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Match.com Acquires Online Dating Site OkCupid
- christophe971 16y ago$50M cash is a fantastic exit for a company created only 4 years ago, with one round of funding ($6M). Congratulations to the team! I hope the guys at IAC won't destroy the brand/product though... I hope their blog OkTrends will continue to publish fascinating articles too, it would be a great loss.
- yock 16y agoThey're a bit older than 4 years. I signed up there ca. 2005 and met the woman who'd become my wife in late 2007. Still though, good on them for a fantastic exit. There are some seriously clever people behind the site.
- vaksel 16y agonot 4 years, according to their whois the domain was created in March 2003. So 7..7.5 years.
- prs 16y agoFirst version seems to have gone online in early 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/*/okcupid.com http://web.archive.org/web/*/okcupid.com
- haribilalic 16y agoIt looks like their other dating acquisitions, People Media, Singlesnet and Chemistry.com, haven't been ruined. However, they have shut down six other dating websites, including two of their free ones, Sir.com and Downtoearth.com, last year. I think OkCupid is a strong brand and it'd be more valuable to keep not steam roll it into another one.
- koudelka 16y agoAs a former employee of one of the recent acquisitions that you mentioned, yeah, it really was run into the ground. Almost the entirety of the development and operations staff left within a couple months. I don't expect it to last much longer.
- TamDenholm 16y agoDunno about anyone else but i'm disappointed to hear about this. One of the strongest points of OkCupid was that they were kind of the anti-match.com :(
- patio11 16y agoI look at it this way: online daters and the Internet generally will probably be worse off for this eventually, but match.com is paying the OKCupid guys and despite all the value they've created over the years (in dating and outside of it -- watching them from afar has been an education in SEO/marketing), nobody else is running forward to put $50 million in their pockets.
- ErrantX 16y agoGiven the culture at OkCupid my dream match [1] for such a purchase was Amazon - that would have been cool & interesting hookup [2]. Match.com is a disappointment, but, yep they do deserve the payout. I signed up for OKCupid when it launched to have a play - people are more and more using it as a light hearted social network for chatting to random people. I use it quite a lot when bored and fancy chatting to someone new. I did also meet my current gf via them, but that was unintentional; when the actual point of the site is secondary to your use of it I think that is a runaway success... [1] pun only slightly intended ;) [2] sorry... :P
- allenp 16y agoYeah an Amazon matchup would have been pretty interesting. I'm just trying to picture the mechanics of the affiliate program. Would people pay for referrals for good dates?
- ErrantX 16y agoIndeed. What about pricing? They could have followed the AWS scheme and only charge you for time spent on dates :)
- risotto 16y agoCongrats! I hope OKCupid still publishes those awesome posts about the statistics of dating, those are fascinating.
- stcredzero 16y agoThe OkCupid guys should get a book deal! Co-author with the Freakonomics guys.
- jaredmck 16y agoOKCupid seems to do a way, way better job at data analysis than the freakonomics guys, who sadly see no need to be correct in the analyses used in their popular books. I don't think you intended this as a backhanded compliment, but it riles me up to see levitt mentioned as anything other than a pop Econ sellout. Reading anything by either Levitt or Krugman is guaranteed to enrage me. You know they can do better, but they traded rigor for money and fame.
- jbooth 16y agoKrugman's an NYT columnist, the other freakonomics author is Dunbar.
- stcredzero 16y ago
- ig1 16y agoCongrats to the guys on their second exit (they previously sold SparkNotes to Barnes & Noble).
- ladon86 16y agoThe perfect example of a fresh upstart being acquired by an incumbent dinosaur; I hope they can maintain their culture and spirit. Congrats to the team, but I find this quite disappointing.
- lhnz 16y agoGood for them but I expect that the quality of the site will now disintegrate in favour of pushing more people towards match.com.
- bugsy 16y agoThey'll either ruin it or shut it down. Match sucks just in general design as a site compared to OKC. I do agree with those saying that this might be the best way for the OKC developers to cash out and get paid for their work. Perhaps it was inevitable. For users of Match, the best outcome from this deal would be for Match to replace their whole engine with that of OKC. I doubt that will happen though. For users of OKC, the worst outcome from this deal would be to be forcibly migrated to Match (as yahoo personals users were - which is what I think is most likely to happen here) and get buried in the far less interesting personal ads and less fun community of Match.
