
OK Cupid launches Crazy Blind Date - rms
http://www.crazyblinddate.com/
======
Breakthrough
This is crazy... So crazy I can see it actually catching on. I'm quite
interested to see how many people start using this.

I also like how they say "[each] Crazy Blind Date account is tied to a phone"
I'd argue that's a very false sense of security/safety, as it's trivial for
anyone to obtain a different (or temporary) phone number. On that point
though, I guess you're just as safe with a blind internet date as with one you
"electronically know".

And heck, let's be honest with ourselves. Maybe it will work better if you,
the technically-inclined HN reader, is __not __allowed to pick-and-choose who
you're going to date next, but your next date is chosen based on your
interests and some "magic". After all, isn't that how love is supposed to
work?

~~~
run4yourlives
I'm not sure if a "literal" blind date is a good thing. Most "blind dates"
that people go on traditionally come through friends of friends. That means
they aren't vetted just for interests and such but the datee/victim can be
reasonably sure they are also vetted for personal appearance. Let's face it -
this is huge. Depending on the friend, they can also be vetted based on a few
of the hundreds of idiosyncrasies that a person has.

I've been out of the dating scene for quite some time but I don't think
personal profiles have advanced all that much. Especially when people are
notoriously bad at actually describing themselves in an accurate way. After
all, we all think we're normal. The truth is rather different.

Instead of computer programs, why not just develop a site that lets your
friends (your real friends) pick your perspective blind date? That would be
the million dollar idea right there, IMHO.

~~~
jules
OkCupid probably has a very good idea of how attractive a person is based on
how many profile views and messages they get. I'd be very surprised if they
aren't using that data to match roughly equally attractive people. Perhaps
they are even taking personal preferences into account with probabilistic
matrix factorization that is often used for recommendation systems. Basically
if person X shows interest in A, and person Y shows interest in A and in B,
then this makes it more likely that person X will like B as well. Whether A
and B are movies, products on Amazon or people on OkCupid, PMF can exploit
this kind of data to match people to products or to other people.

The biggest problem with algorithmic blind dating is probably not actual
average quality of dates, but rather (perceived) risk of going on a bad date.
People trust their friends a lot more than an algorithm.

~~~
macchina
>I'd be very surprised if they aren't using that data to match roughly equally
attractive people.

I can confirm this is true. Last year, as an experiment, I made a dummy
account with a picture of former NFL quarterback Kyle Boller but the same
profile/personality as me. His matches are significantly more attractive than
mine. He also received this email a few weeks after registration:

 _We just detected that you're now among the most attractive people on
OkCupid._

 _We learned this from clicks to your profile and reactions to you in
Quickmatch and Quiver. Did you get a new haircut or something?_

 _Well, it's working!_

 _To celebrate, we've adjusted your OkCupid experience:_

 _You'll see more attractive people in your match results._

 _This won't affect your match percentages, which are still based purely on
your answers and desired match's answers. But we'll recommend more attractive
people to you. You'll also appear more often to other attractive people._

 _Sign in to see your newly-shuffled matches. Have fun, and don't let this go
to your head_

~~~
artursapek
_"You'll see more attractive people in your match results."_

Reading this email actually disturbed me. A computer program is telling you
that you're attractive, and that it's going to hustle "more of the attractive
people" to you.

 _"the attractive people"_

I'm only 20 years old and still have plenty to learn about ladies and
relationships, but I know I can do better than have a server cluster tell me
who is "in my league" and who are "the attractive people." Holy shit.

~~~
windsurfer
I am 23 and I think it's pretty cool. It makes sure that the attractive people
are not swamped with messages and driven off the site.

~~~
artursapek
Imagine if "attractive people" walked around with body-guards who only let
other "attractive people" with body-guards come up and talk to them.

I can see the value in it for this website as a product, I think what really
hit me was the way it's worded.

~~~
ahh
> Imagine if "attractive people" walked around with body-guards who only let
> other "attractive people" with body-guards come up and talk to them.

So what you're saying is you've never been to, say, a particularly hip bar or
club in a big city.

Yes, the attractive women do have people who keep losers (like, say, the
typical HN nerd) away. That's _exactly_ how the real world works.

