Happy National Singles Week. Did you know that Operation Match, the first example computer matchmaking, took place in 1965?
Behold, a fascinating article in the The New York Times by Ian Ayres about Super Crunchers, which focuses on the matching systems that power eHarmony, PerfectMatch, True and Yahoo! Personals.
This is the best overview of how dating sites match members that I’ve ever read in the MSM (mainstream media). Learn about wisdom of crowds, regression and Myers-Briggs testing. See how dating sites hide the details of their matching systems as closely as the Coke recipe.
Eharmony comes under a fairly strenuous attack towards the end of the piece, which is taken from a book by the same name. Steven Levitt, the co-author of Freakonomics, praises the book, which means I’m buying Super Crunchers right after I hit the publish button.
The article quotes True.com’s chief psychologist James Houran, but James hasn’t worked at True in several years. I noticed several other inconsistencies but thats what happens when you kill trees and put ink on them. I wonder if Super Crunchers has an errata website?
Related Posts
Personality Testing Systems, Time for a Shootout?The increasing role of scientific matching
Understanding eHarmony traffic
Dr. James Houran Debunks Scientific Matching
Millions of Singles mismatched!
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“eHarmony’s approach relies on the mother of Super Crunching techniques: the regression”
I suspect most Online Dating Sites offering compatibility_matching_methods like
eHarmony
True
PerfectMatch
Chemistry
YahooPersonals (WeAttract’s tests)
CyberSuitors
Ulteem
Parship
Plentyoffish Compatibility Predictor
MatchWise
and others
are using self_adjustment multiple/simple linear/nonlinear regression_equations to predict compatibility between prospective mates.
BUT
There are more than 900 “Online Dating & Social Networking Sites” at the United States and Canada, and top 10 Online Dating sites have 80%/85% of actual market.
If you add net paid subscribers of all U.S. dating sites, perhaps the total is less than 5 million persons!!!
What dating sites are doing / will do to court the other U.S. 87 million singles not seriously dating online? They need to offer GREAT INNOVATIONS, but …. they will definitively come from new discoveries on Theories of Romantic Relationships Development with:
* 16PF5 NORMATIVE test as main personality test (available in different languages)
* powerful math equations (not more regression equations!!!!)
specifying:
- Ensemble: the whole set of different valid possibilities.
- Precision: like 0.00000001%
- Main Matching Equation: like an adapted quantum mechanic equation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braket
- How the compatibility predictor is expresed: like Client#X to Client#Y == 92.55033557%
- Average number of “compatible real persons” for one person over the entire database: like the 3 most compatible in 100,000 persons database or the 12 most compatible in 1,000,000.
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
In 1969 in Tampa, FL, while I was attending USF, I met my future wife during the Operation Match program. We married that year have been together ever since. I wonder how many marriages resulted from that innovative program?