Huntcha

Huntcha, a new social dating feature, requires you to sign up using Facebook and to list up to 9 persons you would like to date. If one of them also likes you, a pop up window appears and both of those persons can communicate.

"Huntcha is confidential. No one will know what you're doing on Huntcha, your profile and candidates list is private information. Huntcha works through Facebook, because it's the best way to prevent identity theft. First, create a list with the people you like. You can modify your list as many times as you want, but with a maximum of 9 people. If someone on your list also adds you on theirs, it's a match! Huntcha will inform just the two of you that you like each other. Once a match is made, a message window will be available for you to make contact."

Huntcha claims 20,000 users, but Alexa does not register traffic.


The owners had invested 50 Million Chilean Pesos -CLP- (almost USD 95,374) to launch that application in several languages. I do not know how they are going to earn money.

Remember what I had been saying since several years ago:
Social networking/applications could merge with online dating for fun, for flirting, for entertainment purposes, for instant gratification.
Social networking and online dating for serious daters are like water and oil, they will never mix.
Online Dating for serious daters does not need to be more social, it needs to be more effective/efficient. It needs to reduce the false positives problem.

More at "Facebook users average 4.74 degrees of separation"

The TWIN Recommender System

From the 3rd International Workshop on Search and Mining User-generated Contents (SMUC 2011) there is an interesting paper

"A Comparative Evaluation of Personality Estimation Algorithms for the TWIN Recommender System"

".. the TWIN (Tell me What I Need) Personality-based Recommender System that analyzes the textual content of the reviews and estimates the personality of the user according to the Big Five model to suggest the reviews written by “twin-minded” people."
"We make an assumption that people having similar personality types would prefer to choose the same hotels as their twin-minded peer travellers. As significant correlations were found between words that people use and specific personality characteristics of the authors (here we consider the Big Five personality model) there is a possibility of creating a personality based user profile that estimates personality traits of the particular individual from the text written by him."
"In this paper we compare the performance of 4 algorithms for estimating the author's personality from the text, using a dataset of user-generated reviews crawled from the TripAdvisor"

WEAK POINTS:
* the authors estimate personality of users analyzing written text from users using M5’ regression tree algorithm (It has DISTORTION)
"the occurrence of the particular words in the particular text reflects the personality of the author."
* the formula applied to calculate similarity, K-Means algorithm
* in some cases, it is value similarity and not personality similarity the key to create bonds, like
Value similarity is the missing link in explaining the musical bonding phenomenon [and not personality similarity], which seems to hold for Western and non-Western samples and in experimental and natural settings. (punch to Behavioural Recommenders.)

---------------------

Personality Based Recommender Systems are the next generation of recommender systems because they perform FAR better than Behavioural ones (past actions and pattern of personal preferences)
That is the only way to improve recommender systems, to include the personality traits of their users.
Have you seen they need to calculate personality similarity between users?
Have you seen there are different formulas to calculate similarity?
In case you did not notice, recommender systems are morphing to .......... compatibility matching engines!!!
They mostly use the Big5 to assess personality and the Pearson correlation coefficient to calculate similarity.

LIFEPROJECT METHOD is also suitable for personality based recommender systems because it uses the 16PF5 normative personality test, available in different languages to assess personality of members, or a proprietary test with exactly the same traits of the 16PF5. The ensemble of the 16PF5 is: 10E16, big number as All World Population is nearly 7.0 * 10E9 (estimated OCT 2011)
and
calculates similarity between persons with a quantized pattern comparison method (part of pattern recognition by cross-correlation). It takes into account the score and the trend to score of any pattern.

LIFEPROJECT METHOD is like the Teller Ulam design for recommender systems and the Online Dating Industry.

Entrepreneurship and Personality Traits

Several Academics had investigated the relationship between Entrepreneurship and Personality Traits.