~~~
artursapek
I don't know what the typical HN user looks like, but anybody can work at
being attractive regardless of their career or interests.

It's sort of a self-fulfilling role anyway. Staying away from an attractive
woman makes you the loser. Having the mindset you just described does as well.

~~~
ahh
"self-fulfilling role" is another term for "blaming the victim." You know,
that guy in a wheelchair could totally walk--he just doesn't _want_ it enough.

~~~
artursapek
Ok, well if you find your ability to appeal to women comparable to a
paraplegic's ability to walk then I am truly sorry. Certain things like
attractiveness do come with effort.

~~~
ahh
It is easy for the attractive to say that; like most traits, people don't like
to believe dumb luck helped them. It makes a much better personal narrative if
it was their own hard work. That doesn't mean it's backed up by any fact.

------
graeme
They would need one HELL of an algorithm to pull this off.

I tried OKC. A few good dates, but also several women who were 20-30 pounds
heavier than their profile pictures.

I've talked to women who use OKC. In the first week, any reasonably attractive
woman gets 30-150 message, 95% of them creepy/lame/from old men.

You can still find good things on OKC, but you need to learn how to filter.
Women set up harsh filters against the flood of spam, and men have to learn i.
How to get past those filters ii. How to tell if a woman is really herself

Women face more risks than men. Most men aren't crazy. But all it takes is one
crazy man to really mess up your life. And crazy men are more likely to use
something that lets them bypass traditional filters.

Meanwhile, this lets women that won't get hit on in real life bypass the
filter of physical appearance.

If this could be made to work, it would be incredibly popular. But it has a
ton of hurdles. You'd have to evaluate safety and attractiveness
algorithmically, or you'd end up with a ton of lame/scary dates.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"You'd have to evaluate safety and attractiveness algorithmically"_

OKCupid already does this (the attractiveness part), and I have to say, they
do it startlingly well. Attractiveness is crowdsourced, and this is present
even in the default (non-blind) experience. Ever wonder what that "Special
Blend" default search results sort option is all about? It's actually weighted
by the user and your own attractiveness.

~~~
drpgq
So I guess you could boost your attractiveness by making profiles of the
opposite sex and interacting with yours?

~~~
marvin
People have done this, and one guy actually documented the experience. I
forgot the reference, but the idea was to appear more picky and popular by
getting lots of messages and not responding, in order to get the "responds
very selectively" red light. The effect turned out to be a lot more views and
messages.

This doesn't consider the algorithmic effect of doing this, though. Although
it is probably very achievable.

------
jcarpio
From this Forbes piece:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/01/15/would-y...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/01/15/would-
you-go-on-a-crazy-blind-date-ok-cupid-thinks-so/)

""" In truth, the most radical part of Crazy Blind Date (whose name and basic
concept OK Cupid toyed with in an earlier form more than five years ago) may
be the way users are asked to express their satisfaction or lack thereof.
After a date’s conclusion, the participants are invited to rate each other by
purchasing “kudos.” Spending a few dollars implies that a date was
enjoyable...

Why pay good money to improve the dating prospects of someone you might never
see again? Because there’s more than generosity at play here. The user who
never buys kudos for his or her dates will find himself increasingly shut out
by the algorithm in the same way that your own friends would eventually stop
setting you up if you rejected enough of their suggestions. “It’s a soft
payment for access,” says Yagan. “How much you donate determines your product
experience along the way.”

""" Who will become successful at getting dates then? Those with the most
kudos purchased? And, what does that do to the quality of dates one might
expect to have?

------
rdl
I was really sad when they killed the original web-based Crazy Blind Date a
few years ago -- I was single and in the Bay Area at the time, and it seemed
just random enough to be awesome.

Would strongly recommend this to anyone in the market. Although hopefully it
gets promoted in places other than just hacker news, or there will be obvious
issues.

I know a surprisingly large number of tech people who have gotten long-term
girlfriends or married via OkCupid. I only ever met actually crazy people
(although interesting and fun for a few months), but somehow it seems to work
for other people. I'm not sure how well it works outside the Bay Area,
Seattle, Boston, and NYC, but in those markets, it's pretty good.

