Showing posts with label dating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dating. Show all posts

Friday, September 30, 2022

Dating and (or versus) the search for lasting relationships

 Two related  stories caught my eye this week. One lamented the difficulty of making a meaningful match through online dating, and thought about what is lost from the older (but less mobile) tradition of matchmaking by family, friends, and even professional matchmakers. The other concerns a newish internet tool that is meant to help people introspect about what is important to them, and match accordingly.

Here's the first, from a NYT opinion piece:

Dating Is Broken. Going Retro Could Fix It. By Michal Leibowitz

"There are elements of traditional dating culture that can provide solutions not just to the way we find people to date but also to the way we navigate relationships. Through conversations with traditional and secular daters, I’ve come to see three practices as particularly promising for people who are looking for committed, long-term relationships: meeting partners through friends, family or matchmakers rather than online; early, upfront communication around long-term goals and values; and delaying sexual intimacy.

"It’s worth asking: Is it time to court again?"

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And here's an article from the Stanford Daily, about the continuing evolution of the Marriage Pact, which began as a very popular once-a-year matching event at Stanford, spread to other campuses, and is now seeking a place in the set of modern relationship tools:

Marriage Pact secures $5 million in seed funding. By Matthew Turk

"Marriage Pact, a research-based matchmaking company founded at Stanford, received $5 million in seed funding from Bain Capital Ventures and other investors. The money could scale the platform considerably, potentially leading to a larger user base and new relationship technology.

...

The Marriage Pact releases an annual survey for college students with around 50 questions designed to capture their personal convictions and life philosophy. Marriage Pact’s software then algorithmically pairs respondents to maximize their compatibility. 

...

"The Marriage Pact survey and matchmaking “will always be free” but paid additions to the existing services are in development, McGregor wrote to The Daily. “Ultimately, we’re building a transformative startup in social tech. We’ll get there by designing further experiences that create so much value in your life that they’re worth paying for,” he wrote.

"Until 2018, the software behind the matching optimization was based on the deferred-acceptance algorithm. Now, the algorithm is proprietary"

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Related earlier post:

Friday, August 9, 2019

Thursday, December 23, 2021

College as a Marriage Market, by Lars Kirkebøen, Edwin Leuven, Magne Mogstad

Here's a recent working paper about college and marriage in Norway:

College as a Marriage Market, by Lars Kirkebøen, Edwin Leuven, Magne Mogstad

Abstract: Recent descriptive work suggests the type of college education (field or institution) is an important but neglected pathway through which individuals sort into homogeneous marriages. These descriptive studies raise the question of why college graduates are so likely to marry someone within their own institution or field of study. One possible explanation is that individuals match on traits correlated with the choice of education, such as innate ability, tastes or family environment. Another possible explanation is that the choice of college education causally impacts whether and whom one marries, either because of search frictions or preferences for spousal education. The goal of this paper is to sort out these explanations and, by doing so, examine the role of colleges as marriage markets. Using data from Norway to address key identification and measurement challenges, we find that colleges are local marriage markets, mattering greatly for whom one marries, not because of the pre-determined traits of the admitted students but as a direct result of attending a particular institution at a given time.


 Here's a summary from the Becker-Friedman Institute:

College as a Marriage Market, by Larn Kirkebøen, Edwin Leuven, Magne Mogstad

"The context of the authors’ study is Norway’s postsecondary education system. The centralized admission process and the rich nationwide data allow them to observe not only people’s choice of college education (institution and field) and workplace, but also if and who they marry (or cohabit with), and to credibly study effects of college enrollment. The authors find the following:

"The type of postsecondary education is empirically important in explaining whom but not whether one marries. 

"Enrolling in a particular institution makes it much more likely to marry someone from that institution. These effects are especially large if individuals overlapped in college, are sizable even for those who studied a different field and are not driven by geography.

"Enrolling in a particular field increases the chances of marrying someone within the field but only insofar as the individuals attended the same institution. Enrolling in a field makes it no more likely to marry someone from other institutions with the same field. 

The effects of enrollment on educational homogamy (or marriage between people from similar backgrounds) and assortativity vary systematically across fields and institutions, and tend to larger in more selective and higher paying fields and institutions. 

