OkCupid

You'd think that self-confidence would be a positive trait in dating. It takes a certain amount of assurance to approach a stranger and ask them out. And dating experts around the world agree – confidence is one of the most attractive (not to mention useful) traits a person can have.

But there happens to be one group for whom that seemingly obvious insight is not true: college-age men. According to research led by Carnegie Mellon University’s Emily Yeh, young men who are overconfident see less success using OkCupid.

Yeh's findings, presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s annual meeting in San Diego, mirror some of OkCupid's own data. The site asks users to score themselves on a variety of factors, including intelligence and height. Many rate themselves as being smarter, taller, etc., than average, and not necessarily because they're consciously lying. Instead they fall victim to “illusory superiority,” a psychological phenomenon that describes people's natural tendency to believe they are better than average.

Then again, no one is shocked at the thought of users lying on dating sites to attract more suitors. It's basic survival. Instead, Yeh decided to take things further and study how overconfidence relates to success on OkCupid. She asked participants to rate their level of self-confidence, then compared their answers to their “success” on the site (defined as things like length of conversation and frequency of first contacts). She focused her research on two age groups: 18-22 and 45-55.

Yeh's initial findings were not surprising. Individuals with higher self-reported confidence also initiated more conversations, regardless of gender or age group. But when it came to receiving messages, the results began to vary. The older age group and younger women received more messages if they considered themselves highly confident. “The more confident you are, the more messages you get,” Yeh told New York magazine.

Younger men, on the other hand, had the opposite experience. “The more modest the male is, the more messages they receive,” Yeh said. Young men who reported less confidence in the initial survey were also less likely to develop a first message into an extended conversation.

What could explain Yeh's findings? She suggests that “it could mean, perhaps as you get older, you start to have more concrete measures of how confident you are.” As you mature, you have a greater number of real achievements under your belt and with those achievements comes both a clearer sense of what you can accomplish and a stronger belief in yourself.

Younger daters may feel confident, but not yet have much to back that confidence up. Either that means they're making missteps they wouldn't make if they were more cautious, or their false bravado is clear to potential dates who are turned off by it. Either way, the end message is clear: college guys need to give the overconfidence a rest if they want to score.

Just when you thought the good old days of OkTrends were gone, and you'd resigned yourself to a life without the pithy, humorous, occasionally scandalous insights of the blog, OkCupid has launched something new: The Deep End.

Yes, that long awaited moment has finally come. OkCupid is back to blogging and anyone with a love of dating and data is squirming with joy. To kick things off, The Deep End released The Hangover, a look back on the trends and lessons that 2015 left behind. Here are some of its most interesting insights:

The Fifty Shades Effect

In typical boundary-pushing OkCupid fashion, the report starts with Americans' sex lives. Oregon took the crown for most users looking for casual flings, followed by Washington. At the opposite end of the sexual spectrum, users in Utah, South Dakota, and Idaho were the most likely to be virgins. Across the board, OkCupid users are looking to explore their kinky sides. Fifty-eight percent indicated an interest in bondage in 2015, up 5% from the year before.

Emoji Extravaganza

Love them or hate them, emojis are here to stay. The two most popular emojis on OkCupid were simple smiley faces, with the top spot going to the little guy with eyebrows. Unsurprisingly on a dating site, the winky face also scored highly. It came in third, followed by the heart eyes emoji. Beyond the classic faces, users loved the cake, coffee and pizza emojis, as well as the see-no-evil monkey.

Read Between The Lines

When not expressing themselves in modern hieroglyphs, OkCupid users ventured into verbal territory (with varying degrees of success). The Deep End found that a message simply saying “hey” had an 84% chance of being ignored in 2015. Other words from the millennial lexicon exploded last year. Use of “bae” doubled in frequency from 2014 to 2015, while “fleek,” “dad bod,” and “ghosting” made their first appearances in 2015.

Top Of The Pops

Dating and pop culture collided in 2015 with one ubiquitous phrase: Netflix and chill. The once harmless combination of words took on a new meaning last year, and use of the phrase in OkCupid messages rose 5,357% as a result. In other pop culture news, Taylor Swift replaced Miley Cyrus as the most mentioned pop star, while Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II and Avengers: Age of Ultron dominated the movie mentions.

Where will we be at the end of 2016? The Deep End predicts a world that is increasingly progressive, in which racial bias is a serious dealbreaker for daters and, if OkCupid users have their way, a Democrat is elected to the White House.

