7 ms·

Inside Match.com: It's All About the Algorithm

25 points by blatherard 15y ago

teyc 15y ago
interesting because it models the likelihood someone is going to reject a suggested person after the first few didn't work out.
sneak 15y ago
For bonus points, throw on a copy of Kraftwerk's /Computer Love/ (1981!) while reading the article.
- BasDirks 15y ago
  I prefer Daft Punk's Digital Love personally : ))
dirtae 15y ago
Excellent PR work by Match.com. Anyone who has actually used Match.com knows that it is, from an engineering and design standpoint, utter crap. The algorithm being pumped here is probably nothing special, but hey, getting PR by hyping your "proprietary algorithm" is a time-tested tactic. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html Similar article from 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/science/29tier.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/science/29tier.html Similar article from 2003: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2003/08/01/346313/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2...
georgieporgie 15y ago
This is recycled spam. If you want the reality of online dating, look for the OKCupid blog post about how you're statistically more likely to find a partner and get married by not using online dating. Takeaway: men outnumber women, women are overwhelmed, men get no responses and become increasingly desperate. Of course, after Match.com bought OKCupid, the blog post was removed.
- SafdarIqbal 15y ago
  Is this the one? http://web.archive.org/web/20101006104124/http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dating/ http://web.archive.org/web/20101006104124/http://blog.okcupi...
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    Yes, exactly!
Shenglong 15y ago
Bravo! Fantastic illustration of how dating sites are broken.
- oceanician 15y ago
  Let's fix them? Competitive. Yes. But, their may be a model for a small annual subscription instead of the quite high current monthly subscription model. How about $20 per year? £10 I'm thinking - I live in the UK. okcupid/pof are great, but well... not that great. Paid means you just have the people taking it seriously, and you can validate who people are. But no need to take all there money that could be spent on going out on dates ... My 2p. Any other rails coders fancy helping out?
  - Joakal 15y ago
    Monthly is better than annual for one reason: People over-estimate that they'll get a date so they'll avoid annual unless you offer something very compelling beyond trying to get a relationship on the website. eg person will hang around to chat to friends or do quizes. If you really want to create a dating website, you have these classic problems: 1) Abundant men. eg spam 100 women a day over several accounts until they get a response. 2) High turnover. Got a date? Great, they're not coming back. Your email gets quickly marked as spam. Among other issues. 3) Over-estimation. People don't say their true height, weight or even show the correct pictures. 4) Chicken and egg problem. The biggest hurdle to overcome first. How you overcome it will affect the above three. Have fun!
    - oceanician 15y ago
      1) Ok, so let's say, you get ratio the number of men to no more than 20% of the women (overall/in certain geographic areas), and remove inactive profiles from search 2) That's fine - let's go for the low cost end. A fee that's half to 1/3 of the major sites, but for a whole year. No hassle of remembering to stop the billing, or checking your bills. Yes, this will mean after a year, you're likely to loose a high % due to not rebilling...but hey maybe this is a great product? 3) Fuzzy matching? i.e. I would like to meet someone <around> my height, or meet someone <slightly shorter> than my height. Perhaps we could have a feedback mechanism for those that actually meet. Perhaps we could just remove those people that never meet up with anyone? (Shocking approach I know - but the quality of the user experience would drastically improve!!) 4) Build it and they will come. (errm word play. bad) But no seriously, whilst it's a competitive market, if you match up someone, and don't rip them off in the mean time, why on earth wouldn't they tell their single mates about the site? It's all about good user experience, which is sadly lacking in the majorly exploitative dating site game.
cowboyhero 15y ago
Two interesting things the articles blows right past: - That they compare their algo to the ones used by Amazon and Netflix to recommend products, while ignoring that products have much better defined boundaries than people do. (And ignoring how both Amazon and Netflix suffered through some horribly bad recommendations in both their systems, early on). - That they think Facebook (or any big social network) complements them, instead of rendering them irrelevant. A dating service built on a matching you to real world friends-of-friends-of-friends has a much better chance at success than Match.com's "People who dated Alice also dated Mary, Jill, and Bertha. Sign up now for 1-Click Dating!"
- ig1 15y ago
  It's not like people haven't tried to build the later, but none of them have succeeded, which suggests that you're mistaken... I'm guessing because people actually meet their real life friends-of-friends at parties, etc. anyway and haven't met anyone from that pool of people who they want to date.