~~~
nmcfarl
I met my wife via OkCupid, in Seattle. So it certainly worked for me (with
more than a few of the standard dating misstarts).

~~~
junto
I'm glad to hear you "met" a few Miss Tarts before you settled down. ;-)

You need to get that sort of thing out of your system before you finally
settle down.

~~~
rexreed
Maybe it was a joke, but you missed the implicit hyphen between mis and
starts. So, not Miss Tarts, but rather Mis-starts.

Maybe @nmcfarl meant to say near-misses? or rather, just misses. But not as in
ladies, but as in horseshoes.

~~~
junto
The first time I read the sentence I misread it, giggled like a school boy,
and quickly replied to the post tongue-in-cheek.

However, HN did not appreciate the joke, and to be honest it was rather inane.
I should try to remember that puerile humour belongs on Reddit and not HN.

------
siwei
I had the exact same idea, right down to using ratings to improve the random
match, so this is pretty awesome in that I get to see how this will play out
for free.

The main idea here is that it's a behaviorial approach to optimizing mate-
matching. The way it works now (e.g., on okcupid) is that you fill out a
profile and answer some questions. You expose some signals in your profile
which you think are correlated with what makes you a good mate (interests,
income, etc.), and go about finding such signals in other people's profiles.
The match % is also such a signal. However,

1\. People lie, or at least exaggerate the truth/selectively filter

2\. They might not lie but simply be wrong: they think they want x but
actually want y

3\. The match % is a completely made up algorithm. I mean, it kind of makes
sense that people who agree on things they care the most about would make good
couples, but unless you measure this in a scientific way (i.e., controlled
experiments), you have no idea.

4\. Even assuming that you can actually get a good signal from the profile, it
is drowned out by the noise. Suppose that some girl and dude are perfect for
each other. What are the chances that he will find her profile and that she
will read his message?

The solution to 1-3 is to measure the thing you want to optimize, instead of
optimizing based on intuition. The solution to 4 is to set people using the
thing that you measured. So, after each blind date, you ask the participants,
"would you go on a date with this person again?" Imagine being okcupid and
being able to say, here is a person I think you'd be interested in dating, and
I can say with 95% confidence that you will have a good time. If they can get
to that stage, they'd be able to make good money.

There are some issues with this, of course. You could argue that the thing
they should measure is whether the date leads to a happy long-term
relationship, but that's pretty much infeasible for various reasons. Also, as
a dating website, they'd be perversely incentivized to keep you single
forever. Anyway, I am super interested to see how this does.

~~~
cwb71
> So, after each blind date, you ask the participants, "would you go on a date
> with this person again?"

Does anyone know if Crazy Blind Date actually does this?

One of the great mysteries of OkCupid to me is that they do not attempt to
collect this information. There is no "I met this person" button which then
asks how it went and whether the match represented themselves accurately.

It seems like this would be an extremely valuable data point. There must be
some reason that the feature doesn't exist, but I don't see what it is...

~~~
saryant
They might just do some sort of mining on the messages. I imagine it'd be
simple enough to pick out conversations setting up a meeting and then just
measure if the messages continue after that or not.

~~~
jhenkens
That would give a lot of false negatives, and most likely false positives as
well. I presume a lot of first dates, if they are successful, include exchange
of an external mode of communication, killing the use of OKCupid messaging
between these two people.

~~~
saryant
True, I hadn't thought about that. (Haven't ever gotten to that point on
OKCupid...)

------
ameister14
Personally, I think Grouper's model is more likely to be successful.

They take a group of three friends and pair them up on a blind group date with
another group of three friends. The safety in numbers aspect is, I think, a
smart addition.

