We Experiment On Human Beings!

July 28th, 2014 by Christian Rudder

I’m the first to admit it: we might be popular, we might create a lot of great relationships, we might blah blah blah. But OkCupid doesn’t really know what it’s doing. Neither does any other website. It’s not like people have been building these things for very long, or you can go look up a blueprint or something. Most ideas are bad. Even good ideas could be better. Experiments are how you sort all this out. Like this young buck, trying to get a potato to cry.


We noticed recently that people didn’t like it when Facebook “experimented” with their news feed. Even the FTC is getting involved. But guess what, everybody: if you use the Internet, you’re the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That’s how websites work.

Here are a few of the more interesting experiments OkCupid has run.

Experiment 1: LOVE IS BLIND, OR SHOULD BE

OkCupid’s ten-year history has been the epitome of the old saying: two steps forward, one total fiasco. A while ago, we had the genius idea of an app that set up blind dates; we spent a year and a half on it, and it was gone from the app store in six months.

Of course, being geniuses, we chose to celebrate the app’s release by removing all the pictures from OkCupid on launch day. “Love Is Blind Day” on OkCupid—January 15, 2013.

All our site metrics were way down during the “celebration”, for example:



But by comparing Love Is Blind Day to a normal Tuesday, we learned some very interesting things. In those 7 hours without photos:

And it wasn’t that “looks weren’t important” to the users who’d chosen to stick around. When the photos were restored at 4PM, 2,200 people were in the middle of conversations that had started “blind”. Those conversations melted away. The goodness was gone, in fact worse than gone. It was like we’d turned on the bright lights at the bar at midnight.



This whole episode made me curious, so I went and looked up the data for the people who had actually used the blind date app. I found a similar thing: once they got to the date, they had a good time more or less regardless of how good-looking their partner was. Here’s the female side of the experience (the male is very similar).



Oddly, it appears that having a better-looking blind date made women slightly less happy—my operating theory is that hotter guys were assholes more often. Anyhow, the fascinating thing is the online reaction of those exact same women was just as judgmental as everyone else’s:



Basically, people are exactly as shallow as their technology allows them to be.

Experiment 2: SO WHAT’S A PICTURE WORTH?

All dating sites let users rate profiles, and OkCupid’s original system gave people two separate scales for judging each other, “personality” and “looks.”
I found this old screenshot. The “loading” icon over the picture pretty much sums up our first four years. Anyhow, here’s the vote system:



Our thinking was that a person might not be classically gorgeous or handsome but could still be cool, and we wanted to recognize that, which just goes to show that when OkCupid started out, the only thing with more bugs than our HTML was our understanding of human nature.

Here’s some data I dug up from the backup tapes. Each dot here is a person. The two scores are within a half point of each other for 92% of the sample after just 25 votes (and that percentage approaches 100% as vote totals get higher).

In short, according to our users, “looks” and “personality” were the same thing, which of course makes perfect sense because, you know, this young female account holder, with a 99th percentile personality:



…and whose profile, by the way, contained no text, is just so obviously a really cool person to hang out and talk to and clutch driftwood with.

After we got rid of the two scales, and replaced it with just one, we ran a direct experiment to confirm our hunch—that people just look at the picture. We took a small sample of users and half the time we showed them, we hid their profile text. That generated two independent sets of scores for each profile, one score for “the picture and the text together” and one for “the picture alone.” Here’s how they compare. Again, each dot is a user. Essentially, the text is less than 10% of what people think of you.



So, your picture is worth that fabled thousand words, but your actual words are worth…almost nothing.

Experiment 3: THE POWER OF SUGGESTION

The ultimate question at OkCupid is, does this thing even work? By all our internal measures, the “match percentage” we calculate for users is very good at predicting relationships. It correlates with message success, conversation length, whether people actually exchange contact information, and so on. But in the back of our minds, there’s always been the possibility: maybe it works just because we tell people it does. Maybe people just like each other because they think they’re supposed to? Like how Jay-Z still sells albums?

† Once the experiment was concluded, the users were notified of the correct match percentage.

To test this, we took pairs of bad matches (actual 30% match) and told them they were exceptionally good for each other (displaying a 90% match.)† Not surprisingly, the users sent more first messages when we said they were compatible. After all, that’s what the site teaches you to do.