“What we don’t yet know,” the https://www.okcupid.com/deep-end/the-hangover concludes, “are all of the sexy and bizarre ways we’ll connect in the new year.”

OkCupid has built a reptuation as one of the more open-minded dating services available for singles. In their latest progressive move, the site is adding a feature designed to help users explore nonmonogamy.

The new setting became available for some beta users last December and rolled out site-wide in Januray 2016. Polyamorous daters who are listed as “seeing someone,” “married,” or “in an open relationship” can now link their profiles with their partners' profiles and search for new additions to their relationship.

The decision to add the option for polyamorous users comes after OkCupid noticed an uptick in interest in nonmonogamous relationships. According to the company’s data, 42% of its users would consider dating someone who is already involved in an open or poly relationship. Another 24% say they are “seriously interested” in group sex. Combined, reports The Atlantic, those two numbers represent increases of 8 percentage points from five years ago.

Perhaps more surprisingly, the number of OkCupid users who say they are solely committed to monogamy has fallen to a minority of all users: 44%, down from 56% in 2010.

The trend on OkCupid is reflective of a larger trend throughout the United States. Psychology Today reported in 2014 that "sexually non-monogamous couples in the United States number in the millions." Surveys suggest that 4 to 5 percent of Americans are now involved in polyamorous relationships.

This isn't the first time OkCupid has made headlines for its forward-thinking take on online dating. The site added an “open relationship” option back in 2014. Last year, it increased the number of genders it recognizes to 22. Tinder and Match.com, also owned by OkCupid parent company Match Group, do not yet have plans to add a similar feature for nonmonogamous users.

Outside of Match Group, OkCupid remains a trendsetter. Though specialized dating sites for polyamorous people were already available, this seems to be the first time a mainstream online dating service has offered a feature for nonmonogamous partners. In the past, poly couples resorted to creating confusing joint profiles or describing their arrangement in their bios.

Jimena Almendares, OkCupid’s chief product officer, told The Atlantic the company isn't trying to make a statement – it's merely following the numbers and giving users the tools they need to find the relationships they want.

“Finding your partner is very important,” she said, “you should have the option to express specifically and exactly who you are and what you need.”

For more information on this dating service please read our review of OkCupid.

Recipient
OkCupid

The 2015 Editor's Top Pick - Free Award recipient is OkCupid. OkCupid has always been a favorite of ours and it continues to be a favorite of our visitors as well. Google recently ranked OkCupid as the fourth most searched online dating service in 2015. OkCupid sees more than 1 million app installs (combine count of iTunes and Android) every week and over 7.3 million messages are sent between OkCupid members every day. You will also find between 125 thousand and 180 thousand users online at any one time. Most of these users are from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

OkCupid also has one of the highest app ratings of any dating app on Google Play. Over 200 thousand people have rated the app and have given it a 4.2 out of 5 stars. On iTunes they have a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. OkCupid has a staff of 45 employees (most of them software engineers) who are dedicated in bring it's members a high quality online dating experience. Being a free service means their first priority is not about generating paid subscriptions but about generating matches between members and having those members communicate as easy as possible. Being free also means that you can send messages with any member you find on OkCupid that sparks your interest for zero cost. With most paid dating sites both members have to have a paid subscription to be able to communicate with each other. OkCupid does offer a paid upgrade called the A-List. This upgrade gives you enhancements like advanced search options, message read receipts and no online ads.

Matchmaking on OkCupid is more than your basic filter for age ranges and matching people together with who have the same interests. OkCupid uses real math and algorithms that help provides matches based on the Match Questions you answer. Match Questions are not only provided by OkCupid but by other users as well.

Read our review of OkCupid for more information about this online dating service or visit OkCupid directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: POF

2015 was the biggest year yet for online dating. Ten years ago, digital dating was still viewed with skepticism. Today, a majority of Americans believe it's a good way to meet people and 5% of Americans in committed relationships say they met their significant other online.

Now that singles have fallen head over heels for online dating, services have exploded. From the basics like Match and eHarmony, to youth-centric options like OkCupid and Tinder, to hyper-specific sites for bacon lovers and beard aficionados, there's something for everyone. So which dating services are a cut above the rest?

