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.
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!"
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.
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 ...
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.
[+] [-] dirtae|14 years ago|reply
http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
Similar article from 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/science/29tier.html
Similar article from 2003: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2...
[+] [-] cowboyhero|14 years ago|reply
- 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|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sneak|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BasDirks|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shenglong|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oceanician|14 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] teyc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] georgieporgie|14 years ago|reply
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|14 years ago|reply