. So it’s no surprise that most popular dating products cater to male user problems. The first part is true, but the second is non sequitur. I'd also like to ask: what is a "male user problem"? Although the wants of men and and women are somewhat different, I think it's probably a bad idea to paint genders with stereotypes in this way. > Bumble’s landmark feature is that women must take the initiative on all conversations. > He is most likely tired of reaching out blindly to women all the time,” she tells me. “Maybe he feels rejected. He feels ignored.” This sounds very interesting, and good on the founders of the app for trying something new. > Though she is extremely limited legally in talking about her experience at Tinder — they have since settled out of court — I wonder if her negative experiences there inform her dating theories now. Perhaps as a hint of Bumble’s influence, last week Tinder announced that users could now include details on education and work. [emphasis mine] The author "wonders" if "perhaps" there is influence from Bumble on Tinder. In other words, this paragraph has no factual standing. > If you are a male entrepreneur, approaching the problem of online dating from your point of view, the goal would be to provide male users with more women. This statement seems presumptuous. It's not about males vs. females! It's about new ideas! Past platforms take a traditional view to dating, Bumble likes to change things up, and this is a novel thing. This piece turns a novel concept into gender politics and boils down entire companies to the gender of the person at their helm. Bumble won't succeed just because its founder is a woman: Bumble will succeed because it's a new concept from a different perspective, executed by someone who is smart and has experience. You're erasing Whitney Wolfe and writing "all women", which seems demeaning. > This isn’t to say that all men approach online dating haphazardly, without goals or specific desires. But [...] This comment isn't to say that this article is poorly written. But, look at all of the evidence above and think for yourself. (I mentioned another argument to look objective... but never gave it any evidence, so the reader will take my subjective perspective as fact.) > But with these online dating innovations, the tech industry just might realize what they’ve long been ignoring: women’s experiences matter, too. No one's ignoring women's experiences. The founders of the mainstream dating apps simply have their market and refuse to pivot because they have shareholders and investors that would rather they not change the model so immediately and drastically. What we have now is a result of a function of market forces rather than a function of gender. I think the idea behind Bumble is very interesting, and I'm glad there are startups trying something new in the dating scene. I'd actually like to try one of these in due time. But this article just looks... bad. It turns independent, strong, intelligent people into the stereotype of "female entrepreneur".
- zobzu 11y ago"It is fucking exhausting. Especially for heterosexual women." "I found myself having semi-intelligent exchanges with adult men. On a dating site. This was new!" Etc. Also it's an ad for bumble. There's some interesting points, but as usual tired of filtering the pages of pure and repetitive noise.
- hugh4 11y agoAn hour ago I'd never heard of bumble. Now I've heard of it through two unrelated articles found on two different social news sites. Bumble's PR people deserve a pat on the back (and the profession of modern journalism deserves a kick in the head).
- J_Darnley 11y agoDid you happen to read a Daily Mail link? That was an unabashed ad whereas this could just be a blog post.
- minimaxir 11y agoGranted, female-run dating startups are not immune from the same controversies as male-run dating startups. The League, in particular, has received quite a few accusations of being elitist/racist because of its selectivity, and the culture that it implies: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/tinder-for-elites http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/tinder-for-elites The Dating Ring, a Y Combinator-funded dating startup, was also involved in some interesting Hacker News drama regarding spamming OKCupid users. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8454405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8454405 The dating industry in general is iffy; it's hard to isolate what works better and what doesn't when everyone is reluctant to release data.
- jacquesm 11y agohttp://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- facepalm 11y agoTinder actually had a female cofounder. And it wouldn't work if women wouldn't use it. What a silly article.
- mikkom 11y agoYou didn't read the article did you? (the founder of the advertised app is the female cofounder you speak of)
- facepalm 11y agoI read the first part, which included enough nonsense to make me stop reading. Certainly there was nothing to stop women starting Dating startups before now. If that woman has success with Bumble, why not?
- richard_mcp 11y agoAs you and the article mentioned, it did have a female co-founder. And she has since left Tinder and founded Bumble, the app the article mostly focuses on.
- facepalm 11y agoThe premise in the first part of the article was that Dating apps suck because they are not made by women. At the same time they bashed Tinder, which was cofounded by a woman - so the article's premise is obviously absurd and I didn't read on. That the cofounder went on to start Bumble doesn't change that.
- freyr 11y agoAn app being "cofounded" by a woman and an app being "made" by a woman are two different things. For example, perhaps her input was dismissed by her male cofounders (who, incidentally, tried to strip her of her cofounder title because they thought it would be embarrassing to have a female cofounder).