But we took the analysis one step deeper. We asked: does the displayed match percentage cause more than just that first message—does the mere suggestion cause people to actually like each other? As far as we can measure, yes, it does.

When we tell people they are a good match, they act as if they are. Even when they should be wrong for each other.



The four-message threshold is our internal measure for a real conversation. And though the data is noisier, this same “higher display means more success” pattern seems to hold when you look at contact information exchanges, too.

This got us worried—maybe our matching algorithm was just garbage and it’s only the power of suggestion that brings people together. So we tested things the other way, too: we told people who were actually good for each other, that they were bad, and watched what happened.

Here’s the whole scope of results (I’m using the odds of exchanging four messages number here):



As you can see, the ideal situation is the lower right: to both be told you’re a good match, and at the same time actually be one. OkCupid definitely works, but that’s not the whole story. And if you have to choose only one or the other, the mere myth of compatibility works just as well as the truth. Thus the career of someone like Doctor Oz, in a nutshell. And, of course, to some degree, mine.

1,220 Responses to “We Experiment On Human Beings!”

  1. Anayme says:

    It’s called informed consent genius. Just because other websites are doing it doesn’t mean it’s okay to do so. The AMA, APA, and all those other associations of doctors and psychologists have specific rules set in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening and so it’s done by professionals.

    If this is the attitude you’re adopting for your website I’m just not going to use it anymore. I joined to meet people, not be experimented on.

  2. Caleb says:

    Yeah, the wording on this was incredibly rude “we did something wrong, well guess what, tough luck”
    No apologies whatsoever. Nothing.
    Well looks like you’ve lost me solely because of the writing on this.
    Nice job.

  3. Lucky says:

    When the experiments were over, did you go back and show people their true match percentages, or did you just leave the false percentages the way they were?

  4. ADHDColorbomb says:

    I think it is really interesting the number of people who are complaining about scams. I have been a user of OKC for 3 years under various usernames, and I have not once encountered a scam. I am guessing the people screaming about scams and screaming about how their ability to just glance at a profile and decide yes or no instead of actually looking at the person in the text, and how their questions actually matched up, were the people just here to try to find people to hook up with and don’t really care how people are other than how they visually looked.

  5. falcon ohara says:

    All I know is, I’m vastly more likely to send a first message than I am to receive on. And most of the folks I message don’t bother to reply, certainly not to carry on a conversation. I actually read people’s entire profile, as well as checking out all of their pictures. If they haven’t filled out a profile with any degree of enthusiasm, I’m seriously less interested in sending out a message, or responding to one.

    And, I appreciate this interesting message, on the experiments you’ve explored, and your willingness to question the efficacy of the site and its parameters.

    cheers to self-revelation
    falcon

  6. Anthony says:

    Just a thought, i know you guys are geniuses and all, but why dont you remove pictures from quickmatch, allow us to read over the profile, without seeing a face. Then you can read through the profile and truly rate personality instead of their photo.

  7. Dawnelle Shrawder says:

    Thankfully I have very low expectations on this site. I only talk to people, I don’t meet anyone. Your attitude of the exchange of personal email addresses or phone numbers as being a success…you must be men. The fact is, when meeting someone, a man’s biggest fear is he will be laughed at. A woman’s biggest fear is that she will be killed. It is very well known that stalkers, rapists and married men put on false photos, trying to draw victims in. Women should be careful. Often they are not, with disastrous results.

  8. Nate says:

    Yeah this whole thing is for the birds honestly. In real life I get hit on all day constantly by woman all ages, shapes, sizes, ect. I can go to a bar and I have no problem talking to females and my chances of taking someone home are pretty high. I’m not trying to be conceited or cocky, I just have what I like to call Lady Luck.. But on this dating site it’s the complete opposite. It’s like pulling teeth trying to get one single response out of someone. Now don’t get me wrong there’s some women on there that I’d say are out of my league, but I think it’s all the same. If you can make a girl laugh you can make her do anything. But just getting a response from anyone I found attractive seems impossible. I try to be nice as pie, funny, cute, and i get nothing back. Even from girls that aren’t even that great looking. I come to conclude that the whole dating/meeting someone online is completely bogus. People are just too uptight for their own good. Maybe because it’s the internet I don’t know? What I do know is plenty of fish was a lot more enjoyable to me. Girls were so much more responsive and it actually seemed like they wanted to meet new people and take a chance.. Ive talked to more girls in one day on there than I have on here in months of trying. On here they all seem to be stuck up and too hot headed for their own good. Shame shame. This whole thing is bogus:)!