25 points by blatherard 15y ago

teyc 15y ago

interesting because it models the likelihood someone is going to reject a suggested person after the first few didn't work out.

sneak 15y ago

For bonus points, throw on a copy of Kraftwerk's /Computer Love/ (1981!) while reading the article.

BasDirks 15y ago
I prefer Daft Punk's Digital Love personally : ))

dirtae 15y ago

Excellent PR work by Match.com. Anyone who has actually used Match.com knows that it is, from an engineering and design standpoint, utter crap. The algorithm being pumped here is probably nothing special, but hey, getting PR by hyping your "proprietary algorithm" is a time-tested tactic. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html Similar article from 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/science/29tier.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/science/29tier.html Similar article from 2003: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2003/08/01/346313/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2...

georgieporgie 15y ago

This is recycled spam. If you want the reality of online dating, look for the OKCupid blog post about how you're statistically more likely to find a partner and get married by not using online dating. Takeaway: men outnumber women, women are overwhelmed, men get no responses and become increasingly desperate. Of course, after Match.com bought OKCupid, the blog post was removed.

SafdarIqbal 15y ago
Is this the one? http://web.archive.org/web/20101006104124/http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dating/ http://web.archive.org/web/20101006104124/http://blog.okcupi...
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  Yes, exactly!

Shenglong 15y ago

Bravo! Fantastic illustration of how dating sites are broken.

oceanician 15y ago
Let's fix them? Competitive. Yes. But, their may be a model for a small annual subscription instead of the quite high current monthly subscription model. How about $20 per year? £10 I'm thinking - I live in the UK. okcupid/pof are great, but well... not that great. Paid means you just have the people taking it seriously, and you can validate who people are. But no need to take all there money that could be spent on going out on dates ... My 2p. Any other rails coders fancy helping out?
- Joakal 15y ago
  Monthly is better than annual for one reason: People over-estimate that they'll get a date so they'll avoid annual unless you offer something very compelling beyond trying to get a relationship on the website. eg person will hang around to chat to friends or do quizes. If you really want to create a dating website, you have these classic problems: 1) Abundant men. eg spam 100 women a day over several accounts until they get a response. 2) High turnover. Got a date? Great, they're not coming back. Your email gets quickly marked as spam. Among other issues. 3) Over-estimation. People don't say their true height, weight or even show the correct pictures. 4) Chicken and egg problem. The biggest hurdle to overcome first. How you overcome it will affect the above three. Have fun!
  - oceanician 15y ago
    1) Ok, so let's say, you get ratio the number of men to no more than 20% of the women (overall/in certain geographic areas), and remove inactive profiles from search 2) That's fine - let's go for the low cost end. A fee that's half to 1/3 of the major sites, but for a whole year. No hassle of remembering to stop the billing, or checking your bills. Yes, this will mean after a year, you're likely to loose a high % due to not rebilling...but hey maybe this is a great product? 3) Fuzzy matching? i.e. I would like to meet someone <around> my height, or meet someone <slightly shorter> than my height. Perhaps we could have a feedback mechanism for those that actually meet. Perhaps we could just remove those people that never meet up with anyone? (Shocking approach I know - but the quality of the user experience would drastically improve!!) 4) Build it and they will come. (errm word play. bad) But no seriously, whilst it's a competitive market, if you match up someone, and don't rip them off in the mean time, why on earth wouldn't they tell their single mates about the site? It's all about good user experience, which is sadly lacking in the majorly exploitative dating site game.

cowboyhero 15y ago

Two interesting things the articles blows right past: - That they compare their algo to the ones used by Amazon and Netflix to recommend products, while ignoring that products have much better defined boundaries than people do. (And ignoring how both Amazon and Netflix suffered through some horribly bad recommendations in both their systems, early on). - That they think Facebook (or any big social network) complements them, instead of rendering them irrelevant. A dating service built on a matching you to real world friends-of-friends-of-friends has a much better chance at success than Match.com's "People who dated Alice also dated Mary, Jill, and Bertha. Sign up now for 1-Click Dating!"

ig1 15y ago
It's not like people haven't tried to build the later, but none of them have succeeded, which suggests that you're mistaken... I'm guessing because people actually meet their real life friends-of-friends at parties, etc. anyway and haven't met anyone from that pool of people who they want to date.