~~~
ndonnellan
Issues I have with Grouper (having not gone on any "groupers" yet):

* You must have 2 single friends in the vicinity willing to join you in paying $20 apiece for a single drink on relatively short notice

* The photos they showcase on the site make it look like, as a friend put it, "a six-way sexcapade"

As a startup founder who recently moved to a smaller town, I have vanishingly
few friends who are both single, male and fun enough to tag a long to
something like that.

~~~
bfung
And from anecdotal evidence, I've heard of single people bringing non-single
friends (from both male and female sides) on Grouper. Those aren't so fun when
the match-ups don't go in your own favor.

------
codva
I met my wife via a blind date set up by a friend. No dating algorithm would
have ever put us together. However, I think people do get too wrapped up in
superficial likes / dislikes as a filtering mechanism, when it's been my
experience that those on the surface things really have little correlation
with you who might end up with long term. So "forcing" people to get to know
each other by actually meeting might have some value here.

~~~
rhizome
_However, I think people do get too wrapped up in superficial likes / dislikes
as a filtering mechanism_

And the nature of dating sites is to foreground this method of "analyzing"
potential dates, which I think has to be a huge weakness in the whole model.
This is to say, it's the only thing people can do on these sites.

------
untog
Interesting, because in some ways it's the opposite of OK Cupid. As multiple
(brilliant: <http://blog.okcupid.com/>) blog posts attest, people do judge
each other heavily on looks and their stated interests.

I assume the app is still using OKC data, and just hiding it. I'm not sure
that I would trust the OKC algorithm enough to rely on it, and the question is
ever-present in my mind- if you're already on OK Cupid, why use Blind Date?
Either you think it'll be a laugh (the best option, probably) or you haven't
been at all successful at getting a date on the main site. Perhaps there is a
reason for that.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"or you haven't been at all successful at getting a date on the main site"_

Which is to say, most of the userbase. Most people, of both genders, have
trouble getting dates online - pretty much anyone not in the top quartile of
attractiveness for their orientation, weighted by race, height, looks, etc.

Getting a lot of messages != getting a lot of dates. Most of OKC, as it is
with most dating sites, is copypasta spam. When there is no flow limit, it's
individually optimal to spam as many people as possible, so that's what
happens. People in the top quartile get their pick of the litter - everyone
else gets either no messages, or an inbox full of "sup gurl".

We've sort of kind of gotten past the stigma of online dating. We haven't
really gotten past the stigma of _failing at_ online dating. I mean think
about it, how pathetic is that? You flunked dating in real life and now you
can't even do well on a computer.

We also know, as you pointed out, that people are highly judgmental online.
I'd amend your comment and say that you've massively understated the level and
scale of this judgment. Almost _all_ messages are instigated based on looks
alone, damn what you wrote in your profile. OKC's insistence on collecting
your whole life story and having you answer hundreds of questions may help
their matching algorithm, but it doesn't help you - as it gives opposing users
irrational reasons to reject you "he doesn't like seafood? dealbreaker!"

People are fucking _nuts_ when online dating. They are more judgmental, more
racist, more classist than they are in real life, and at every step of the way
they will use all of the above to sabotage themselves from finding someone
they might actually get along with.

Blind date - properly implemented - will IMO achieve _much_ better results for
most of the dating population, but selling people on it is really the tough
part. Online daters want absolute control and information, even if they will
use this information to sabotage their own chances.