Some papers:
The Entrepreneur's General Personality Traits and Technological Developments.
Which Big-Five personality traits drive entrepreneurial failure in highly innovative industries?
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TRAITS: A BEHAVIORAL GENETICS PERSPECTIVE
Entrepreneurial tendencies of aspiring human resources in India: a multivariate analysis

and the Founder Institute has conducted a battery of proprietary personality and aptitude tests on over 3,000 applicants worldwide, and then carefully tracked the progress of (their) nearly 1,000 enrolled founders and 350 graduates. "The research shows that an older age is actually a better predictor of entrepreneurial success, and that three other traits also correlate strongly to success: strong fluid intelligence, high openness, and moderate agreeableness."


but the Big 5 to assess personality is good for orientative purposes and not good enough for predictive purposes.
"Because the Big Five groups the more specific primary-level factors, feedback organized around the five Global Factor scales is more easily understood. For detailed feedback or predictive purposes, one should assess the more specific primary factors. Research has shown that more specific factors like the primary scales of the 16PF Questionnaire predict actual behavior better than the Big 5 Global Factors. For example, one extravert (a bold, fearless, high-energy type) may differ considerably from another (a sweet, warm, sensitive type), depending on the extraversion-related primary scale score patterns, so deeper analysis is typically warranted." Extracted from the 16PF5 Manual

paper using the 16PF
Creativity among entrepreneurship students: comparing engineering and business education

-----------------------------------
Moreover prospective entrepreneurs score different from prospective managers / businessmen / businesswomen.
Prospective entrepreneurs mostly score VERY LOW in some specific variables I and M and VERY HIGH in E, Q1 and Q2, like this 16PF5 personality pattern
A:5.B:8.C:7.E:10.F:3.G:8.H:8.I:2.L:7.M:2.N:5.O:5.Q1:10.Q2:9.Q3:5.Q4:4"

Power Balance Bracelets lawsuit

Power Balance, the company that allegedly duped athletes into believing its bracelets could provide super-human strength, is about to take a USD57 Million hit in a lawsuit filed by people who called BS on the product.

The same could happen to the Online Dating Industry
Match: Fake Profiles Lawsuit
eHarmony; claims of scientifically proven
MatchMatrix claims of energetic compatibility
and many more!
because the entire Online Dating Industry for serious daters in 1st World Countries is a HOAX, performing as a Big Online Casino, with low successful rates.
The Online Dating Industry is selling elixirs, tonics, snake oil liniments and other patent medicine and performing like the Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Industry before the USA Food and Drug Administration was created where any player can make any claim without any credentials.

The writer and journalist Lori Gottlieb (March 2006) noted about the growing number of Internet dating sites that are using the science of attraction to match singles: "their efforts mark the early days of a social experiment of unprecedented proportions, involving millions of couples and possibly extending over the course of generations"

Are the online daters victims of human experimentation ?

Stupid Investors Series: Today SmartDate

As predicted by me, SmartDate is game over.
Stupid Investors had lost over Euros 5.5 million.
Congrats to them.

The founder had said in march 2010. "online dating needs to embrace the Facebook phenomenon"

Social networks are for meeting the people you know in advance, not for meeting new people or make new friends.

Next series of Stupid Investors will include:
HowAboutWe (over USD 18 million), which is like MeetUp during 2004
Zoosk (over USD 40.5 million).
Zin.gl
Badoo which is 95% men and 5% women

Remember other Stupid Investors had lost in
Be2 over Euros 15 million
Engage over USD 5 million
Thread
Triangulate
Gelato
Parship

Facebook users average 4.74 degrees of separation

Interesting article about Facebook, it only shows social networks are for meeting the people you know in advance, not for meeting new people or make new friends.


The Anatomy of the Facebook Social Graph
"... we characterize the assortativity patterns present in the graph by studying the basic
demographic and network properties of users. We observe clear degree assortativity and characterize the extent to which ‘your friends have more friends than you’."

Four Degrees of Separation


Remember what I had been saying since several years ago:
Social networking/applications could merge with online dating for fun, for flirting, for entertainment purposes, for instant gratification.
Social networking and online dating for serious daters are like water and oil, they will never mix.
Online Dating for serious daters does not need to be more social, it needs to be more effective/efficient. It needs to reduce the false positives problem.

