General News

Not a day goes by that I don't mourn the loss of OkCupid's fabulous, informative, fascinating, controversial Labs posts. Ok, so that's a bit of an exaggeration...but I do miss the crazy questions, bright infographics, and provocative food-for-thought they provided.

The days of those posts may be long gone, but thankfully an amateur data analyst named Jon Millward has performed an experiment that picked up where OkCupid left off. He called the project "OkCupid on Trial: A 4-month Online Dating Experiment Using 10 Fictional Singletons," and decided to test the widely-held theory that women have it easier than men in the online dating world.

Millward put the theory to the test by making ten fake profiles and observing the responses he received to each, based purely off superficial notions of "attractiveness." To choose which ten pictures would participate in the experiment, Millward polled three separate people who rated the attractiveness of the pictures by what they thought members of OkCupid were most likely to be attracted to.

It turns out they were pretty good judges. Within 24 hours of the profiles being online:

• Only 1 man received a message.
• But every woman received at least one.
• And the 2 most attractive women received 581% more messages than the other three combined.

Seven days into the experiment, Millward found the following results:

• The most-contacted woman received nearly 17 times more messages in 1 week than the most-contacted man.
• Three men received no messages at all, even though their profiles had been viewed 25 times between them.
• The women's messages outnumbered the men's 17 to 1 (largely due to the 2 most attractive women).
• The 2 men ranked most attractive received 5 fewer messages than the women who were voted 3rd and 4th most attractive.

And just in case you want to write off his results as a fluke, Millward expanded the project to England and replicated the experiment. His findings were exactly the same: the two most attractive women received 83% of all messages. The most popular woman's inbox filled at 2 months, 13 days - but it would take 2.3 years for the most popular man's inbox to max out.

If attracting attention is the goal, then yes - Millward's experiment has shown a bias in favor of women on dating sites. But that also comes with a downside: the wider selection capabilities means a signal to noise ratio that makes the selection process a nearly-insurmountable challenge.

Men on dating sites face challenges of their own, largely due to the extreme competition from other male members. The best way for men to stand out online is to write unique, intriguing messages, which Millward suggests doing by:

• Demonstrating creativity, intelligence, and humor.
• Forgoing "cut-and-paste" style messages for unique notes that show you've read her profile.
• Not being needy.

Conclusion: men may have it a little harder than women, but if all it takes to bridge that gap is write more thoughtful messages, guys don't have it so bad after all.

To find out more about the dating site mentioned you can read our OkCupid review.

From Friday July 20 2012, to Sunday July 22, 2012 members of Chemistry will be able to communicate for free.

If you are interested in online dating and are looking for a dating service to evaluate, then Chemistry’s 3 day free weekend is an ideal time to try out this dating site. Chemistry was brought to you by the creators of Match.com. The main difference between the 2 dating sites is that Chemistry relies on their in-depth personality test and complex matching algorithm to supply their members with quality matches. The matches provided are the ones Chemistry has determined are best suited for your personality and have the best chance of creating for you a long-term relationship.

To take advantage of the Chemistry 3 day free weekend all you need to do is create a user account and answer the profile questions. Once completed you will then receive your matches. Then, starting Friday July 20 and for 72 hours you will be able to communicate by flirting (chemistry starters) and sending emails for free. No credit card is required and this promotion is available for new and existing members.

Chemistry had their last free communication weekend in May. To find out more about this matchmaking service designed to find members long-term relationships please read our review of Chemistry.

The pressure's on for singles in Shanghai. The Chinese capital's fertility rate has dropped to just 0.79 children per woman, and now the city is desperate to encourage more young people to meet, marry, and raise a family.

The center of the city's dating scene is Shanghai Expo Park, where thousands of eligible young men and women gather in hopes of meeting their matches. 38,000 singles and parents attended a June 1st matchmaking event in the park, hoping to revive a marriage rate that is expected to fall 17% this year.

Shanghai is China's richest city, largest port, and a leading financial center in the country. It is also the center of waves of social changes that are sweeping the nation. An urban shift is shrinking the pool of factory workers who sustain economic growth in the country, while the ranks of the elderly - who increase healthcare and pension costs - are on the rise. City-dwelling citizens with higher education levels and a greater focus on their careers are marrying later and having fewer children, causing the Shanghai birth rate to drop to half the national level.

These shifts have caused major changes for Chinese women, who have become a larger, and increasingly educated, percentage of the population. "In the past, women were match-made by their parents," says Juemin Zhou, director of the Shanghai Matchmaking Trade Association. "Then, it didn't matter how old you were, or if your partner was blind in one eye, you still had to get married. Now, if you don't find someone suitable, you just don't settle."

Gong Haiyan, co-chief executive officer of Jiayuan.com, China's largest online dating agency, reports that women's expectations of potential partners - like owning a house - have now skyrocketed. "The first thing they look for," said Hansen Huang, a male attendee at the matchmaking fair, "is if you have a decent job, what is your salary like, if you have an apartment. Women are looking for a partner who can provide so they can live relatively comfortably."

In spite of these shifts, many Chinese citizens remain traditional. A young bride is still considered ideal, and women who wait too long to settle down many be considered "leftovers." "Women can be very picky when they're young," said Huang. "But if you don't sell when it commands the highest value, you may miss the golden opportunity."