Bustle teamed up with Google to reveal the top-searched dating apps and sites in 2015. The list is surprisingly diverse:

1. Plenty Of Fish: Plenty of Fish sounds like a throwback to an earlier era of online dating, but the site is alive and well as we start 2016. Its inexpensive options draw 50,000 new members every day and even hooked The Match Group, which acquired POF in July 2015. See our full review of Plenty of Fish.
2. Tinder: It's no surprise that Tinder nearly took the top spot. The time-killing app made “swipe” an important part of everyone's vocabulary and totally changed the dating game. See our full review of Tinder.
3. Match: Match.com has been connecting singles since the primitive days of online dating and is still a prime choice. Over the years, the site has perfected its matching technique and remained a favorite for daters all around the world. See our full review of Match.
4. OkCupid: OkCupid revolutionized the online dating industry as an entirely free service. Today paid options have popped up, but OkCupid remains largely free to use and scores highly for its excellent compatibility algorithm. See our full review of OkCupid.
5. eHarmony: Though it began as a dating service strictly for Christians, eHarmony has expanded its service to welcome a wider variety of singles. The site has built a reputation as a go-to service for serious relationships. See our full review of eHarmony.
6. Zoosk: Zoosk quietly continued its quest for world domination in 2015. With service available in 80 countries, 25 different languages, and on your computer, phone, tablet, and Facebook, Zoosk is practically inescapable. See our full review of Zoosk.
7. Bumble: Bumble got a lot of press last year for its “Feminist Tinder” approach to online dating. The app takes the infamous swiping set-up, but attempts to lower the creep factor by putting female members in charge.
8. Hinge: Scared of meeting strangers online? Hinge solves the problem by using Facebook to connect users with mutual friends. Members can breathe easy knowing that their dates have been vetted by someone they trust. See our full review of Hinge.
9. Grouper: It's impossible to take all the awkwardness out of a first date, but Grouper helps lessen it by adding friends to the mix. The app connects groups of friends to take the pressure off.
10. Farmers Only: Yes, believe it or not, the uber-niche Farmers Only made the cut. Although perhaps it's just from people searching Google to find out if it's actually real.

Match Group is hoping to live happily ever after with Wall Street. The company, owner of more than 45 online dating brands including Tinder, OkCupid, and Match.com, has filed for an initial public offering of its stock.

Match Group filed for the IPO of common stock with U.S. regulators on October 16 with an offering amount of $100 million, but that figure is a placeholder that could change in the future. The company is set to operate under the ticker symbol "MTCH" on NASDAQ.

Following the IPO, IAC/InterActiveCorp., which owns Match, would retain control of more than 50% of voting rights under its ownership of Class B shares, which have 10 votes apiece. Match will contract with IAC for “administrative and other services,” but the exact amount of distance between IAC and Match Group going forward is so far unknown.

Here are some of the highlights of Match's SEC filing:

• Match makes serious money. The company had $888.3 million in revenue and $148.4 million in after-tax profit in 2014. For the first six months of 2015, revenue was $483.9 million and net earnings were $49.3 million. Match might hit $1 billion in revenue this year.
• Growth is steady, though not explosive. Wall Street wants to invest in technology companies that grow rapidly. Match Group doesn't meet that criterion, but growth between 2013 and 2014 was 10.6 percent. Between 2012 and 2013 it was 12.6 percent. The rate is nothing for the record books, but it's healthy and sustainable.
• Paying customers make up a surprisingly small percentage of total users. Match Group claims 59 million monthly active users across 38 languages and 190 countries. Of those 59 million, only 4.7 million pay to use the services. The company's income is in the hands of only 8 percent of its customers.

Although the online dating segment seems saturated, the IPO prospectus includes opportunities for future growth. According to the filing, the addressable market is currently about 511 million. That number is expected to grow to 672 million by 2019. Increased adoption of mobile and the Internet, the aging of the population and the increase in the number of singles are all positive trends for the industry.

Of course, there are risk factors too. Cybersecurity is more important than ever, and Match Group admits that it can't guarantee protection from attacks. Match also notes that one of its most important assets, Tinder, could essentially be destroyed if Facebook alters the terms and conditions for connecting with the social network. It remains to be seen if these issues will cause risk-averse Wall Street to balk.

The underwriters for the IPO include J.P. Morgan, Allen & Co. and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

For more information on the dating services owned by IAC, you can read our reviews on Match.com, OkCupid, and Tinder.