- rajacombinator 11y agoBumble is pretty lolworthy, ostensibly built on a fundamental misunderstanding of male/female dynamics. Good job raising money from naive investors though, uh, I guess.
- freyr 11y agoWhether or not the premise makes sense, I've landed way more actual dates with much more attractive women (physically, and also in terms of personality, education, career, etc.) on Bumble than Tinder. It might have nothing to do with male/female dynamics, and may just have something to do with a better UI/UX (which Tinder seems to have lifted heavily from in their last update), or a lack of spam bots (seriously, a third of my Tinder matches are spam bots linking to the same URLs over and over -- how is this still an issue??). Investors are likely considering the growth, rather than the theory. Whatever the underlying reason, from one user's perspective, Bumble's growth seems very impressive.
- anentropic 11y agowhich, of course, you are an expert on
- kyrre 11y agothis bumble app is getting so much pr, but it seems like only the journalists are using it
- whichfawkes 11y agoThey don't even have an Android app! I don't know how they expect to be taken seriously. They're doing a bunch of PR like this and appearing on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, but it doesn't seem like they're actually ready yet.
- RyanZAG 11y agoWell they're not actually using it, they're just doing their jobs. [1] [1] http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- rjeli 11y agoThe subtitle is "Why the best dating apps are founded by people who aren’t dicks." Does the article explain why the founders of other dating apps are dicks? Or is it just because they're men?
- freyr 11y agoI can't speak to other sites, but there are lots of stories online about why the Tinder founders are dicks.
- derefr 11y ago"A Better Tinder", to me, would be one that actually supports its original function, of being "a hook-up app." There are plenty of dating apps; but Tinder was supposed to be a unique value offering: "like Grindr, but for more than just gay men." But it failed to be that, because there was nothing stopping people from making profiles "just looking for friends" or "just looking for long-term relationships", like in any other dating app. (Obviously the "game mechanics" of Tinder are completely at odds with those uses—why pick friends based on mutual physical-appearance attraction? But people still try.) The best thing any social-networking app can do is to prune its userbase (i.e. ban people from the service) so that everyone who remains is actually using the service for its intended purpose. Then you don't need the initial extra step of both parties dancing around the question of "what are you on here looking for?"—if they're using the app, they're here for what the app is for.
- psychometry 11y agoThe developers at Tinder can't even figure out how to ban spam profiles from the service. I doubt they have the knowhow to do what you're describing.
- beaner 11y agoWho says just hooking up was Tinder's "original function"? This is something users attributed to it because some people who are successful in using it this way brag about it and spread that reputation. This doesn't mean it was designed specifically for that purpose, though it might do it well.
- shpx 11y agoMy impression from watching an interview with the founder [0] is that just a hook up app is exactly what they don't want to be. "Our vision from day one was to solve the problem that there is always someone you want to know, but you're afraid of rejection." My view is that they built a hook up app and then raised a ton of money and now want to branch out and be taken seriously. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn1zDaFGpYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn1zDaFGpYs
- 11y ago
- aaronbrethorst 11y agoBumble’s landmark feature is that women must take the initiative on all conversations It's cool that they bake this into their platform. This was always how I approached online dating through OKCupid, and it worked out far, far better for me than messaging women. Perhaps not surprisingly, it seems that an average woman on OKC receives an order of magnitude more 'likes' and messages than I ever received (or more!). By only engaging with women who'd reached out to me in some capacity, it was much, much easier to actually meet people (like, e.g. my girlfriend of nine months).
- Dr_tldr 11y agoThis is all but a sponsored post for Bumble that's basically just a long form advertisement masquerading as a think-piece. Based just on what we know from OkCupid's excellent analytics blog back in the day, there's nothing about their business model that suggests they'll be successful. The founders are non-technical, the business model isn't data-driven, and there are lots of questionable design decisions throughout. They're getting a large amount of positive press from people who share their apparent ideology, but there's no actual information being put out. They're closed source, privately held, and don't publish any meaningful usage statistics, so what do we know about them other than they have good PR people?
- trenta45 11y agoBuilding a "better" Tinder seems like writing a convincing email for the advanced fee scam. It appeals to the wrong people. The Nigerian prince scam works because it effectively filters anyone who wouldn't send money to a stranger emailing them out of the blue. Making Tinder "better" would draw in people who are not interested in what is essentially a hook-up app.