OkCupid Compatibility is Pure Mathematics

Two of OkCupid's co-founders, Chris Coyne and Christian Rudder (who met in a Harvard math dept.) created OkCupid's complex matching system, which they have coined the UberAlgorithm. The UberAlgorithm is all mathematics and essentially tracks the tests and quizs members take at OkCupid. The test answers are tracked and then analyzed so they can be compared with other members to create a compatible percentages. Members can then view these matches when they log on to OkCupid. One of the unique things at OkCupid is, these tests are created not only by staff but by users as well and cover all sorts of topics, whether serious or goofy. Members of OkCupid to date have answered more than 500 million 3 part questions, which equals over 1.5 billion pieces of data. From this data, personality trends are calculated based on 60 axes in which OkCupid tracks (religion is one such axis). Each member information is compiled and compared to each axis, which is also compared with others of your gender, age and sexual gender preference.

As other dating sites like Chemistry and Perfectmatch promote the fact that they have famous psychologists working for them to help create matching systems, OkCupid has stated that they don't need psychologists because their own members create their match algorithms. The UberAlgorithm takes care of figuring out each person's personality and the user tells OkCupid what type of person they want to date.

OkCupid has created a very interesting matching system that does work for a number of people. The problem is taking tests is not every persons cup of tea. This is why OkCupid tends to attract singles in their low to mid twenties. OKCupid hopes that as these singles age and mature, they will continue to use their site, increasing their over 30 age demographic. By being a free dating site, OkCupid doesn't have the funds for a research team of psychologists to help design a matching system. While users who know specifically what they want shouldn't have a problem with their matches on OkCupid, it's the members who are not sure that may suffer poor matches. Based on the members own personality, a match system needs to know that what the member is asking for in a partner is something that is compatible with his or her personality and requirements, not because that is who they think would make a good match. It is the job of the automated match system to know what makes a relationship last.

For the full interview, read Gelf Magazine. For more details on this dating site, read our OkCupid.com review.