Read also:
You and your friends have very similar minds / FACEBOOK

Personality Distribution Curves using the NORMATIVE 16PF5

Many of you had studied the normal (or Gaussian) distribution; a continuous probability distribution that has a bell-shaped probability density function.

Other well known distributions are discrete probability distribution.

But, which is the compatibility distribution curve using the NORMATIVE 16PF5 personality test for any given person?
Nobody had published that information for public or Academic scrutiny yet, because
Worldwide, there are over 5,000 -five thousand- online dating sites
 but no one is using the 16PF5 to assess personality of its members!
 but no one calculates similarity with a quantized pattern comparison method!
 but no one can show Compatibility Distribution Curves to each and every of its members!
 but no one is scientifically proven!

My bet, an AVERAGE compatibility (personality similarity) distribution curve using the 16PF5 test is a curve that resembles the SHAPE of the normal distribution;

but EACH compatibility (personality similarity) distribution curve using the 16PF5 test for ANY given person is not necessarily a curve like the normal distribution.

for men and women, normal_persons* over 26 years old.
*normal_persons: persons with 23 pairs of chromosomes and any psycho-patologies.

If you are a dater please do not renew your eHarmony's subscription or Chemistry's subscription yet. eHarmony's team plans to launch a completely new site in few weeks, before February 2012, using a copycat of the 16PF5 to assess personality, instead of the Big5. NEW SITE AND NEW MATCHING ALGORITHM because they are alerted that Match's Team is testing a new compatibility matching algorithm using the 16PF5 test, to replace Chemistry, a 6+ years old and obsolete site based on an IPSATIVE personality model, which also has a low success rate and high level of false positives.
I will be posting screenshots and insightful comments soon, comparing both proposals and check if they can break the "online dating sound barrier" or not.

I had challenged both eHarmony and Match to show those Compatibility Distribution Curves for each and every dater, i.e. how compatible you are with the rest of the daters.

stupid investors, they will loose USD 15 million

HowAboutWe promotes "Go on dates with people who like what you like"
but If man A likes playing cards and woman B also likes playing cards, that does not mean man A likes woman B, or woman B can like man A with the same intensity or interest.

HowAboutWe is a dating feature, any big online dating site can copy that.

My bet: HowAboutWe will peak and decay like Zoosk during 2010, in the same road as WooMe, 12Like, LittleHint, Zin.gl, SmartDate, Ge.la.to (then rebranded to Twnty) , Triangulate, Engage (then rebranded to Ignighter group dating) and Thread, even like Chatroulette.


Remember:
Social networking/applications could merge with online dating for fun, for flirting, for entertainment purposes, for instant gratification.
Social networking and online dating for serious daters are like water and oil, they will never mix.
Online Dating for serious daters does not need to be more social, it needs to be more effective/efficient. It needs to reduce the false positives problem.
The Online Dating Industry needs innovations but they will come from only one source: the latest discoveries in theories of romantic relationships development with commitment.
Compatibility is all about a high level on personality* similarity* between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment.
*personality measured with a normative test.
*similarity: there are different ways to calculate similarity, it depends on how mathematically is defined.

eHarmony Labs & OkCupid Labs

eHarmony Labs:
The new eHarmony's CEO had ordered eHarmony's Team to develop a new high precision compatibility matching algorithm by strict personality similarity using the NORMATIVE 16PF5 or similar test and launch it in a new site before February 2012.

OkCupid Labs:
Match's Team is testing a new compatibility matching algorithm using the 16PF5 test, to replace Chemistry, a 6+ years old and obsolete site based on an IPSATIVE personality model, which also has a low success rate and high level of false positives.

I had challenged eHarmony and Match to offer Compatibility Distribution Curves for each and every dater, i.e. how compatible you are with the rest of the daters.

Big summary about matching algorithms

Big summary about matching algorithms for the Online Dating Industry.