[edit] I also happen to think that OKCupid users would get much better results
if there was a substantial rate-limit on messaging. But once again, selling it
to the userbase is the tough part. People want utter freedom on your system,
and any restriction - even ones that will help them - is seen as draconian.

~~~
untog
_People are fucking nuts when online dating._

I don't disagree, but I think that people are nuts when dating, online or off.
I'd argue that it isn't optimal to spam as many people as possible with 'sup'-
most (female) profiles on the site say "don't message me just saying 'sup' or
'you are hot'" for exactly that reason.

I think online dating allows people to be slightly more obvious about judging
people the way that they always do.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"I'd argue that it isn't optimal to spam as many people as possible with
> 'sup'-'_

Oh, it most certainly isn't. It's individually optimal to send as many people
as many carefully worded, personalized, charming messages as possible.

Of course, this isn't actually possible, so people will fall back to either
carefully-worded but identical copypasta messages. Or, "sup".

The behavior of people in online dating fascinates me (and I work in the field
nowadays too, so I guess that sort of makes sense). It's incredible the
lengths people will go to to sabotage themselves in the pursuit of success.

> _"but I think that people are nuts when dating, online or off"_

You're right, but we're arguing over degrees. People are pretty nutty when
dealing with strangers, particularly in a sexual/romantic context, but this is
magnified _many_ fold when online. Small biases in real life become _massive_
online. Someone who might have a back-of-the-mind thought "oh, he's short" IRL
will make it a dealbreaker. Someone who might have a back-of-the-mind "oh,
he's black" IRL will make _that_ a dealbreaker also. People's preferences
become polarized to the point where, IMO, it's actively harming their
experience.

I think that's the polite way of saying that people innermost biases are in
full play online, where they are (consciously or subconsciously) tempered IRL.
People are, by a remarkable degree, more racist, more classist, and more
judgmental than they behave in real life, to a degree they're not even fully
aware of. A more cynical person might say that's a truer expression of the
self, but I don't think it's that simplistic. In many ways the traditional
online dating setup _magnifies_ biases and makes mountains out of mole hills,
and in that way works against the interests of the user.

OKCupid doesn't really help matters. They have statistical information on what
signals actually matter in attraction and success of a relationship, but they
will give you orders of magnitude more (irrelevant) signals on top of all of
that. Blind dating may not work out, but I do think that "blinder" dating is
necessary for online to work.

------
durpleDrank
A word of caution about OK cupid. The emails they send out for your QUIVER
MATCHES actually have your login credentials embedded in the URL. Meaning, if
you right click, copy link address, and send the url to your friend, THEY ARE
NOW LOGGED INTO YOUR ACCOUNT.

I learned the hardway, I pasted one of these links into an 80+ chat room full
of 4chan rejects on IRC.

~~~
Leon
Login credentials or an authentication token? It's pretty standard to use an
auth token in situations such as emails to protected content, considering that
users profiles are blocked to non-members. To allow you to do a follow through
from an email link it is necessary to introduce a way to automatically log
yourself in through a click. You'll see the same email behavior from most
websites you have an account for and you've allowed to send you emails. The
trust chain that this is generally considered OK is that the email has gone
through a two way verification for that account you've signed up for, so a
uniquely generated auth token emailed is akin to a forget password at that
point.

The security failure was mostly on your part, but also on the sites for not
conveying a notice that email links that automatically authenticate you are in
emails.

Sharing any directly copied link information from an email to a set of
anonymous users, especially as unreputable as you have stated, is unadvised.

~~~
ios84dev
Assuming they haven't updated it since I was there, its an auth token that
expires after a specific amount of time (I want to say 2 weeks but its been a
long time)

------
davidjgraph
I predict - men will think it a good idea, women won't - idea will tank.

~~~
kzahel
I agree with this assessment. Also, I am a man, and I think it's a bad idea,
too. The whole point of online dating was to be able to judge beforehand how
awkward the situation would be. It's very hard to duck out in the first few
minutes ("Sorry, I'm not remotely attracted to you, but I'm sure you're a
lovely person")

~~~
jhenkens
I think it'd be quite easy actually. You have no mutual friends, and you are
both going into it with the exact same feeling. If either person is
disinterested, it should be expressed immediately, as both parties are better
off.

~~~
Firehed
That works with a pair of highly-logical people, but for anyone else it would
seem extremely offputting and awkward. Even when I go out of my way to not
bullshit people, "sorry but I'm just not feeling this" without at least a
reasonable conversation first (even just half an hour) would be tough.

Having said that, I still signed up. What do I have to lose - an hour on HN,
and three bucks on coffee? If it's awkward it's awkward; everyone could do
with getting better at handling awkward situations.

------
huherto
After reading some of the comments. What do you think about this approach?

1) Woman sets up the date. Place and time.

2) The system sends an invitation to several men until it gets 3-5 positive
responses.

3) The woman chooses one of the candidates.