  9. Natalie Camper says:

    No wonder I have received emails from semi-literate 5″4′ taxi drivers and motorcycle enthusiasts when I’m a 5″6′ woman with a PhD.

    Of course I didn’t respond. Not only did it make you look totally incompetent, but now that I know it was an experiment you thought amusing and academic, I am really angry and not a bit amused.

    Shame on you.

    Natalie Camper

  10. Sabrina says:

    Who cares if we were experimented on. We were going to do what we did anyway, its not like we were tricked.

  11. DonCalixto says:

    EVERYONE EXPERIMENTS ON HUMAN BEINGS!!! An experiment is nothing more than a test. Everyone has done something to someone else with the expectation of an action but at the same time, awaited to see would the actual action or reaction would be. That is a test.

    As long as a company does a test that does not harm anyone, it should not be a problem.

    Besides, this company is doing tests to increase its ability to make successful matches. So I can not understand why someone would complain.

    I have been using OKcupid for 3 weeks now and it has been entertaining enough to keep me off my video games. No success story yet but I am still happy with the site – so far. I am, however, still suspect of match percentages.

  12. Daniel Gregory says:

    I’ve been a user of your site for many years. I’m a 32 year old single man, and serial monogamist. I hope to change both of those things, as being a single man is not very conducive to my life style or social life, but given my high rate of non-success, I’ve had to adapt.
    In my early 20’s, it was much easier to attract someone, and as your data would show, looks played a huge role. However, One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older is age discrimination. As a man, I catch myself discriminating against women any older than myself, as I’ve never had any children, and I’d like for my future wife and I to have our first one together. After 32, for women, the risk during pregnancy and for other birth defects increases. As shallow as it is, younger women are more vivacious and attractive.
    I’ve lied about my age on one site, and I’ve discovered that younger women were more willing to talk to me. Once I told them that my age was actually 32, and not 29, they were upset at first, but didn’t seem to really mind if they liked me. However, I believe that had my true age been posted, they would have used that to discriminate, and I never would have gotten the chance to have a conversation. –considering that I, myself, do this to older women, I can see others doing this to me.

    The other thing I’ve come to look for as I’ve gotten older is someone that I click with. Someone whom I just have a genuine connection with. It’s this perfect balance of someone who’s attractive enough, interesting enough, has similar opinions/beliefs, and finds the same in me.
    For this, I use your match %.

    I have an idea that I think would help.
    1. Continue matching people based on match %.
    2. Allow people to match on likes/dislikes. i.e. Family Guy, Hiking, YMCA, Favorite College Sports Team, Yoga, etc. I hate using facebook as an example, but people are constantly “liking” various bands, movies, actors, etc on there….it would be great to tap into that and use that as part of the match%, plus it gives people something to talk about.
    3. Hide the person’s photo until they’ve sent at least X number of messages (and/or only when both users agree to share photos). Leaving the person’s details (height, body type, education, offspring, religion, etc) available and easily accessible.
    4. Place the above information on a space small enough to take up one page on a smartphone.
    5. Allow to filter out unacceptable deal breakers. i.e. I’m quite liberal, someone being conservative would be a deal breaker for me, as would someone who was very religious, or morbidly obese, etc.
    6. Have an age range buffer. Allow someone to set their desired age ranges as a strong suggestion, but allow the match% to influence a buffer of X amount of years, i.e. 4 years.
    Say you have a woman who’s 21, and she’s not willing to date someone who’s over 27. But here you have Dude Manbro, who’s never been married, has zero kids, has a great career, earns enough to support a family, lives a healthy and active lifestyle, etc…but he’s 29…..Since the desired age range is a strong suggestion, we could hide the age, and allow the person just to look at the other important information….but set a cap, as to not go too far outside of the desire range. This way the searcher can be comfortable that they’re going to meet a quality person, and they might be willing to flex a little bit on the age if they’re just 2-3 years above/below the desired range.