The pressure to wed may be high, but Shanghai is doing its best to respond: about 2,000 couples were successfully matched at last year's event, a figure that bodes well for this year's fair.

We found some interesting statistics for OkCupid from the CEO Sam Yagan who did a presentation recently at the Digiday Data Marketing Summit.

Did you know that as of 2012 OkCupid has 10 million plus registered users who send more than 500 million messages each year. Last year they also had 68.3 million visits with which 13.3 million are unique. On average these visitors view 14.18 pages for an average time of 27 minutes and 59 seconds.

With the profiles and tests OkCupid keeps track of a lot of data. This data gives them information on their members demographics, psychographic, lifestyle and consumption habits which is ideal for advertisers who want to zero in on their target market. Like with Facebook, OkCupid is a free service that uses advertisers to pay the bills.

Lastly OkCupid says they have 3 key elements that define their success and they all revolve around their members. They are:

• Distribution of messages
• Recipient’s interest in message
• Keeping reply rates high

For more on this post you can check out the full slide show. To find out what makes this dating site one of the more recommended on the internet, please read our OkCupid review.

It's great being in a new relationship - you spend more and more time with your partner, basking in the heady feelings of love. But along with this newfound happiness, do you tend to pack on a few extra pounds, too?

There is a common notion that when you settle down into a relationship, it's easy to let yourself go. When you're single, you tend to focus on losing weight and having healthier habits in order to attract a partner. But when you're in a relationship, the pressure to keep yourself looking as attractive as possible subsides. As it turns out, there is research supporting this idea.

A recent study from The Ohio State University showed that women are more likely to gain weight when they get married (whereas men are more likely to gain weight when they get divorced). Another study, published in Obesity Research, reported that women have an average weight gain of six to eight pounds over a two-year period after getting married. But it's not just married couples - a 2009 study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that after studying 7,000 individuals over a period of a few years, those who were in relationships and moved in with their significant others were twice as likely to be overweight than their single peers.

There are some explanations for this phenomenon. For one, when meals are shared (and this is one of the most common bonding activities a couple does together), you indulge together more often. Maybe you go out for a rich pasta dinner, or you buy the extra large tub of popcorn in the movie theatre, or you get an ice cream when you're spending an afternoon at the park. It's easier to indulge with someone else.

This doesn't mean that relationships equal bigger waistlines. In fact, as long as you're aware of how your eating patterns change when you move from single to coupled, you can do a lot to prevent it.

Talk about it. There's nothing like making a plan - if you feel pressured to eat when you're not hungry, or eat foods that aren't so good for you, then feel free to let your partner know that you want something different.

Eat individually. You don't have to enjoy the same meal (or the same portions) together. If you want to have a salad while he has pizza, then make pizza and salad for dinner and each enjoy your own thing. My husband is vegetarian but I eat meat, so sometimes I make myself fish or chicken while he has a veggie burrito.

Make time for exercise. One of the first casualties in relationships is forgoing exercise. What if instead you both decided to take walks, jog, or go to the gym together? Staying healthy is a good goal for any couple.

You saw his profile, emailed back and forth a bit, and now you’re meeting him for the first time. Unfortunately, you’ve only been together ten minutes and already you can tell things are not going well. Maybe he’s made some inappropriate comments, or he’s not quite what you pictured, but either way – you want to escape.

You contemplate standing up and walking out, but you don’t want to seem rude. Or maybe you should make up an excuse – like you’re feeling sick or you forgot it was your Grandmother’s birthday dinner that night. But that seems too cliché. What is the right thing to do?

Well, if you don’t want to have to text your friend to make up some emergency and call you, there are plenty of apps available to help rescue you from a bad date. eHarmony just developed a free one called appropriately Bad Date Rescue, which was surprising to me considering eHarmony does such a thorough job in matching its members. But dating is tricky – often you can’t predict certain behavior or outcomes.

Bad Date Rescue provides fake emergency calls during your dates if they aren’t going so well. You can even schedule a specific time in advance of when the call will arrive, along with various scenarios of plausible emergencies, like your mom calling to let you know your sister is in labor, or your neighbor informing you that a water pipe in your basement has burst. The app also comes with a fake voice on the other end of the line to make the call look more realistic. It also provides scripts to walk you through what you can tell your date once the call arrives.

While I love dating apps, and this kind of thing can be helpful if you have a hard time saying no to people, it really should be a last resort. Honesty goes a long way, rather than relying on excuses and apps to do the dirty work for you.

Instead of relying on an app, tell your date that you’re just not feeling the connection, thank him for his time, and excuse yourself. At least this kind of honesty will help you avoid those uncomfortable moments in the future when your date texts you saying, “had a great time – can you get together again this weekend?” There are only so many times you can excuse yourself by being busy with work or family.

Or worse, your date will recognize that it’s a fake emergency and then feel even worse than if you’d just told him you weren’t interested.

It’s up to you how you handle things, but eventually you’ll have to come clean and admit that you’re just not that into him.

To find out more about the dating site which released the Bad Date app you can read our eHarmony review.