Only a small part of the effect of enrollment on educational homogamy can be attributed to matches within the same workplace.

Lastly, the effects on the probability of marrying someone within their institution and field vary systematically with cohort-to-cohort variation in sex ratios within institutions and fields. This finding is at odds with the assumption in canonical matching models of large and frictionless marriage markets.

Taken together, these findings suggests that colleges are effectively local marriage markets, mattering greatly for the whom one marries, not because of the pre-determined traits of the students that are admitted but as a direct result of attending a particular institution at a given time."

Monday, December 20, 2021

Better LAT than never: Living Apart Together for older romantic relations

 Marriage is not the only way that people can romantically partner, and of course young people are the pioneers in many new forms of household formation.  But here are two news stories that say Living Together Apart (LAT) relationships are growing among older and often previously married couples.

The NY Times has a story focusing on older couples:

Older Singles Have Found a New Way to Partner Up: Living Apart. Fearing that a romantic attachment in later life will lead to full-time caregiving, many couples are choosing commitment without sharing a home. By Francine Russo

"With greater longevity, the doubling of the divorce rate since the 1990s for people over 50 and evolving social norms, older people like Ms. Randall are increasingly re-partnering in various forms. Cohabitation, for example, is more often replacing remarriage following divorce or widowhood, said Susan L. Brown, a sociologist at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

...

"As researchers study those who do partner, however, they find that increasing numbers are choosing a kind of relationship known as LAT (rhymes with cat), for “living apart together.” These are long-term committed romantic relationships without sharing (or intending to share) a home.

"“A big attraction of LAT is to avoid the potential responsibility of being a full-time caregiver,” said Ingrid Arnet Connidis, an emerita sociology professor at Western University in London, Ontario. “Women cared for their children, parents and spouse, and want to avoid getting into these traditional gender roles.”

"While researchers have not yet delved deeply into the demographics of those in LAT relationships, anecdotally it seems to be more prevalent among those at high enough socioeconomic levels to be able to maintain separate households. In general, there is evidence that wealthier people who are single later in life are more likely to re-partner."

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The WSJ has a story focusing on new couples in the midst of raising kids:

The Secret to These Successful Marriages? Living Apart. The number of married couples who live apart is small but growing. Here’s how they say the arrangement helps their families and their relationships   By Clare Ansberry

"Many couples who live apart have been married before and don’t want to uproot their children from homes, schools and friends, or can’t because of joint-custody arrangements.

...

"The number of married people living apart, which includes military couples, is still small but rose 4.8% in the last decade to 3.6 million, according to figures from the Census Bureau."

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Dating and Search: who should propose? by Yash Kanoria and Daniela Saban

 Dating sites are often congested, with many of them having more men than women. Here's an analysis suggesting that there are efficiency gains to having the short side of the market (in this case the women) do most of the search, by requiring them to initiate contact...

Facilitating the Search for Partners on Matching Platforms by Yash Kanoria , Daniela Saban, Management Science, Published Online:19 May 2021 https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2020.3794

Abstract: Two-sided matching platforms can control and optimize over many aspects of the search for partners. To understand how matching platforms should be designed, we introduce a dynamic two-sided search model with strategic agents who must bear a cost to discover their value for each potential partner and can do so nonsimultaneously. We characterize evolutionarily stable stationary equilibria and find that, in many settings, the platform can mitigate wasted search effort by imposing suitable restrictions on agents. In unbalanced markets, the platform should force the short side of the market to initiate contact with potential partners, by disallowing the long side from doing so. This allows the agents on the long side to exercise more choice in equilibrium. When agents are vertically differentiated, the platform can significantly improve welfare even in the limit of vanishing screening costs by forcing the shorter side of the market to propose and by hiding information about the quality of potential partners. Furthermore, a Pareto improvement in welfare is possible in this limit.

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Earlier:

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Monday, November 30, 2020

Philippe Steiner on matching and romance, and transplants

 The French economic sociologist Philippe Steiner, who studies (among other things) how markets and gift giving can coexist, has a short piece about dating platforms.