The Online Dating Industry needs innovations but they will come from only one source: the latest discoveries in theories of romantic relationships development with commitment.
I) Several studies showing contraceptive pills users make different mate choices, on average, compared to non-users.
II) People often report partner preferences that are not compatible with their choices in real life.(FORGET Behavioural recommender systems or other system that learns your preferences)
III) Compatibility is all about a high level on personality* similarity* between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment.
*personality measured with a normative test.
*similarity: there are different ways to calculate similarity, it depends on how mathematically is defined.

Matching algorithms do not need to be complex or sophisticated, they need to be effective.

When you evaluate a matching algorithm for the Online Dating Industry, you FIRST need to estimate its resources consumption, the power calculation it requires.

In compatibility matching methods there are 2 steps:
1) to objectively measure personality traits or other human variables (with the 16PF5 test) without distortion.
2) to calculate compatibility between prospective mates

IPSATIVE personality tests are OBSOLETE (self-descriptive questionnaires) and should be discarded: MBTI (PerfectMatch), DISC (ThomasKnowsPeople), Enneagram (Dopasowani) or other proprietary ipsative tests like the ones used at Chemistry, ButterfliesAgain, Doskonalapara, PembePanjur, LittleHint, oneGoodLove and others.

NORMATIVE personality tests like Big5 versions used at PlentyOfFish, eHarmony, Meetic Affinity, Parship, Be2, True are good for orientative purposes but not good enough for predictive purposes.

eHarmony, True, PerfectMatch, MeeticAffinity, Parship, Be2, PlentyOfFish, Chemistry and others are in the range of 3 to 4 persons compatible per 1,000 persons screened. Any member of those sites receives on average 3 to 4 prospective mates as compatible for dating purposes per 1,000 (one thousand) members screened in the database. So in a 10,000,000 persons database, any member will see 30,000 to 40,000 members as highly compatible; 30,000 persons is the population of an average small city. Any person can achieve 3 to 4 persons as highly compatible per 1,000 persons screened, searching by his/her own or by mutual filtering methods!

eHarmony, True, PerfectMatch, MeeticAffinity, Parship, Be2, PlentyOfFish, Chemistry and others have a low effectiveness/efficiency level of their matching algorithms.
The Online Dating Industry does not need a 10% improvement, a 50% improvement or a 100% improvement. It does need "a 100 times better improvement"

LIFEPROJECT METHOD is in the range of 3 persons compatible per 100,000 persons screened, 100 times better than any other.

"Because the Big Five groups the more specific primary-level factors, feedback organized around the five Global Factor scales is more easily understood. For detailed feedback or predictive purposes, one should assess the more specific primary factors. Research has shown that more specific factors like the primary scales of the 16PF Questionnaire predict actual behavior better than the Big 5 Global Factors. For example, one extravert (a bold, fearless, high-energy type) may differ considerably from another (a sweet, warm, sensitive type), depending on the extraversion-related primary scale score patterns, so deeper analysis is typically warranted." Extracted from the 16PF5 Manual

Normative tests can not simply be translated, because you need the norm for that test, and that norm is actualized each and every time Census Figures are released

The 16PF5 test is available in
- English for the United States and the Norm for the United States (sample of individuals with the same demographic characteristics of the United States).
- English for Canada and the Norm for Canada (sample of individuals with the same demographic characteristics of Canada)
- English for the United Kingdom and the Norm for the United Kingdom (sample of individuals with the same demographic characteristics of the United Kingdom).
- English for Australia and the Norm for Australia (sample of individuals with the same demographic characteristics of Australia).
- French for France and the Norm for France.
- German for Germany and the Norm for Germany.
- Spanish for Spain and the Norm for Spain.
- Italian for Italy and the Norm for Italy.
and many more "With over 60 years of research and application behind it, the 16PF5 has become internationally well known and respected, with over 20 different translated versions."

The output of the 16PF5 test are 16 variables STens (Standard Tens) taking integer values from 1 to 10. STens divide the score scale into ten units.
STens have the advantage that they enable results to be thought of in terms of bands of scores, rather than absolute raw scores. These bands are narrow enough to distinguish statistically significant differences between candidates, but wide enough not to over emphasize minor differences between candidates.

