Posted on 07/29/2014 5:11:43 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Dating website OKCupid has revealed that it experimented on its users, including putting the "wrong" people together to see if they would connect.
It revealed the tests after the uproar over Facebook manipulating the feeds of its users.
"If you use the internet, you're the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site," it said. "That's how websites work."
OKCupid said one revelation was that "people just look at the picture".
As well as allowing users to upload pictures and set up dating profiles, OKCupid asks users questions and matches them with potential partners based on the answers.
In one experiment, the site took pairs of "bad" matches between two people - about 30% - and told them they were "exceptionally good" for each other, or 90% matches. "Not surprisingly, the users sent more first messages when we said they were compatible," Christian Rudder, one of the founders of OKCupid, said in a blog post on the company's research and insights blog.
Further experiments suggested that "when we tell people they are a good match, they act as if they are. Even when they should be wrong for each other."
...
In another experiment, OKCupid ran profiles with pictures and no profile text for half of its test subjects, and vice versa for the rest. The results showed that people responded solely to the pictures. For potential daters, Mr Rudder said that "your actual words are worth… almost nothing".
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
I met my wife of nearly 8 years online. So eff off.
Uh...no...nor do I give a shit.
Did it occur to you that if two people meet on the internet and anything comes of it then at some point they ended up meeting in person?
Wow, that never occurred to me!
You mean people actually do that?
Thanks for straightening me out there, sparky.
I'm a better person for it.
But, no one would ever know, since this is the internet, but you believe me, right...after all, you've read it on the internet.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.