Plateformes d’appariement, rencontres amoureuses et mondes marchands ("Matching platforms, romantic encounters and trading worlds") by Philippe Steiner, Dans Revue Française de Socio-Économie 2020/2 (n° 25), pages 161 à 166

Via google translate:

"Two elements can serve to close this brief reflection on the meeting of economic sociology and the sociology of sexuality.

"The appearance of a commercial intermediary modifies the social conditions of the romantic encounter. However, is it of a commercial nature? The use of the term matrimonial market, in which it is a question of "making a choice, maximizing your options and using calculation techniques in terms of costs and profits, and efficiency" [Illouz, 2006, p. 252], might lead one to believe. This interpretation is doubtful: if the market implies the idea of ​​choice, the converse is not true. The market relationship is characterized by monetary power, that is, the ability to obtain the desired good by paying more - it is not for nothing that auction technology is often taken as the example of the market. Also, once the relationship connecting individuals to the platform has brought together two potential partners, it is not the ability to pay that will make the match between them."

...

"Finally, the matching technologies that are at work in the platforms are not necessarily associated with the market world [Steiner, 2016, chap. 7]. Matching platforms using deferred acceptance or optimal trading cycle technologies can serve as well to reproduce the market functioning as to enable non-market matches. Alvin Roth's economic engineering applies to the labor market (pairing of medical interns and hospitals) as well as to organ transplantation, in which the commercial relationship is banned by national laws as well as by international declarations of professionals."

****************

The following interview may also be of interest to readers of this blog:

“Organic” Gift-Giving and Organ Transplantation, the Development of Economic Sociology and Morality in a Super-Monetized World: An Interview with Philippe Steiner Journal of Economic Sociology, 2014, vol. 15, issue 1, 11-19

 "when I studied the issue of organ transplantation, in full agreement with Healy’s approach, the organizational setting appeared to be very, very important. Accordingly, organ donation is a gift that individual actors provide to organizational actors. And then, with this gift, the organization conducts an extensive and very important process to ensure that the kidney does not convey illness, AIDS, cancer. In addition, the degree of compatibility between the organ and the body is checked. And they do this very rapidly. Then, they allocate the gift to a new individual actor. However, the important thing, in my opinion, is that between the first individual actor and the second one there is a large organization. More precisely, a plurality of organizations. This is something that I refer to in my present book as  organizational gift-giving”. To parallel the Durkheimian distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity, I would call this “organic” gift-giving and thus draw a distinction between the usual story about people in Melanesia who give gifts according to Malinowski and Mauss. 

...

" I am trying to map gift-giving, inheritance, and the exchange of symbolic goods, which are at the frontiers of usual market exchanges, to provide a broad view of what exchange at large means in our present society. Considering market exchange as a limited element of all the transactions in the world is my way to escape this super-monetized world.

...

"Social forces are pushing in the direction of a fullblown market society, whereas others are resisting and devoting their energy to maintaining a frontier between market exchanges and other forms of exchange. In that sense, political issues remain central, as in Polanyi’s time. To return to my research on organ transplantation, I would like to stress that the last chapter of the book concerns what is usually referred to as transplant tourism — is it good to have transplant tourism? Should it be fully legalized? Is the creation of a biomarket in India for Americans suffering from final-stage kidney failure a good thing? You must say yes or no. You cannot escape a political decision. And my answer was “Definitely, no biomarkets”. However, of course, this is not an easy position because as you know there are individuals who are dying because of the lack of kidneys. Therefore, this (response) is uncertain, difficult. However, in the end, not giving an answer is a boon to those pushing for the commodification of body parts. So, finally, I decided to stay on the Maussian–Polanyian side — “limit the market.”

Monday, November 16, 2020

OK Cupid on trends in dating

 The datng site OK Cupid regularly surveys its users, and have just published a summary of recent results:

The Future of Dating--OkCupid Data Predicts 8 Dating Trends Singles Can Expect from 2021

Perhaps the most predictable of the 8 trends they note is this one:

"More than 2 million people answered our question “Do you prefer that your date shares your political views?” with 64% of respondents agreeing: cross-party dating does not work in modern relationships. In 2021, we’re going to see more people are refusing to date outside party lines. Around the world, 5 million daters answered our question “Could you date someone who has strong political opinions that are the exact opposite of yours?”, and there’s been an upward trend in people refusing to date across party lines. In 2019, 53% of respondents said they couldn’t date someone whose political views were the opposite of theirs — and that ratio jumped to 60% in 2020."