Similarity is a word that has different meanings for different persons or companies, it exactly depends on how mathematically is defined. I calculate similarity in personality patterns with (a proprietary) pattern recognition by correlation method. It takes into account the score and the trend to score of any pattern.

LIFEPROJECT METHOD is like the "Teller Ulam design" for the Online Dating Industry.
In this case 100 times more powerful than actual matching algorithms.

Breaking "the online dating sound barrier" is to achieve at least:
3 most compatible persons in a 100,000 persons database.
12 most compatible persons in a 1,000,000 persons database.
48 most compatible persons in a 10,000,000 persons database.
100 times better than Compatibility Matching Algorithms used by actual online dating sites!

The only way to achieve that is:
- using the 16PF5 normative personality test, available in different languages to assess personality of members, or a proprietary test with exactly the same traits of the 16PF5. The ensemble of the 16PF5 is: 10E16, big number as All World Population is nearly 7.0 * 10E9 (estimated OCT 2011)
- expressing compatibility with eight decimals, like The pattern 6.7.6.8.9.6.7.7.8.7.2.5.8.7.3.4 is 92.55033557%  +/- 0.00000001% similar to the pattern 7.7.6.8.8.7.6.5.8.7.4.5.7.7.3.4
Using a quantized pattern comparison method (part of pattern recognition by cross-correlation) to calculate similarity between prospective mates.

That is the only way to revolutionize the Online Dating Industry.

All other proposals are .............. NOISE

See How LIFEPROJECT METHOD calculates similarity between quantized patterns using an adapted quantum mechanics math equation. All other methods are RUBBISH, because the ensemble of the 16PF5 is: 10E16, big number as All World Population is nearly 7.0 * 10E9 (estimated OCT 2011)

(7.0 * 10E9) / 10E16 == 7.0 * 10E(-7) or 0.7 * 10E(-6) or 0.7 micro part!

All World Population is less than 0.7 micro part of the 16PF5's ensemble.

e.g.the 16PF5 Brazilian version, in Portuguese for Brazil and the Norm for Brazil (sample of individuals with the same demographic characteristics of Brazil).

Brazil population is in the range of 190 million persons, 190 * 10E6 == 1.9 * 10E8.
demographic characteristics of Brazil 47.73% White, 43.13% Brown (Multiracial), 7.61% Black, 1.09% Asian, 0.43% Amerindian
(1.9 * 10E8)/ 10E16 == 1.9 * 10E(-8) or 0.019 * 10E(-6) or 0.019 micro part!

Brazil population is 0.019 micro part of the 16PF5's ensemble. You can not use simple regression equations to calculate similarity between quantized patterns because:
* women will "see" men as all the same.
* men will "see" women as all the same.

Do you want to know how to solve than problem?

More plague of rubbish recommender systems

More plague of rubbish recommender systems, useless at all for online dating purposes because:
The Online Dating Industry needs innovations but they will come from only one source: the latest discoveries in theories of romantic relationships development with commitment.
I) Several studies showing contraceptive pills users make different mate choices, on average, compared to non-users.
II) People often report partner preferences that are not compatible with their choices in real life.(FORGET Behavioural recommender systems or other system that learns your preferences)
III) Compatibility is all about a high level on personality* similarity* between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment.
*personality measured with a normative test.
*similarity: there are different ways to calculate similarity, it depends on how mathematically is defined.


"Measuring Profile Distance in Online Social Networks"
".... We present a method for comparing user profiles, by measuring the distance between the profiles in metric space"

See How LIFEPROJECT METHOD calculates similarity between quantized patterns using an adapted quantum mechanics math equation. All other methods are RUBBISH, because the ensemble of the 16PF5 is: 10E16, big number as All World Population is nearly 7.0 * 10E9 (estimated OCT 2011)

(7.0 * 10E9) / 10E16 == 7.0 * 10E(-7) or 0.7 * 10E(-6) or 0.7 micro part!