    What you are left with is something like a dance card. You have all of the person’s important details, a short summary to get a feel for their personality, and a list of likes to get the conversation going.
    Have the pictures be hidden for X number of messages or days.

  13. ocrilat says:

    After a three-year hiatus in writing on the blog…you might just want to not do this. I would say that your methods were at best questionable (how you determine relative ‘hotness’ to arrive at any sort of valuable conclusion is beyond me). Bragging about lying to and manipulating your customers is not clever or cute.

  14. Nate says:

    And after my rant a rave about how bs this site is, I get an email saying 50people like you! Send them a message they’re most likely to respond back!! But first…. Give me money to find out who they are! Well played okcupid, well played haha;)

  15. marhall says:

    I can’t believe you’re proud of this research. I doesn’t occur to you that you are playing with people’s emotions and ultimately changing the course of decisions they would make? You forgot the part about the news that just broke yesterday stating that you made up false percentages about the compatibility matches. Could you be any more arrogant in screwing with people and causing them to be drawn to or repelled away from something that was not based in fact? You people really are very arrogant and so dishonest. I’m just glad I never paid good money to have this sick treatment from you!!

  16. ernest steib says:

    I think race plays a bigger role in people choosing a possible mate, than any other reason, I am african american, and it dosen’t matter how compatable we are, every single profile I was interested in, said they would only date someone of their own race, even white women who claimed to be very libreal, so for me this dating site has been a huge waste of time! I think when you choose potential matches, you need to take race into account, espicially in the south where I live!

  17. gearhead Mark says:

    Keep up the experiments, very cool. I always knew I was part guinea pig. Seriously…. I have attempted to contact ladies in my age bracket with 80% or better match ratings, and most always strike out. I have contacted ladies just based on how attractive their pic was, and again usually strike out. I have always tried to find someone geographically nearby, who is a non smoker, who is I hope politically similar, and have had some success. If I had to make a generalization it would be, if you contact the lady and she is in the right mood you can start a conversation, and that usually leads to a date.

    I have found that for me there must be something continuously attractive about the lady (or at a minimum nothing repulsive) or it goes south quickly – dating ends. I could give you an example if you need. I really do think that the state of mind/current mood/level of loneliness of the lady at the moment of contact is more important than the image projected on the computer screen of the guy making contact. -Love you guys…. -Mark

  18. Dan says:

    If the data and results given are sincerely truthful, they tell the exact story that I experience. Men want their “ideal” mate as much as women want theirs, it’s no secret how people work. It’s getting people to the point where they realize they’ve been walking through a life of bad or poor choices, making them wake up and learn to accept others for who they are, not who they think they are.

    I’m sad that the personals in the classifieds are a thing of the past. Many people I speak with who remember them have fond memories. Of course, those were the days when people had to actually write something with a pen and paper.

  19. fixwhatsbroke says:

    It’s precisely this snarky jackass assumptive comradeship that is what is so deludedly wrong with sites like OKCupid and the like generation in particular – from online rudeness such as this disguised as transparency to verbal banter in person (“just sayin'”) to offline examples of packaging that pretends to be your friend when it tells you not to worry. Smells like. Looks like. Is.

    Prove to me that I shouldn’t be concerned with your career in social eugenics, freako.

  20. Raj says:

    That’s pretty interesting. The things you learn as you go along, hey? I think an interesting idea with the dual rating system could be forcing someone to rate profiles based on their words before even displaying the photos. But i imagine that would drop your traffic a ton, even if it did result in better outcomes.

  21. gulfguy83 says:

    I get that companies use information to tweak their products and services, but as far as actual experiments go, it is rather unethical to at least not inform people that they may be shown different results as an experiment.

    The data itself is very interesting, though, and does go to show the sad state of this country. The upside to people being more interested in looks than personality is that they’re often not difficult to weed out (as they typically don’t have much of a personality).

    I’m curious as to why OKC doesn’t have a video feature. People abuse the hell out of Photoshop before posting supposedly “casual” photos on here.