- rdouble 16y agoMatch is IAC. IAC will just leave it as is.
- drhodes 16y agoI hadn't heard of IAC, so I looked it up: "IAC is a leading internet company with more than 50 fast-growing, highly-related brands serving loyal consumer audiences... our mission is to harness the power of interactivity to make daily life easier and more productive for people all over the world."
- sethg 16y agoThey own a whole bunch of businesses (http://www.iac.com/Our-Businesses/ http://www.iac.com/Our-Businesses/), including shoebuy.com, where a friend of mine works.
- mortenjorck 16y agoHuh. Vimeo. This revelation actually gives me a lot of faith in rdouble's prediction that "IAC will just leave it as is."
- LokiSnake 16y ago
- Balsamic 16y agoThe culture change has already started. Where did the fantastic "Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating" article from OkTrends go? A great exit, however. Congratulations to the team.
- adamkittelson 16y agoIn their dating persona test (http://www.okcupid.com/the-dating-persona-test http://www.okcupid.com/the-dating-persona-test) there is the line "If you have any STDs please go HERE." wherein HERE was a link to match.com. It now goes to mingle2.com.
- callahad 16y agoThat link actually rotates randomly between their major competitors. In a few reloads, I got Plenty of Fish, True, eHarmony, and Mingle2. It's likely that they've pulled Match from that rotation, though. To be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing that line disappear altogether, as it always struck me as being in somewhat poor taste.
- adamkittelson 16y agoThanks, prior to today I had only been to that page once so I hadn't noticed the randomization.
- kadavy 16y agoUpvote for "poor taste."
- ItsBilly 16y agoOkCupid was always one big inside joke. That line is just part of it And it may rotate now, but it didn't used to, years ago. I distinctly remember it saying Match.com and nothing else.
- callahad 16y agoHoly cow, you're right. The original link now redirects to the front page of the blog: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dating http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/why-you-should-never-pay-f... Here's a Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuobLwgJ:www.okcupid.com/z/yf2 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuo...
- sjs382 16y agoEnd of an era? I met my girlfriend of 17 months there. Even though I haven't visited since, it's sad to see it go. They're definitely a company I'd invest in if I was in the position to.
- stcredzero 16y agoWhat about a .org dating site with similar culture? How much did OkCupid cost to run? Could someone Kickstarter such a site into existence?
- rdl 16y agoAlmost everyone under 35 I know who has met a long term partner online and used a dating site used OKCupid. I've known some older 40+ people who used match.com. I'm still holding out for a hackernews, quora, flickr, github, bay area riders forum, scubaboard, highroad, make, seasteading, xkcd, combination dating site.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- klinquist 16y agobarf, heh. As a rider, I don't think I'd want to date another rider. :)
- ben1040 16y agoAlmost everyone under 35 I know who has met a long term partner online and used a dating site used OKCupid. I've known some older 40+ people who used match.com. I'm 29, met my (now) wife on match.com* 6 years ago. At least here in flyover country, OKCupid didn't really have much of a deep pool in 2004-2005. I gave it a try but found it primarily populated by 19 year old kids. However, today everybody I know who is "in the market" simply defaults to OKCupid and doesn't even contemplate going anywhere else. * I messaged a woman during a free trial period match.com was offering, we met for dinner, and we were married 3 years later. I mailed her with a coded email address in the message so she didn't need to pay to reply. match.com did not see a red cent from either of us.
- callahad 16y agoThere's a somewhat frightening quote from Greg Blatt, CEO of IAC in the press release at http://iac.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1882 http://iac.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1882 "We know that many people who start out on advertising-based sites ultimately develop an appetite for the broader feature set and more committed community, which subscription sites like Match.com and Chemistry.com offer, creating a true complimentary relationship between our various business models. 2010 saw record growth both for Match and OkCupid, and we believe coordinating the adjacent business models will help fuel continued growth for both. This acquisition therefore goes a long way toward our objectives of bringing new people into the online dating world, offering the ability to meet in whatever type of online setting, and at whatever commitment level, our members desire, and facilitating a seamless evolution of the online dating experience without ever having to leave our portfolio of sites." Members of OkCupid, get ready to be upsold.