All World Population is less than 0.7 micro part of the 16PF5's ensemble.

other rubbish paper for the online dating industry:
"A Hybrid Content-Collaborative Reciprocal Recommender for Online Dating"
"We present a new recommender system for online dating. Using a large dataset from a major online dating website, we first show that similar people, as defined by a set of personal attributes, like and dislike similar people and are liked and disliked by similar people. This analysis provides the foundation for our reciprocal content-collaborative recommender approach. The content-based part uses selected user profile features and similarity measure to generate a set of similar users. The collaborative filtering part uses the interactions of the similar users, including the people they like/dislike and are liked/disliked by, to produce reciprocal recommendations....."

is the evolution of "CCR - A Content-Collaborative Reciprocal Recommender for Online Dating"

pre paid cards or virtual charge

Several times I had suggested to Online Dating Companies wanting to enter (or already in) the Latin American Market (Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, Peru) to offer pre paid cards as the primary option of payment.

Latin Americans do mostly not have credit cards. The ones who have credit cards, do mostly not use them for subscriptions to avoid automatic rebilling and identity theft. More than 70% of people who own a cell phone, are pre-paid clients. They do not receive bills, they charge credit in their cell phones by 2 methods: Acquiring pre-paid cards at kiosks/drugstores or via virtual charge at kiosks/drugstores/supermarkets or at any place with a PosNet terminal (Banelco or Link)

Badoo offers to pay using SMS via your cell phone, but there were (several) complaints about up to 8 hours of delay from when you send the SMS and your profile is set in top visibility.

Thanks to the readers of this blog.

Thanks to the readers of this blog.

UltraMatch feature at PlentyOfFish (POF)

A little birdie told me UltraMatch feature at PlentyOfFish (POF) will be discontinued due to high resources consumption and nearly nobody had paid for that feature.

ONLINE DATING INDUSTRY summary 2011

Lack Of Innovation & Decadence can summarize the Online Dating Industry 2011, the same as 2010.

Since 2003 I had reviewed more than 55 compatibility matching engines and I can say: The entire Online Dating Industry for serious daters in 1st World Countries is a HOAX, performing as a Big Online Casino, with a low effectiveness/efficiency level of their matching algorithms (less than 10%), and new proposals are not better than the old ones.

WorldWide, there are over 5,000 -five thousand- online dating sites
 but no one is using the 16PF5 to assess personality of its members!
 but no one calculates similarity with a quantized pattern comparison method!
 but no one can show Compatibility Distribution Curves to each and every of its members!
 but no one is scientifically proven!

PerfectMatch, Duet Total Compatibility System. eHarmony / . MyType from RSVP (it was a copycat of eHarmony in Australia). "MyType - Discover Your Personality Type". Chemistry. "eChemistry - the science of attraction". eSynchrony. OurTime. Match Affinity, Meetic Affinity, Dating Direct Affinity (Ulteem), PartnerDE. OkCupid. Be2. Parship / eCift in Turkey. The PlentyOfFish Chemistry Predictor. The PlentyOfFish Marriage Predictor. eVow's compatibility matching method. 12Like. LittleHint. datingDNA. Zoosk Scientific Matching Service/System. True. LovePlanetRU. ScientificMatch. Basisnote. GenePartner. RewardingLove. ButterfliesAgain. IntelligentElite. Brainiac Dating. IQ Gorgeous. DoskonalaPara. Nomoredates. ThomasKnowsPeople. MatchMatrix. Moonit. VisualDNA. FriendScout24 BQ check. Clicck. HowAboutWe. Zin.gl WriteMatch. ASoundMatch. Soul2Match. FindYourFaceMate. "FaceReader from Profiler1: Personality Traits analysis based on facial features." Are We Good Together? Opposites Connect. "Yangutu, the science-based online dating site". Energy Profiling. TeAmoRU. PembePanjur. Dopasowani. BrainDesire. all of them are like patent medicine.

No actual online dating site offering a compatibility matching method has a credible peer reviewed Scientifc Paper by Academics (public scrutiny of findings) from different Universities showing its matching algorithm can match prospective partners who will have more stable and satisfying relationships with low divorce rates than couples matched by chance, astrological destiny, personal preferences, searching on one's own, or other technique as the control group.