  22. I dont miss says:

    Good stuff I want to experiment on these chumps 2 oh well =( lmao

  23. Joe says:

    This doesn’t really bother me. After all blind studies are the most accurate studies. The people upset that “you are messing with our lives” That’s what we came here for. They didn’t make us do anything, We decide if we talk to someone or not. As they say opposites attract, they may have helped people out by doing it. IDK, maybe it doesn’t bother me because I actually read a profile and judge for myself if it is someone I would like to get to know.
    I am curious as to how it breaks down. Does it change with age, gender, etc. What is the percentage of positive responses to negative. Did they only mess with free members or both. Free members really have no room to complain anyways. Yes, I’m a free member.

  24. Dan says:

    HI folks! I heard the story on NPR and I just want to tell you, I approve of what you have been doing and am fine with it! You all are smart/clever and have good intentions in mind. You work hard (like Google) for our unpaid business and I am glad to give it to you. Experiment schmeriment. Carry on!

  25. Lucas says:

    Interesting, I didn’t know dating sites helped the NSA on spying on people. I like the article though. I have learned a lot of things I didn’t know. Now I know why I have never got myself a girl on any dating site. As much as I have a good profile.

  26. Kasres says:

    I’m more than a slight bit confused at people who are angry at this. There are computers scanning every call, text, email, etc for terrorist threats. The government tests on the general populace all the damn time, and sometimes their tests are far less innocuous. This website tested on people to help them. It didn’t hurt anyone, because if the people lied to sent quite a few messages back and forth and decided to date, then go them. Most of the time, that relationship would end and that’s that. No harm done to anyone. I for one encourage this continuous testing. Let match percentages mean something. Let us be able to actually find someone. If we shut down this sit, nothing new happens, and if consent was sought out, it would ruin the test as people would know what was going on. While I’ll admit I never fully read the ToS and other agreements made signing up, I’m fairly certain something about consent being given for unannounced tests is in there.

  27. Felix sotelo says:

    Well I knew I was onto something. Thank you for the clarification. Honestly I would never trust a computer program to match me with any one. I go deep. I look at the answers to the questions that people provide. Not just the yes or no’s.I read everything they have to say. My problem is the same one that most of us have. The interpretation. You can’t be witty of funny on the computer. That is to say>people can’t always read your words and interpret your words exactly the way you think them when you write them. Without facial expressions a smile or a giggle. etc. The wrong catch phrase or word can end a conversation in a heart beat. If you want to inprove your site. Automatic spell check would help dinasaurs like me. It would certainly help with the proof reading and corrections hah. anyhoo. I find so Ironic that all these people out here in lala land want to find love or some sort of relationship but they are scared to death to answer an email wtf. Really the thing that really turns me off is all the phonies out here in lala land. A persons rating should be based on their actual interaction with other members, not just a picture or what they wrote on thei profile. We are not all poets professional writers or professional liars. I’m gonna pass on the bookthanks for the pitch though..

    Regards
    Felix

  28. Ariel says:

    I’ve long suspected it, but I’m finally ready to say it — I’m in love with you.

  29. mark says:

    Christian, thanks for sharing your results. I find them fascinating. Same for the user responses. In particular the way some folks think being a statistic is morally equivalent to having a medical procedure without informed consent.

  30. 411drew says:

    Couldn’t agree more with most of these comments. You guys screwed the pooch and you made it much worse with this condescending email which basically says, “yep…we did it…and eff you, user!” Theres plenty of other dating sites I can use.

  31. Not Your Guinnea Pig says:

    Is this one of your little side experiments too? Found on CraigsList:

    CL >minneapolis >hennepin co >all jobs >writing/editing jobs
    Posted: 7 days ago

    Get Paid To Woo Women On OkCupid & Tinder? (work from home)
    compensation: $13-$15 per hour
    contract job part-time
    telecommuting okay

    What if you could get PAID to woo women and get them to respond to your messages?

    Believe it or not, this sort of job actually does exist. Our business has been featured all over the media by outlets like FOX, the Today Show and the Washington Post… And we’ll pay you to write profiles and messages for our clients while sitting at home in your pajamas.

    Right now we’ve got part-time opportunities available with eventual full-time potential. If you’ve got the skills, we’ll hire you immediately for this long-term position.