- sharksandwich 16y agocomplimentary / complementary confusion is unfortunate, too
- jeffreyrusso 16y agoThat's a pretty self serving statement (from Gregg Blatt.) On the one hand, it doesn't look good for the future of OKCupid in its current state (I've never used it, but I love the data they publish and the general look/feel.) On the other hand, I guess it opens up some amount of opportunity for a decent ad-supported player in the online dating space if OKCupid goes the way of Match.com.
- matthew-wegner 16y agoAlso, get ready to have your OKC profile photos/info used in numerous search engine landing pages. I expect Match.com results to be injected into OKC's results as the first implementation of upselling...
- kadavy 16y agoI am disappointed that about this acquisition, but I don't see what's so frightening about that statement. It makes business sense to me.
- asnyder 16y agoThis is ver unfortunate, I'm happy for the founders, but OkCupid is a great service. I met my girlfriend of almost 2 years now there. I fear for what it will become. This is a very sad day on the Internet.
- noodle 16y agosounds like its time to open up a free site that doesn't store passwords in plaintext and doesn't get sold to the terrible dinosaurs. one can only hope it doesn't turn out badly. intuit hasn't yet ruined mint, so its theoretically possible.
- mindcrime 16y agoI know you're not the only person to have that thought today; and given the volume of the readership on this site, I'd pretty much bet money that a LOT of people are thinking about that right now. I'd do it, but I'm too busy with other projects. But I'd be amazed if another PoF / OKCupid style competitor doesn't emerge in short-order. Maybe one will even go through YCombinator. pg and crew have said they see that as an area they'd fund: (http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html) 8. Dating. Current dating sites are not the last word. Better ones will appear. But anyone who wants to start a dating startup has to answer two questions: in addition to the usual question about how you're going to approach dating differently, you have to answer the even more important question of how to overcome the huge chicken and egg problem every dating site faces. A site like Reddit is interesting when there are only 20 users. But no one wants to use a dating site with only 20 users—which of course becomes a self-perpetuating problem. So if you want to do a dating startup, don't focus on the novel take on dating that you're going to offer. That's the easy half. Focus on novel ways to get around the chicken and egg problem.
- noodle 16y agoi've had a thought on how to run an online dating site rattle around in my head for a while. always wanted to give it a shot, but i'm still busy working on something else. i even coughed it up on a HN ideas thread a while back, just to see if it would get made. if i were to suddenly have more free time, i'd probably give it a shot, myself.
- mindcrime 16y agoIt's an interesting space that's for sure. The "chicken and egg" problem is a challenge, but so is the idea (if you buy it) that men and women want fundamentally different things and have different drives and motives when it comes to dating; and different approaches to how they date. Since I started reading a lot of evolutionary psychology stuff, I've reshaped a lot of my views on how dating and relationships work. Now, granted, EP is a controversial science, and I'm not sure that those guys are spot-on about everything... but I strongly believe that the ideas coming out of that world do reflect some underlying truths about our world. If that's true, then my questions would be "how do you build a dating site that's optimized for both men and women? Or can you? And if you can't, which do you optimize for? Or does that even make sense?"
- underdown 16y agoAm I the only person thinking $50 million seems low?
- mhp 16y agoSeems low to me as well. They took 6MM in Jan '07. The only way a 50MM exit seems great (for the VC or angel) is if they got 50% for their 6MM. If they had an average 20-30% Series A, thats around a 2.5X exit... which isn't awful. It's possible after 4 years given a 50MM offer, that they either a) ran out of money b) their VC had control and wanted out or c) they didn't get a counter offer from EHarmony, et al.
- nerfhammer 16y agoI concur.
