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To clarify my thoughts when I brought it up, it seems like the canonical example of this problem is a dating site: sockpuppeting seems somewhat unethical, and s
by philh 16y ago
To clarify my thoughts when I brought it up, it seems like the canonical example of this problem is a dating site: sockpuppeting seems somewhat unethical, and somewhat impractical (can you flirt with the guys who message you, but manage to tactfully reject suggestions of meeting? Do you have multiple sockpuppets per state? etc.), but without a seed the site is worthless.
I guess it would help that when someone signs up, they don't need to come back for people to send them messages. So maybe you don't need a community like reddit did, just users. But I don't know.
Does anyone know how sites like OKCupid solved this?
- pinksoda 16y agoThey used sockpuppets and got rid of them once they had a high enough concentration in certain areas and it could stand on its own. PlentyOfFish did that too.
- hpvic03 16y agoIs that really true? Out of curiosity, how do you know this?
- michaelbuckbee 16y agoThere may be others, but a class action lawsuit was brought againt Yahoo! Personals for their use of sockpuppets in converting free to paid accounts. http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2007/08/30/yahoo-class-action-lawsuit-settled/ http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2007/08/30/yahoo-class-act...
- SwellJoe 16y agoI noticed that when they (the OKCupid guys) launched Crazy Blind Date, they limited it to a couple of areas where OKCupid had a lot of users already (Austin, and San Francisco, I think were the earliest launch cities). Of course, they already have a user base...but the idea is perhaps useful, anyway. You can't possibly afford to blanket the whole country with ads, but you might be able to reach a decent portion of young San Franciscans via some reasonably priced method.