    Think you have the charm, wit and wordsmith skills to join our team? Then send a quick email to HR@virtualdatingassistants.com with “Creative Writer in Minneapolis” right in the subject line, and we’ll tell you more about the most entertaining job in the world.
    Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
    do NOT contact us with unsolicited services or offers

  32. dunedindame says:

    this site definitely does not suggest compatible matches. I have been paired up with men that are totally unfit which is the biggest part I stressed on my profile. Health and fitness and being active. Too many couch potatoes sent my way plus I have found a great deal have lied about their ages. Much older than stated

  33. captainkill says:

    Most of these comments are complaints. One woman says she has a phd: in what, psychology? I’m glad these people actually take the time to improve their product. R/D is essential in any business. No apologies necessary. And no complaints from me. In fact, thanx guys.

  34. Chris says:

    Good job guys, keep it up. After all research equals progress, anyone that tells you that “this is rude” or breach of rights or whatever are just being moody bigots. How else will you make the site better? you can’t just randomly change things thinking it will work can you.

    Keep it up, love the work you have been doing and letting us see what you get out of it. <3

  35. Jim says:

    Mixed feelings. I understand the point of the those who are outraged at being experimented on. On the other hand, I find the results fascinating. I understand that this is going on ALL the time and most of us are blind to it (so thank you for opening our eyes). If the information gathered is ethically applied to creating better matches and NOT to mess with people, I’m OK with it. I DO think that your users should be informed when they’ve been used in an experiment and given correct information on the profiles they’ve viewed and the persons they’ve interacted with when they are informed.

  36. backonline924 says:

    I’m glad you’re having as much fun on your website as all of us users SHOULD be having. After all, this is a learning experience and we’re learning together!

  37. angelasimmons says:

    What at mean

  38. Mike says:

    This was pretty interesting actually. For them to dissect their methods right in front of us. Pretty cool. Come on guys stop whining. the government has been running experiments on us for years in years. These guys are to help us build relationships and make connections with people. At least they’re not injecting us with foreign chemicals to make a super soldiers and sending us off to war… Anymore at least:p

  39. Jo702 says:

    Given your findings on photos being so important – I hope the quality of the male photos improves. Please guys, ask someone to take a decent picture of you! No selfies, no caps or sunglasses, SMILE, no pets in primary photo, and last but not least, post some CURRENT pics.

  40. Smart-y-Pants says:

    So OKCupid disabled the image feature on its site, reported inaccurate match percentages. AND read correspondence between members in order to determine how quickly these members exchanged personal contact information? Nice sleaze factor there OKC.

  41. SavvyUsrName says:

    I’m a bit shocked to read so many negative responses to this post… I’ve been a user for several years – and I really appreciate the service you guys are providing!
    I get a ton of messages, and I send many, myself. I vet people based on % match, as well as profile details – but more importantly, I respond to almost any initial message which is well-written and thoughtful (meaning, they’ve obviously read my profile, and take the time to ask questions that give me something to respond TO.) I’ve been on plenty of dates, made some great new friends, and overall had a putative experience.

    Coming from an area where the dating pool tends to be rather shallow, I’ve often run across friends, acquaintances, and former love interests – and always find that those I’ve connected with in real life have very high % match on okc. Keep doing what you’re doing! It’s obviously working. :)

    The one suggestion I would make, is maybe allowing users who have met someone in person to rate them afterwards… I’ve had a few dates who stood me up, were totally rude, etc – and it would have been nice to be able to give other ladies the heads up.

    It’s honestly funny to me how many “This is why I’ve never gotten a date” comments below are written by those who obviously have other issues. Maybe if you put as much passion into your first contact as you did into writing these rants, you’d have better luck! (Something to consider, anyways…)

    Thanks, okc! I’m interested in reading this book. Experiment away!

  42. VicChick51 says:

    Online dating is, first and foremost, entertainment. If you happen to meet someone compatible, that’s a bonus. If you go into it with no expectations, you are going to have some fun and maybe come out of it with a date or two.

    I find that the % Match on here does work to a certain extent, I have had some great conversations based on that, and have even met a few guys in person. But I don’t base it all on the pictures or the written words or the %. It is a combination of all of them, combined with a conversation.

    There are a few scammers on this site, however, but they are easy to spot. Anyone who has been on dating sites for any length of time will recognize the same photos being used on multiple profiles, the “scammer grammar”, the offer to relocate to wherever you are before you even exchange the “four messages”, the search for a “soul mate to spend the rest of my life with”.