- sachinag 16y agoI am so happy for Sam Yagan and team - they've been busting their butts on OKC since 2004 (seriously, the site's that old), and it's good that they can finally take a load off. Hopefully Sam will now become Chicago's #1 angel (it's a low bar, but someone needs to jump over it).
- giberson 16y agoYou know, I suppose had they put a Paypal button on okcupid's home page saying "donate now to prevent match.com from acquiring us" they would have easily garnered more than $50m. As a user, I almost feel betrayed that they sold out to match.com. Edit PS: Not betrayed because they sold out, but who they sold out to. I would have cheered an acquisition from a non competitor (ie like amazon as mentioned previously).
- marcusEting 16y agoIf you haven't read the Dating DDOS article featured a few weeks ago you should: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2065604 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2065604
- sosuke 16y agoAfter Match.com shut down their own free online dating site called Down to Earth it was only a matter of time before they just bought an existing and successful site.
- AlexC04 16y agoI met my Girlfriend (of a year this Thursday) on OKCupid. I've always been impressed by the extremely high quality of the matching on OKC. They're by far the best online dating I've seen.
- hinathan 16y agoGood for the OkCupid team — this gives them a cushion to play again in this otherwise-desolate space before too long. Brings back somewhat rueful memories of spending too much time browsing around sites like Match.com (meh) and eHarmony (zero. matches. ever.) Wasted several years and hundreds of dollars. Met my fiancee on OkCupid. :)
- alienreborn 16y agoI am neither a member of match.com or OKC but I just hope OKC guys continue their awesome analytics on user data in their blog.
- x0ner 16y agoHaving been a member of both match and okcupid, I am sad to hear this news. I went to go cancel my match account the other day and to my dismay saw that my credit card had been charged again without my direct consent. After looking over the terms I saw that Match took the liberty of auto-renewing for me. While it is clear in the service agreement, I feel like these sort of things are a shady way of operating. To avoid any auto-renew, you need to literally cancel your membership and while doing so, you are unsure of what is really going to happen. I am hoping things remain split as they are or as other have mentioned, match gets a boost in its technology. Anyone that has used both knows that match seems to be far behind on the times. Their features are crap, platform crap and overall design is ugly. I often found myself thinking how I could replicate the site (design wise) in a night with all the boiler plate code I have. I am not optimistic, but hopefully something good will come out of it for match. Congrats to the okcupid team. Great work.
- neilk 16y agoNote to the wise: OKCupid still allows you to delete your entire account. They imply that this deletion is real deletion, and totally permanent, except that your user id won't be taken over by anyone else. If you don't want IAC to have all your personal data, you should do this now before they merge systems.
- SupremumLimit 16y agoIt's interesting that when you delete the account, you get a page saying "Why not try another great option?" and linking to match.com. I wonder if it did it before the acquisition.
- neilk 16y agoI don't think it did that even this morning!
- sanj 16y agoI met my wife on OKC. I doubt I would have met her on match.com.
- GanjaHacker 16y agoOKCupid deserves some big congratulations. They built arguably the best dating site out there, at last the one that provides the most value for your dollar, without question. Sure there's a potential that Match just won't get it, and will muddy the user experience. I'd like to think that instead Match is going to understand how awesome OKCupid's function set and design philosophy is, and apply that to their user base, and at worst case maybe just building a network of classifieds sites sort of how the Village Voice/Salon Personals works.
- aneth 16y agoThis is disappointing. I can't see them pushing people toward a paid service without crippling OKCupid's features and culture. OKC was built around optimizing for fun and matchmaking - match.com was built around maximizing revenue and disappointment. And I'll miss the irreverent analysis in the blog. $50M also seems like a low exit for one of the most successful, and probably the most sophisticated, dating site on the internet. Definitely makes me wonder if the dating space has much money left in it.
- kadavy 16y agoHearing about this deal makes me feel a little queezy. The only upside (other than congrats to their team) is that maybe now there will finally be some nice atheist / agnostic girls on Match. I realize many people have had success at OkCupid, but their users never really struck me as seriously looking for someone to date. Many are just there to take the quizzes.
- Jun8 16y agoAhh, there goes all those cool and really useful data and analyses from the site. These guys were the only people who published such results on a large scale.