The advantages for the woman is that she controls the terms of the date. She
doesn't have to sort thru tons of messages.

The advantages for the man, is that you don't have to spend a lot of time
sending invitations to many women. Invitations that are basically ignored

~~~
bti
Sounds like an online version of the TV dating game shows. Would this only
apply to the heterosexual crowd?

~~~
huherto
I don't know how it would work for non-heterosexuals. But I guess they don't
have the same problems than heterosexuals.

From what I have seen, online dating sucks for men because it is very hard to
get noticed. It sucks for women because they get too many choices.

------
sudonim
Looks like it's not quite live. Nothing happens upon clicking "Get Crazy".

~~~
prmr
There appears to be a missing closing </style> towards the end of the page
which means the scripts after aren't being loaded.

------
jiggy2011
Hmm, not too hopeful about this.

The idea of a "blind date" is scary enough when it's been set up by someone
you trust.

I could certainly see creepy or slightly unhinged types making use of this and
it getting a lot of bad press very fast amongst women.

I can also see it being popular amongst certain classes of gay and bisexual
men who will try and use it to hook up with straight guys.

~~~
wickedbass
Wow, I don't know how I'd react if I was led on by some gay guy and thought I
was meeting a woman... Not because I'm homophobic but because I know that
these types of people exist. When I was in college I used craigslist one
drunken night and something similar happened and it creeped me out hardcore...

~~~
jiggy2011
Oh, it happens.

The worst story was a friend of mine who travelled over an hour on the premise
of having a threesome with a swinging couple who he had met on a "casual
dating" website.

He was given a home address but when he turned up he found a typical messy
bachelor pad and a middle aged man waiting. He was told that the wife wouldn't
be turning up for a while but to "make himself comfortable". Naturally he got
the hell out of there.

It was a few years later before he actually told me the story, after I had
finished laughing I asked why he had believed the guy. Turns out the guy had
been copying photos from amateur porn sites and sending those as his "wife".

Naturally it should be pointed out that I'm sure the majority of gay people do
not behave in such a way.

~~~
ikarous
"Naturally it should be pointed out that I'm sure the majority of gay people
do not behave in such a way."

They most assuredly do not. I am a gay engineer. I've never known anyone so
blatantly deceptive, but if any of my acquaintances even thought about doing
something like that, I would give them a dressing down that would make a drill
sergeant cry.

Gay people are like any population sample. 95% of them are normal, decent
human beings; 5% are wackos.

------
tomjen3
And those who use this will no doubt be the ones who can't get a date on the
regular site (like, hm, me).

Which means your potential pool is limited to those who can't get a date in
real life (which may be because they have just moved, are atheists in South
Texas, etc) and who can't get a date on the site.

So I doubt this will be effective, but hey it is a nice try.

------
terhechte
Probably takes only a couple of hours until someone publishes an app on Github
to take a screenshot and descramble the user pictures.

~~~
jbrukh
<http://decrazifier.appspot.com>. You can check out the source here:
<http://github.com/jbrukh/decrazifier>. :)

------
stevenp
The concept is interesting, although OkCupid actually launched this service in
2007 and it never really caught on. I'm guessing that they're betting mobile
will change things significantly.

What I really don't understand is why the design is so bad. OkCupid has always
looked reasonably impressive (at least in my opinion), and this new site feels
flat and amateurish. The mobile apps don't look good either.

It almost feels like they've fallen for the new "me-too" trend of
exceptionally flat design, inspired by Metro, but the execution here is just
not good. The typography is particularly bad. Maybe it's just me, but I think
it could really use some additional polish.

~~~
Firehed
Seems like they're trying to keep an extremely casual image, although perhaps
they went a bit too far. I did find myself basically squinting at things.

What I'm really confused about is the mechanics. Does someone have to select
me, or is this some algorithmic match-up? It gives the impression that a
computer will say "hey, you both said Thursday night and look reasonably
compatible, you two kids have fun" but then also gives you the option to
browse and select dates as well.