    Be smart! Have some fun. Let your proverbial hair down and just go with it. The more receptive you are, the more you will get out of it. Who cares if there were experiments or tests being conducted on here. Did anyone get hurt by it? Shrug it off and move on. And remember, you only get what you pay for……

  43. Jim says:

    To all the complainers that feel violated by the big bad interwebs. I have a bit of disturbing news for you. The ENTIRE internet is this way! The amount of data and testing that Google collects in an hour would blow your closed little minds. It’s now the world we live in and either accept it or throw away your smart phone and turn of your GPS.

    I find it fascinating. Not enough to buy the book ;) but nice plug at the end. I’d like to see the data on how well the blog converted into book sales. Load up your google analytics and post that one and see how the guinea pigs react.

    In the end, it’s not necessary to back up with charts and graphs what we ALL know to be true. People are inherently shallow, even “you” reading this saying “no, not me” and we’re easily led. Kinda like sheep.

    So ladies, be careful to whom you give your information. Men, try to be less of a douche. Everyone, read the profile once you’ve viewed the pictures and be as kind as you can in a world on anonymity and deceit. And remember, anything you put out there into cyberspace stays out there. Darn clouds ;)

    Cheers,

    Jim

  44. smert says:

    To be offended assumes that we are not capable of determining for ourselves whether we find someone interesting. Regardless of which dating site one uses, you get matches that make you wonder how the hell the site determined you’d be well-matched. It is all a crap shoot…online, offline…it helps to have a sense of humor. What sets OKC apart from the others, is their lack of pretense…kinda refreshing.

  45. Senor Pescador Johnson says:

    see ya, back to Central America ‘home’ couple weeks anyway, I really am not into gringas 99% IMO are not worth my time, latinas, well another story, complicadas, si, but more worth it
    not into drama, which is the norm now
    i will not even say good luck-buena suerte
    psychologists love pills and seems most in USA these days do also, no thanks

  46. spiky says:

    This is so fascinating! I signed up BECAUSE OKCupid was trying out algorithms and stuff to see what helps people get together. The experimenting is the fun of it. (But it’s true it wouldn’t have hurt for you to say, “sorry if revealing that secret has offended anyone.”)

    The averages that say, “your picture counts and your text barely does,” are not surprising. But I’m no average guy, and I’m not looking for somebody average. So I still find that my “deepest” connections – longest conversations and most likely dates – happen with people whose text AND pic intrigue me. And who seem generally on the same level as I for hotness AND smartness. (Also I don’t bother with the hotties who are marked red- “seldom replies.” So that’s a useful metric!)

    To be honest, I barely look at the match percentages any more, and at a few survey answers if any. (Too many questions are very unscientific and ambiguous to answer.)

    What people choose to say about themselves (both textually and pictorially) tells me WAY more. And you can’t “experiment” that away from me… can you…?

  47. Jim McClure says:

    You showed your lack of ethics a few months ago, when you promoted a boycott of another company because of its CEO’s politics, so I was not surprised to hear of your experiments on unwitting users.

    If I was one of the subjects of your experiment I did not notice, because your match algorithms are farther off-target than other dating sites I use.

  48. heylookyname says:

    I don’t see what the big deal is really, I don’t pay for this service, and often enough I end up just kinda poking around at pictures then text with an only partial preference for high percentages. I think we all knew that online dating wasn’t 100%, real life dating isn’t even 100%, so it’s no surprise there’s no magic carpet ride, when there’s no magic carpet.

    And as for the tone, I found it both refreshing and entertaining. Good write-up.

  49. Meghan says:

    Percentage matching aside there should be some basic “do not contact me” options where the person who doesn’t meet that criteria will not show up in a search or at least be labeled as “non-match” such as someone who is separated, married, (which you can alter a search to avoid) but also someone who does not want to date a single parent. It’s a total pain to have to go through a person’s questions list to find out if they don’t want to date you! The match percentage doesn’t really make it clear if you have a quality or life status that the other person will under no circumstances accept. For example some of my 90% matches will refuse to date a single parent- since I’m a single parent clearly that’s not a real match but the only way I find this out is by reading through the hundreds of questions they have answered.