Saturday, July 25, 2020

Speed dating, and matchmaking via Zoom, in Japan

The Washington Post has the story:

Lockdowns make the heart grow fonder in Japan as online matchmaking surges
By Simon Denyer and Akiko Kashiwagi   July 12, 2020

"Online matchmaking in Japan has become a rare upbeat counterpoint to the economic slowdowns, shutdowns and restrictions during the covid-19 crisis.

"Matchmaking agencies say the video encounters have proved to be a hit, removing the pressures of arranged face-to-face sessions in a society that often discourages being bold and open in first meetings.
...
"LMO and other companies tend to start with a group meeting conducted over Zoom: An emcee makes everyone comfortable, helps them introduce themselves and asks them a few questions to spark conversation. How have you been being spending your time at home? How do you imagine married life to be? What are your dreams? Then participants pair off into breakout rooms and spend several minutes chatting to each prospective partner in turn."

Friday, February 28, 2020

Regretting the dating market, in the Atlantic

In the Atlantic, the authors regret that marriages are no longer made in heaven, but are becoming a market...

The ‘Dating Market’ Is Getting Worse
The old but newly popular notion that one’s love life can be analyzed like an economy is flawed—and it’s ruining romance. by ASHLEY FETTERS and KAITLYN TIFFANY

Many people are quoted, most briefly and to the effect that the marriage market is a new and bad phenomenon.

"The application of the supply-and-demand concept, Weigel said, may have come into the picture in the late 19th century, when American cities were exploding in population. “There were probably, like, five people your age in [your hometown],” she told me. “Then you move to the city because you need to make more money and help support your family, and you’d see hundreds of people every day.” When there are bigger numbers of potential partners in play, she said, it’s much more likely that people will begin to think about dating in terms of probabilities and odds."

I seem to have been the only one who didn't have a negative quote about markets (in an interview that if I recall correctly took place on Valentine's day):

"The Stanford economist Alvin Roth has argued that Tinder is, like the New York Stock Exchange, a “thick” market where lots of people are trying to complete transactions, and that the main problem with dating apps is simply congestion. To him, the idea of a dating market is not new at all. “Have you ever read any of the novels of Jane Austen?” he asked. “Pride and Prejudice is a very market-oriented novel. Balls were the internet of the day. You went and showed yourself off.”

Friday, February 14, 2020

Once-a-year dating match services for college students

Valentine's Day is a good day to take note of dating services that operate only once a year, particularly since one of them, Datamatch, operates on a Valentine's Day schedule.  It started at Harvard, and has now spread to other universities.  Here's a story from the Harvard Crimson:

Datamatch Sends Love to Thirteen Schools   By Michelle G. Kurilla
"Datamatch, a free matchmaking service run by the Harvard Computer Society, is now available to students at 13 schools.

Program organizers expanded Datamatch's reach from last year, when the service was available at four colleges and universities. HCS, which launched the program in 1994 exclusively for Harvard College students, also offered Datamatch to students at Brown University, Columbia University, and Wellesley College in 2018.
...
"This Valentine’s Day, Datamatch will share the love on thirteen other campuses, in addition to Harvard: Boston College, Brown University, Carleton College, the University of Chicago, the Claremont Colleges, Columbia University, Cornell University, MIT, Wellesley College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Washington University in St. Louis, and Yale University.
...
"Matches will be released on February 14 across the country."
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And from The Oxford Student:
The Oxford Marriage Pact Is Back!  by Oz Myerson
"The Oxford Marriage Pact is back, fuelling discussion, debate, and hope among a large proportion of Oxford students this week. In the run up to Valentine’s day, it has been easy to spot many events geared towards hopeful lovers – The Oxford Marriage Pact sits comfortably amongst RAG Blind Dates, the Freud’s Jazz society Valentine’s evening, and the recent Magdalen x St. Hilda’s take-me- out event."
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Stanford's Marriage Pact doesn't run on Valentine's day, but is becoming a campus event. Here's a recent story from the Stanford Daily:
Stanford Marriage Pact releases second annual Campus Report  
by Danielle Echeverria

"The number of participants in the Marriage Pact — which asks students about a range of topics from religion and politics to sex and spontaneity — has grown each year since its advent three years ago. In total, 91.4% of the class of 2020 has sought a match at least once. The Marriage Pact has had 8,621 unique Stanford undergraduate participants across its three years of existence.

