Comments on: A matching problem

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 16:50:16 +0000

But deep down, is it really in the interest of these sites to work well? After all, if they do a good job then the seekers are no longer relevant customers and the sites lose their subscribers.

Same can be said about any govt program favored by either the left or the right.

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 05:20:24 +0000

This analysis implies that such dating services can both:
a) get people together
b) having gotten people together, subtly stop them falling in love.

I can think of ways to unsubtly stop people who have met from falling in love, but methods such as shooting anyone whose first date went well would rather defeat the purpose of getting return custom.

I don’t think love is as controllable as this analysis, or the websites themselves, imply. There’s always enough chance in who winds up together that I think any policy of, say, assigning people who love biking to meet up with people who love knitting would result in as many marriages as assigning people who love biking to meet with people who love kayaking.

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 04:59:16 +0000

The right way for a match-making site to maximize profit would be to diversify into other stages of life: a bridal magazine, a day care, a for-profit college, a career service, a funeral home.

By: Allan Friedman

Allan Friedman — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 19:33:52 +0000

After all, if they do a good job then the seekers are no longer relevant customers and the sites lose their subscribers.
Doesn’t this apply to a huge swath of services? If I cure your specific disease / settle your lawsuit /integrate a specific tech into your company, then part of a successful job completion is obviating your need for future services. I am with Brett that the reputation gains from a successful match are better than the return business of a single customer (exponential vs. linear growth).

Even if having 20 somethings hooked on a single service for 10 years works, think about the slightly sub-optimal, profit-maximizing match—one ends in a predictable time frame but maintains user confidence in the underlying matching system. Is this possible? What are the factors that maximize this without jeopardizing either short-term gains (less buzz) or the long-term gains (less repeat business)?

By: vivian

vivian — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 03:28:25 +0000

I go to google’s home page periodically just in case they have a special logo. With a fast connection, it doesn’t waste time to click the search button without terms (which takes you to the main page) while thinking about the precise query phrasing.

By: FXKLM

FXKLM — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 00:51:30 +0000

Soubzriquet: I know that “don’t be evil” is Google’s official policy. I get that “don’t be medieval” is a parody of that. I’m just surprised that I hadn’t heard it before since it seems so obvious in retrospect.

By: soubzriquet

soubzriquet — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 23:56:11 +0000

2: Sure, but we only have asymptotic bounds on that :)

By: soubzriquet

soubzriquet — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 23:55:26 +0000

4: `Don’t be evil’ is Googles (official) policy…

By: FXKLM

FXKLM — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 22:55:16 +0000

I got a laugh out of the Google Romance philosophy: Don’t be medieval. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard that before. It’s such an obvious parody of “don’t be evil” especially for an innovative technology company. Has that joke been around for a while and I’ve just managed to miss it?

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 19:17:18 +0000

It seems to me that the we have the same problem with dating services as we do with a company finding a cure for AIDS—and the same economic answer. While the industry as a whole would be hurt by someone finding the formula for the perfect match, developing the reputation of being the perfect match company would be fantastically lucrative for whichever company actually found it.

As far as relationships go, what is the perfect match anyway? I suspect it is something like a good complement of present personalities and present life situations. There are vast numbers of people who won’t (or perhaps can’t) maintain a good complement over long periods of time as the personalities and life situations change. These people are eligible as repeat customers on a long horizon (maybe ten years) without necessarily feeling that the service did a bad job.

By: Sean Carroll

Sean Carroll — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 17:04:46 +0000

About the threshold for blogability: mathematicians have proven pretty rigorously that the “least bloggable unit” is, in fact, zero.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:21:34 +0000

While it’s true that successful matching services probably don’t get a lot of return business, they DO get a good deal of new business by referals from happy customers. I certainly recommend the site that introduced me to my fiancee: http://www.filipinaheart.com

They seem to make most of their money by providing services like floral deliveries… It’s not like they’re charging much more their basic service!