------
greghinch
I actually used CBD in it's first iteration briefly several years ago. I only
went on one date but it actually ended up being one of the best internet
dating experiences I've ever had. Didn't work out in the long run with the
girl, but we did date for a little while. The idea of actually creating a
"profile" for dating I think ends up resulting in a good amount of disparity
between the curated persona you offer to the digital world and who you really
are, no matter what you do.

Wish these guys the best of luck with it. And if you are curious about the
service, recommend giving it a shot!

------
nickpersico
As someone who is extremely indecisive and laid back on little decisions like
"where do you want to eat" or "what do you want to do today", I love this
idea.

Just pick for me, and I'll go do it. It's fun!

------
ebbv
Based on my experience with OKC I am doubtful this will be successful. I went
on a lot of first dates w/girls from OKC and most of the time ones that were
supposedly 90% matches were the worst dates.

I met my girlfriend on there too, and we were only supposedly 70% matches
according to OKC but she's my perfect partner.

In other words, the algorithm is kinda off. At least in my case.

------
mikikian
Or an alternative could be a blind date game show if an in person meeting with
a stranger is a bit much. We just launched a dating game show that solves many
of the shortfalls of online dating. HN thread
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5060477> (disclaimer, co-founder)

------
alexfringes
There is a value in social services "smoothing out the details" for a user.
Naturally, this step requires the user to feel comfortable about entrusting
those decisions to an app and it remains to be seen if people want to do this
with dates.

The horror stories (which are always smirkingly relayed - nothing tragic) I
hear from girls about OKC messages don't exactly give me confidence in this
part of the company's hypothesis. I would be happy to be proven wrong,
however. In the end, even ChatRouelette attracted a wide variety of people
(for a very short time). Maybe there is an opportunity to use a Chat
Roulette/Airtime interaction as the precursor to a (not-so-blind) date.

~~~
monksy
The horror stories aren't exactly a raw result of what happened. Many of the
stories may be inflated or have biases that you don't know about.

So many of the profiles on OkCupid are: 1\. Fake [a girl is testing the waters
to see whos on there, or it could be a guy seeing his competition] 2\. The
girl is using it to boost her self esteem [lots of messages about guys
complementing her are going on] Also, online dating [in her mind] may be
"below" her. 3\. Theres a low noise to signal rate. Guys learn very quickly
that girls are very selective, and sometimes random about the messages they
reply to. [There are a few possiblities for this] 4\. Also there are girls who
troll OkCupid. [They have no interest in dating or they're wayyyy over
protective (practically requiring a background check before meeting in a very
public place)]

So when you hear "stories" you have to be a little bit weary of the
storyteller. [Even if you believe that the story teller is honest and good.]

~~~
mediacrisis
You would be surprised. As a female who occasionally uses OKC to meet people,
I've had the joy of being offered a price. Straight up.

And yes, it was too low.

When you see "replies selectively", go for it. We're not the trolls. We're the
eyerollers waiting for an actual conversation starter.

~~~
monksy
My style is that I want to start a conversation rather than trying to be
extremely direct. [From my experience starting direct is a horrible idea] When
I see "replies selectively" the first thing that comes to my mind is that
you're picking messages randomly.

EDIT: Even when being indirect on the first message you're still put in the
same categories as all the other guys, its a random chance at best... screw
that.

If I'm not mistaken, good on you for having a sense of humour. The girls I've
met on OKC haven't had such of a thing. A lot of them mention they have a
sense of humor in their profile, but completely lack it in the message.

~~~
mediacrisis
Honestly it depends. Personally, I don't engage with people who want children
because thats just an inevitable nail in the coffin. Everyone has their own
red flags, there's no science to it really.

I only get roughly 1 response for every 7 messages I send, so clearly I'm not
the only picky one, and its not just the ladies holding out ;)

~~~
monksy
Thats cool that you're sending out messages! Rock on. I find it horrendously
amusing when seeing divorced women with kids on OKC. Typically they have a
strong statement about "YOU BEST BE A MAN AND BE ABLE TO TAKE CARE OF MY KID!"
Thats a huge red flag.