"Beyond the matching algorithm, the Marriage Pact has generated aggregated data on how Stanford students think and what they value. For the second year in a row, the Marriage Pact team has released a Campus Report that highlights trends in the data.
...
"According to the Report, approximately two-thirds of students do not think it is important for their children to be raised with religion. Nearly half of students expect their children to attend Ivy League-tier schools and do not think it is important to make more money than their peers."

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Friday, July 19, 2019

Privacy and dating apps

As internet and app-driven dating becomes increasingly common, so has the tension between dating and privacy, i.e. between indicating to potential partners who you are and what you want, and keeping some privacy about these things in the rest of your life.  The NY Times has an article by NY Law School prof Ari Ezra Waldman that focuses on the design of dating apps with respect to privacy:

 Queer Dating Apps Are Unsafe by Design
Privacy is particularly important for L.G.B.T.Q. people. By Ari Ezra Waldman.

"Pete Buttigieg met his husband on a dating app called Hinge. And although that’s unique among presidential candidates, it’s not unique for Mr. Buttigieg’s generation — he’s 37 — or other members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.
In 2016, the Pew Research Center found that use of online dating apps among young adults had tripled in three years, and nearly six in 10 adults of all ages thought apps were a good way to meet someone. The rates are higher among queer people, many of whom turn to digital spaces when stigma, discrimination and long distances make face-to-face interaction difficult. One study reported that in 2013 more than one million gay and bisexual men logged in to a dating app every day and sent more than seven million messages and two million photos over all.
...
"But for queer people, privacy is uniquely important. Because employers in 29 states can fire workers simply for being gay or transgender, privacy with respect to our sexual orientations and gender identities protects our livelihoods. 
...
"All digital dating platforms require significant disclosure. Selfies and other personal information are the currencies on which someone decides whether to swipe right or left, or click a heart, or send a message. 
...
Hinge made a commitment to privacy by designing in automatic deletion of all communications the moment users delete their accounts. Scruff, another gay-oriented app, makes it easy to flag offending accounts within the app and claims to respond to all complaints within 24 hours. Grindr, on the other hand, ignored 100 complaints from Mr. Herrick about his harassment. If, as scholars have argued, Section 230 had a good-faith threshold, broad immunity would be granted only to those digital platforms that deserve it.
Privacy isn’t anathematic to online dating. Users want it, and they try hard to maintain it. The problem isn’t sharing intimate selfies, no matter what victim-blamers would have us believe. The problem is the law permits the development of apps that are unsafe by design."

Sunday, April 21, 2019

"Rich meet beautiful" site prosecuted in Belgium



The Guardian has the story:

'Sugar daddy' website owner charged with debauchery in Belgium
Norwegian Sigurd Vedal’s site Rich Meet Beautiful promised to help students meet rich men

"The chief executive of a pan-European “sugar daddy” dating site that targeted students with adverts outside Belgian universities last summer has appeared in court charged with debauchery.

"Norwegian Sigurd Vedal, 47, whose website Rich Meet Beautiful claimed to offer a “Fifty Shades of Grey” experience to young women, is being prosecuted following a complaint by the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
...
"After success in Scandinavia, the Norwegian company behind the website said it aimed to recruit 300,000 Belgian registrations by the end of 2018, but it was forced to end its marketing campaign after an outcry. Similar sites have emerged in the UK targeting female students. The US-based SeekingArrangement.com was found in 2015 to be offering premium membership to users with a university email address.

"Vedal appeared in Brussels criminal court on charges of debauchery, public incitement to debauchery and violating anti-sexism laws."
**********

Earlier post:

Sunday, April 12, 2009  Market for sugar daddies

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Matching story for Valentine's day--BBC

Valentine's Day sparks a demand not just for love, but also for stories about marriage as a matching market.  This year I was among those interviewed by the BBC.  Below are two links:  you can listen to the interviews, or read a summary.

