Posts Tagged ‘online dating’

Optimal Cupid: Mastering the Hidden Logic of OkCupid is a book by Christopher McKinlay analysing the online dating site OkCupid.

He scraped the site to get data on thousands of profiles and then analysed the data so that he could build the ideal profile. He claims it worked for him, going on 88 dates in three months and is now engaged.

That is all very interesting, although it was not what I was hoping for when I read the book. I bought it thinking it would be an interesting insight into OkCupid, how they do stuff and what interesting information we can glean from a large dataset. That’s not the case at all, it is simply an analysis from a user’s perspective.

It is also a very short book. I polished the whole thing off one evening as a bit of light reading in bed. It will take you maybe an hour, maybe only half to finish it and I have no idea who the foreword is written by, but it feels like he just asked a friend to write a two page ramble.

Therefore I would not recommend the book to anyone, unless finding dates on OkCupid is your last salvation for happiness.

I did apply some of the ideas he suggested to my own OkCupid profile however, so it will be interesting to see if anything comes of it. Seems unlikely though given my profile is very clear that I am happy married and only interested in platonic friendship…

Leeds Skeptics recently invited David Frank to present a talk entitled “sex, love & marketing”. It looked at how people market themselves on online dating and what interesting information we can gather from large scale data releases by major online dating networks.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Online dating is rapidly becoming a mature industry with wide social acceptance – most people think it is a good way to meet people and 11% of Americans have used it
• It is predominantly used by middle-class urban dwellers with some university education
• “Do you like horror movies?” turns out to be a really good predictor of compatibility

And some tips for using online dating:

• Get your friends to pick your photos as you will instinctivly try and pick mirror images of yourself rather than the best photos
• Get your friends to peer-review your profile, just like you would a CV
• Use an interesting username that is neither boring nor contains words with negative connotations
• Use pictures taken on DSLRs – whether it is the skill of the user, the higher quality camera or extra care taken, the produce much more liked photos than camera phones
• If you must use a camera phone, turn the flash off
• People love some depth of field on profile pictures too
• Selfies are good for women, but bad for men
• Smile with teeth is best, followed by no smile, smile without teeth. A smirk is the worst thing you can do.
• T-shirts or casual shirts are the way to go for men – tank tops and topless are the worst ways to go
• Showing cleavage works for women, and this becomes even more successful as they age
• Do not talk about god in your profile
• Basically everyone hates misspellings, grammar, and short replies

Overall a really interesting talk. There was also a section on sex and fetishes. The entire thing was well supported by stats and evidence. You can find the full slides on David’s website.