~~~
mediacrisis
My favorites are the "mens rights activists" who completely shit on women,
complain about how "nice" they are, wear ill fitting fedoras, and then wonder
why no one responds :)

There have to be normal people on OKC somewhere, right? ...right?

~~~
monksy
You sound like you'd have some interesting stories.

I think the the MRAs are well meaning, but they have a very odd execution.
Shame that Fedoras has given hats on mean a bad name.

I want to believe there are normal people on OKC... I want to but when it
comes to recreating the profile I keep just giving up.

------
VikingCoder
Prediction:

Good evening. In tragic news today, a woman was killed by her "Crazy Blind
Date."

~~~
cwb71
If that happens, their choice of names sure is going to seem regrettable.

------
ElissaShevinsky
Tested CrazyBlindDate last night. Recognized a friend from okcupid labs
(despite the surrealist facial shuffling) and clicked to set up a date. It
gave me two options to meet him at Philz in SF - 3:14am or 3:44am. So clearly
there are still some bugs to work out. That said, the mobile app for CBD feels
much more modern than anything I've seen okc release recently.

------
drharris
My prediction: burner phones or Google Voice leads to some very bad scenarios.
Stick with blind dates from friends.

------
kylelibra
I always enjoy the blog posts they do analyzing big chunks of data. Hopefully
they will do one regarding this.

------
RyanZAG
There must be something off about the Android version. I've never seen that
high a proportion of 1-star ratings.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.okcupid.cb...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.okcupid.cbd)

~~~
ConstantineXVI
Our now-dead app got absolutely slaughtered in the ratings (IMHO rightly)
simply over our use of Facebook auth. Took forever for our ratings to rebound
to this[0]

[0] <http://monosnap.com/image/ULCknIobEcO6KarrfxwmHdHJC>

~~~
RyanZAG
Makes sense, I would probably rate an app 1-star also if I had to use Facebook
auth to use it - as I don't even have a Facebook account. I've noticed apps
that require a Google login seem to do fine on Android though, probably
because you need to have a Google account to use Android (or close to).

Did you re-launch the app under a new name to get new ratings after removing
Facebook auth? Seems like the sensible thing to do...

I put up a small visual traceroute app up on Google Play recently -
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rc.vtrace2> \- and it was
selling decently (7 sales within the first few hours), but then someone put a
2 star rating and, of course, nobody has touched it since. It's pretty
interesting how much impact the first few reviews actually have on an app.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
I lost that argument; we ended up killing the app entirely (and the company
itself eventually went south)

------
thirtyseven
This is great if you have a smartphone and only want to date people that have
smartphones.

------
engtech
I'd actually trust the OK Cupid guys to do an interesting take on this.

Their blog has been a fantastic source of interesting articles of the things
they have discovered with their unique dataset.

<http://blog.okcupid.com/>

~~~
jessriedel
Well, it was certainly interesting, but it was only about a dozen blog posts
and it stopped in April 2011.

------
gkoberger
Technically, this is a relaunch: it used to exist a few years ago. I'd assume
the relaunch is an answer to Grouper?

------
stevoski
And...it doesn't accept my Australian mobile phone number, nor does it accept
my Spanish mobile phone number. :(

------
eyeareque
I think they mean re-launch, because this is something they had done a long
time ago. With the same name even.

------
zopticity
I threw a wish in the well, Don't ask me, I'll never tell I looked to you as
it fell, And now you're in my way

I'd trade my soul for a wish, Pennies and dimes for a kiss I wasn't looking
for this, But now you're in my way

Your stare was holdin', Ripped jeans, skin was showin' Hot night, wind was
blowin' Where you think you're going, baby?

Hey, I just met you, And this is crazy, But here's my number, So call me,
maybe?

~~~
codva
That is one of the first songs I learned on my new ukulele. Only 3 chords in
the whole tune!

------
auston
A friend of mine actually started something like this, it's called
meetcute.org

------
creativityland
I'm surprised no one mentioned coffeemeetsbagel.com yet.

------
prsutherland
Launches? I used it in Boston ~4-5 years ago.