First, the interviews: They go for 18 minutes, and are easy listening.  I'm interviewed third, beginning just before minute 10 and going to about minute 14.   (I didn't see a way to embed it) :

Rational Partner Choice: "Should your head trump your heart when seeking lifelong love? We ask an economist, a romantic novelist and a hyper-rationalist businessman this Valentine's Day challenge."

(There actually are 4 interviews, the fourth is with the wife of the businessman, Ed Conard: they've been happily married for 20 years.)
************

The written summary has me as the middle of three views on the subject (the headline below reflects the first of the views they considered, with marriage modeled as an optimal stopping problem).

Forget love: This is how to find your perfect partner  By Justin Rowlatt

Here's what they say about their conversation with me:

"Mr Conard's approach to choosing a wife is a well-established method for buying things like a new place to live but, says Nobel Prize winning economist Alvin Roth, spouses aren't like houses: marriage is a market without prices.
...
"He agrees that it is important to meet quite a few possible partners before you take the plunge - "don't marry the first person you meet", he warns.

"You've also got to have realistic expectations: "the first thing a matrimonial agency has to do is persuade clients they aren't a 10."

"But, he says, you can do too much calibrating and evaluating. Choosing a partner is a two-way thing: it is only when you are serious about marriage that potential partners will take you seriously.

"Part of being well matched is the history you share and this starts when you first meet", Prof Roth says, "so investing in that history improves the quality of that match."
***************
And here are my Valentine's Day blog posts to date.


Saturday, June 16, 2018

The market for fake phone numbers

I am not of an age at which I get unwelcome requests for my phone number that I can't simply decline, but if you are, Lifehacker has some suggestions of numbers you could give to creepy strangers:

Give Out These Fake Prank Numbers to Creeps

These two make it clear what is likely the demand side of this market.

  • (646) 926-6614: The Mary Sue Rejection Hotline, which will say, “Oh hello there. If you’re hearing this message, you’ve made a woman feel unsafe and/or disrespected. Please learn to take no for an answer and respect women’s emotional and physical autonomy.  

  • (605) 475-6968: The Rejection Hotline, which politely explains to the individual that whoever gave them this number is not into them.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Evolution of dating apps: OK Cupid requires mutual consent for messaging

Slate reports (last month):
OkCupid Users Have Long Had to Put Up With Unwanted Messages. That's About to Change
"OkCupid announced a big change to its messaging system in an email to users on Friday afternoon. Starting next week, the email said, “Only the people you like or have responded to will remain in your messages. Messages from people you're not interested in, or people you haven't liked yet, will be moved to their profile.”
"This shift will bring the platform more in line with other online dating platforms, such as Tinder and Bumble, on which users can’t message one another at all until both have shown interest in the other. The new OkCupid way won’t be quite so strict—users can still send messages to whomever they want, though those messages will only appear in the recipients’ mailboxes if they indicate that they like the sender—but engineers hope it will help seed more connections while filtering out some messages that will never get a response."

Sunday, December 3, 2017

Internet dating while Muslim

The Guardian has the story:
SingleMuslim.com: how the Yorkshire dating site transformed Muslim romance
It is one of the biggest dating sites in the world and after 17 years, it has has led to over 50,000 marriages.

"The UK site boasts nearly a million UK active users and the company is expanding internationally. (Traffic analysis suggests there are about 1.4m page views per month).Because it is in effect a marriage site rather than a dating site, it also claims a high rate of success. There have been 50,000 SingleMuslim.com weddings, and counting.
...
"When Younis originally set up his website, the problems came from fundamentalists. “Back in the day we used to have death threats,” he says. “All from anonymous keyboard warriors. They would be like ‘it is haram [forbidden] to display photographs of women’. People would have seen their sister on there.”

"Younis was unfazed. Now, he says, he doesn’t hear of anyone who is against what they are doing, mainly because, he believes, “everyone knows someone the site has helped”.
...
"You don’t have to spend very long on SingleMuslim.com to realise it is not Tinder. The options in creating a profile on the site require users to select their level of piety (Very religious/Somewhat religious/Prefer not to say) their sect (Shia/Sunni/Just Muslim) and appearance preferences (Hijab? Beard?).

