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OkCupid

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OkCupid
File:Okcupid logo.png
Type of site
Online dating service, Social network service
OwnerIAC/InterActiveCorp
Created byChris Coyne, Sam Yagan, Christian Rudder and Max Krohn
URLOkCupid.com
CommercialMixed
RegistrationRequired for membership

OkCupid is a free dating and social networking website that features member-created quizzes. The site supports various modes of communication, including personal blogs, public forums, instant messages, emails, and "winks." OkCupid was listed in TIME's 2007 Top 10 dating sites.[1]

Overview

OkCupid facilitates both heterosexual and same-sex relationships. OkCupid claims 3.5 million active users as of September 2010.[2] According to Compete.com, OkCupid attracted 1.3 million unique visitors in February 2011.[3]

The site boasts a highly active journal/blogging community as well. Members have the option of saving favorite users' profiles, which displays the favorited person's new journal entries as well as comments on others' entries on the member's front page.

OkCupid is entirely free to use and does not place any restrictions on messaging or searching for non-paying users. The registration process is quick with no restrictions on who may join the site. OkCupid does not advertise its services on other websites; it generates revenue from advertisements and a monthly subscription fee from members enrolled as "A-List" members. A-List members see no advertising and have more filtering options, the ability to separate photos into photo albums, and preferential placement in an "A-List Matches" section of search results.[4]

OkTrends, the official blog of OkCupid, shows statistical observations from OkCupid user interactions, to explore the data side of the online dating world.[2]

OkTrends articles have had over a million unique readers since July 2009.[citation needed]

Matching

To generate matches, OkCupid applies data generated by users' activities on the site,[5] as well as their answers to questions. When answering a question, a user indicates his or her own answer, the answers he or she would accept from partners, and the level of importance he or she places on the question. The results of these questions can be made public. OkCupid describes in detail the algorithm used to calculate match percentages based on answered questions,[6] and has applied for a patent on the process.

Users can search for potential matches based on their match percentage, as well as other features, such as age, religion, and location. Some features are not searchable, such as weight. The site also uses a "Quickmatch" feature, which displays user images and information, but not user names, and contacts a member via email if they were "4 or 5-starred." The site notifies a user if both parties gave 4 or 5 stars.

How user attractiveness influences match results

Users who receive high ratings may be notified by email that they are in the "top half of OkCupid's most attractive users" This email states that they "will now see more attractive people in [their] match results", but A-List users can search by star rating as well. The email includes the line, "And, no, we didn't just send this email to everyone on OkCupid. Go ask an ugly friend and see."[7]

In 2010, articles in the Huffington Post (see reference link below) and Consumerist.com[8] revealed and decried that OkCupid members rated as unattractive have their match results altered in the same way (users ranked as more attractive are hidden in match results), although OkCupid makes no official contact to inform users that they have been rated as unattractive. This controversial method of secretly rating members' looks has been criticized as invasive, and is currently not known to be used by any other dating sites.[9][failed verification]

History

OkCupid is a service of Humor Rainbow, Inc. OkCupid’s founders (Chris Coyne, Christian Rudder, Sam Yagan and Max Krohn) were students at Harvard University when they gained recognition for their creation of TheSpark and, later, SparkNotes. Among other things, TheSpark.com featured a number of humorous self-quizzes and personality tests, including the four-variable Myers-Briggs style Match Test. SparkMatch debuted as a beta experiment of allowing registered users who had taken the Match Test to search for and contact each other based on their Match Test types. The popularity of SparkMatch took off and it was launched as its own site, later being renamed OkCupid. The current OkCupid Dating Persona Test is still largely identical, in question and text blurb content and order, to the original Match Test. In 2001, they sold SparkMatch to Barnes & Noble, and began work on OkCupid.[10]

In 2007, OkCupid launched Crazy Blind Date.[11][12]

In 2008, OkCupid spun off its test-design portion under the name Hello Quizzy (HQ),[13] while keeping it indelibly linked to OkCupid and reserving existent OkCupid users' names on HQ.[13]

Since August 2009, OkCupid has included an "A-list" account option that provides additional services for a monthly fee.[14]

In February 2011, OkCupid was acquired by IAC/InterActiveCorp, operators of Match.com, for $50 million.[15] Editorial posts from 2010 by an OkCupid founder criticizing Match.com and pay-dating as exploiting users and as "fundamentally broken" were removed from the OkCupid blog at the same time.[16] In a press response OkCupid's CEO commented that the removal was voluntary and that "some of the conclusions we drew are not quite as exaggerated as we made them out to be".[17]

By August 2011, the site no longer allows anonymous viewing: logging in is required. Links to inactive/deleted members try to force signing up instead of the previous honest disclosure that the person had left. A e-harmony/match.com style persona test is required to be completed on sign up. Basically this site is now broken. The beauty of this site was the ability to tailor the questions you were interested in rather than through these fixed assumptions. The site would not place in the top 10 sites any longer.

See also

References

  1. ^ "TIME Magazine Online "Online Dating Websites"". Time.com. Retrieved 2011-05-23.
  2. ^ a b April 19th, 2011 by Christian Rudder (2011-04-19). "OkTrends". Blog.okcupid.com. Retrieved 2011-05-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ "okcupid.com's (rank #1,483) Site Profile | Compete". Siteanalytics.compete.com. Retrieved 2011-05-23.
  4. ^ "A-List Extras". OkCupid. Retrieved 2011-05-23.
  5. ^ "Help Topics". OkCupid. Retrieved 2011-05-23.
  6. ^ "Match Percentages". OkCupid. Retrieved 2011-05-23.
  7. ^ "Attractive User" email
  8. ^ "Ok Cupid is Hiding the Good-Looking people from Us Ugly Freaks". Consumerist. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
  9. ^ "Ok Cupid Hides Good-Looking People from Less Attractive Users". HuffingtonPost. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
  10. ^ "About Us". OkCupid.com. Retrieved 2011-05-23.
  11. ^ "CrazyBlindDate.com". CrazyBlindDate.com. Retrieved 2011-05-23.
  12. ^ Mark Hendrickson Nov 6, 2007 (2007-11-06). "Meet Potential Lovers Over a Drink with CrazyBlindDate - TechCrunch, Nov 06, 2006". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2011-05-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ a b "Hello Quizzy". Hello Quizzy. Retrieved 2011-05-23.
  14. ^ "OkCupid.com". OkCupid.com. Retrieved 2011-05-23.
  15. ^ "IAC's Match.com buys rival OKCupid for $50M". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2 February 2011.
  16. ^ Rudder, Christian (2010-04-07). "Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating « OkTrends". waybackmachine.org. Retrieved 10 April 2011.
  17. ^ Jeffries, Adrianne (2011-02-02). "OKCupid: We Didn't Censor Our Match.com-Bashing Blog Post | The New York Observer". New York Observer. Retrieved 10 April 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
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