“What we are not is this kind of swipe right, one-night stand kind of service,” Younis says. “People call it ‘halal dating’ and that’s fine. Halal means being wholesome and right in your faith.”

"About 10% of members join as a family. In those cases, traditionally the mums or the grannies use the site to do the matchmaking, Khan explains. What the company mostly promotes, though, is the opportunity to broaden that search as far as possible. The case studies on the site highlight couples who have crossed national and racial barriers to marry. “We are not SingleShia.com or SinglePakistanimuslim.com,” Younis suggests. There is an empowering impulse in this – and in the insistence that photographs must be full face. “Females who are fully covered don’t get in our galleries,” Khan says. “There is no point in having an image where you just see the eyes.”

Monday, January 23, 2017

Evolution of the online dating business

The NY Times and Consumer Reports bring us up to date on dating.  And (at the end of this long post) making dating great again in the new political environment..


Here's the NY Times:

For Online Dating Sites, a Bumpy Road to Love

"Not many people have heard of Spark Networks, but far more are familiar with what it owns: JDate, ChristianMingle and a host of other sites like SilverSingles.com and BlackSingles.com.
...
"according to Spark Networks’ 2015 filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the number of paid subscribers to its Jewish networks declined to around 65,000 last year from a little over 85,000 in 2012. Its total for all networks dropped by more than 55,000 people, to under 204,000.
This comes at a time when an increasing number of Americans are trying to find partners online. According to the Pew Research Center, 15 percent of Americans have used online dating sites or mobile apps, compared with 11 percent in 2013. Spark Network’s revenues fell nearly 22 percent from 2014 to 2015.
...
"There are about 4,500 online dating companies, according to a report by the market research company IBISWorld, but the majority are tiny. The largest player in the field is the Match Group, with 51 dating sites; over the last few years alone it acquired such high-profile companies as Tinder and Plenty of Fish.
“It’s never been cheaper to start a dating site and never been more expensive to grow one,” said Mark Brooks, a consultant for the internet dating industry who also runs Online Personals Watch. Part of the problem, he said, is that 70 percent of internet dating in the United States is now on mobile.
"Dating apps usually start by offering their services completely free to bring in new users. There are then two ways for the services to make money: advertising and turning free users into paying ones.
“It used to be 10 percent of those who registered converted to paid,” Mr. Brooks said. “Now it’s more like 2 to 3 percent.”
Advertising can be tough to get, said Tom Homer, editor of the website Dating Site Reviews, and on a mobile device it does not pay much because there is less real estate available than on regular websites.
...
"Some also see a move toward ever more niche sites like MouseMingle.com (Disney lovers) and GlutenFreeSingles.com (the name says it all). But, when you slice the pie ever thinner, “you’re also slicing your membership base,” Mr. Homer said."

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And from Consumer Reports: Online Dating: Match Me If You Can
"According to a 2015 study by the Pew Research Center, 15 percent of American adults have used online dating sites (web-based platforms like Match.com) and/or dating apps (location-based smartphone apps like Tinder).

Participation by those 18 to 24 has almost tripled since 2013, and boomer enrollment has doubled. In fact, people over 50 are one of the fastest growing segments. “It’s a product of the growing normalcy of using social media apps,” says Moira Weigel, author of “Labor of Love: The Invention of Online Dating” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2016). “Our real-life and online identities are more and more interwoven.”
...
"Our survey included many people who at some point had used a dating website or an app, as well as a subset of 9,600 respondents who used them in the past two years. The more recently active group rated specific sites.

"Our findings tell an almost contradictory story. On the one hand, the numbers indicate that these sites are helping people find mates. A whopping 44 percent of respondents who tried online dating said the experience led to a serious long-term relationship or marriage. That kind of connection rate would shatter Hall of Fame records, at least in baseball.

But the responses from the more active group suggest they’re highly frustrated. They gave online dating sites the lowest satisfaction scores Consumer Reports has ever seen for services rendered—lower even than for tech-support providers, notoriously poor performers in our ratings.
...
"Michael Norton, Ph.D., a professor at the Harvard Business School who studies consumer behavior, thinks so. Online dating is different from shopping for, say, a sweater, he explains: “Once you decide on the sweater you want, you can get it. But with dating, the sweater has to agree, too.”

Another reason for the low satisfaction scores may be that “most dating sites have some misalignment between profit model and user experience because they are financed through subscription fees or advertising,” says Scott Kominers, Ph.D., a junior fellow in economics at Harvard University. In other words, there’s no incentive for them to make the experience speedy. If you find your life partner on your first date, the site doesn’t make much money off you. Our survey found that among respondents who stopped online dating, 20 percent of men and 40 percent of women said they did so because they didn’t like the quality of their matches. Perhaps that’s why, among those who said they had used multiple dating sites, 28 percent had tried four or more.

But our research also found that online dating, however painful and time-consuming, often does produce the intended result if you use it well—and persevere.
...
“You’re generally going to be best off starting your search on the ‘Big 3’: Match.com, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish,” says Scott Valdez, founder of Virtual Dating Assistants, which helps people write their profiles and then manages their accounts. “Those are among the most popular dating sites in the world, and when you’re fishing, it just makes sense to drop your line in the most crowded ponds.”

That’s generally true unless you have a particular guiding factor, such as religion, race, or politics, in which case you can go to a niche site like JDate or BlackPeopleMeet.
..





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Finally, Could you date someone whose politics you couldn't stand? Could your political views get you a date?  Have I got the dating site for you...
https://trumpsingles.com/  making dating great again...

Monday, December 26, 2016

Matchmaking nudges and noodges in the internet age

The internet dating site JSwipe has a program called ParentPay. The website has a banner reading (subtly) "We want grandchildren."

Here's the text of the ad that made its way into my email:

"Hey Mom, Hey Dad,

Hanukkah is here! We have the perfect gift. 

We both know your kid is a catch and anyone would be lucky to date them. It's time to give your son or daughter (friend, cousin, or grandkids) the right tools for finding *Jewish* love in the digital age --- and fast track your way to grandkids.

JSwipe is the #1 Jewish dating app with nearly one million users across the world. We're responsible for hundreds of marriages and want your kids to be next! Really. That's our job.

JSwipe offers a First Class membership that provides premium features to maximize the impact of their dating experience. Better matches = better dates. While their unpaid internship is great for their career, it's not so great for helping them afford a First Class membership.

That's where you come in!

Because you're such incredible parents, we're offering you the opportunity to gift your child one-year of JSwipe First Class for $99, less than half of what it usually costs! Consider it their "love allowance." The perfect Hanukkah gift! The gift of love that keeps on giving.

Would you be happy to have a new guest at your next family holiday? We know Bubbe would. Don't Passover this opportunity! "

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JSwipe has a free mode and a paid mode, and the paid mode gives more signals (superswipes) that can be sent per day, etc.  Here's a review

Sunday, February 14, 2016

How can you tell you're an economist? Valentine's day economics

How can you tell you're an economist?  Maybe if Valentine's Day makes you think of dating sites as congested matching markets.  Here are two views from The Economist about thickness and congestion in dating markets:
Optimising romance: To find true love, it helps to understand the economic principles underpinning the search

Valentine’s day economics--Would a dating app just for economists work?

A Valentine's day salute to Gale and Shapley and the deferred acceptance algorithm

The University of California celebrates David Gale and Lloyd Shapley with an article appropriate to Valentine's Day:

How a matchmaking algorithm saved lives
Long before dating sites, a pair of economists delved into the question of matchmaking, and hit upon a formula with applications far beyond romance.

The article has Jane Austen characters in the explanation of the deferred acceptance algorithm, and pictures, including these:



They also link to this animated, interactive Berkeley mathsite exhibit on the stable marriage problem. (It is part of a larger MathSite interactive mathematics exhibit supported by the David Gale Fund for Interactive Mathematics.)
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Valentine's day reminds me of a post from a few years ago:

What has G-d been doing since the Creation? (Matchmaking, of course...))


Happy Valentine's day to all, from Philadelphia:)