The writer and journalist Lori Gottlieb (March 2006) noted about the growing number of Internet dating sites that are using the science of attraction to match singles: "their efforts mark the early days of a social experiment of unprecedented proportions, involving millions of couples and possibly extending over the course of generations"

The 3 milestone discoveries of the 2001 - 2010 decade.
Only 3 major discoveries can help to revolutionize the online dating industry.
Major online dating sites can not ignore them any more, or they will die instead.
I) Several studies showing contraceptive pills users make different mate choices, on average, compared to non-users.
II) People often report partner preferences that are not compatible with their choices in real life. (FORGET Behavioural recommender systems or other system that learns your preferences)

III) The strict personality similarity axis. Latest Research in Theories of Romantic Relationships Development shows: compatibility is all about a high level on personality* similarity* between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment.
*personality measured with a normative test.
*similarity: there are different ways to calculate similarity, it depends on how mathematically is defined.
Also Personality Based Recommender Systems are the next generation of recommender systems because they perform FAR better than Behavioural ones (past actions and pattern of personal preferences)
That is the only way to improve recommender systems, to include the personality traits of their users and they need to calculate personality similarity between them.

"Match, OkCupid, eHarmony and most other sites aren't very effective at finding dates. And Match is fine with that. They are working of global scalable infrastructure upgrades and acquiring competitors. They are in the Online Dating Industry for the money, matching systems aren't a top priority since they can churn through thousands of people at USD20/month and the singles keep coming back again and again."

The Online Dating Industry needs Innovations, but the innovations the Online Dating Industry needs will come from only one source: the latest discoveries in theories of romantic relationships development with commitment.

It is Spring now in South America, and some birdies had come to my window and told me:
The new eHarmony's CEO had ordered eHarmony's Team to develop a new high precision compatibility matching algorithm by strict personality similarity using the NORMATIVE 16PF5 or similar test and launch it in a new site before February 2012. Match's Team is testing a new compatibility matching algorithm using the 16PF5 test, to replace Chemistry, a 6+ years old and obsolete site based on an IPSATIVE personality model, which also has a low success rate and high level of false positives.

I had challenged eHarmony and Match to offer Compatibility Distribution Curves for each and every dater, i.e. how compatible you are with the rest of the daters.

BrainDesire

"BrainDesire is the only online test that gives a scientific clue about someone’s potential to become THE one."
"BrainDesire is a scientific tool that measures how intensely a particular person left a mark on your brain, and to what extent that person activates your brain areas involving desire and love, if at all. This gives a clue about the potential of a relationship. BrainDesire stems from scientific research in brain science. .......   ....  protected by patents internationally."
"The fundamental mechanisms of BrainDesire have been benchmarked with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalograms (EEG). " [They had researched using fMRI studies to critically identify the cortical networks associated with passionate love, and to compare and contrast it with other types of love (such as maternal love and unconditional love for persons with intellectual disabilities).]

Some research cited:
Neuroimaging of love: fMRI meta-analysis evidence toward new perspectives in sexual medicine.
Is Long-Term Love More Than A Rare Phenomenon? If So, What Are Its Correlates?

Interesting to compare with Chemistry (by Dr. Helen Fisher)
A 56-item temperament measure, the Fisher-Rich-Island Neurochemical Questionnaire (FRI-NQ) was used to assess compatibility between participants.

Please remember personality = temperament + character
Latest Research in Theories of Romantic Relationships Development shows: compatibility is all about a high level on personality* similarity** between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment.
*Although no actual fresh paper uses the 16PF normative personality test (they mostly use different versions of the normative Big5 personality test instead) and linear or logistic multivariate regression equations to calculate similarity, they clearly show a connection between personality similarity and marital happiness / dyadic success (stability and satisfaction) for some persons.
**Similarity is a word that has different meanings for different persons or companies, it exactly depends on how mathematically is defined.

Also there is a similarity trilogy between genetic, mate choice and personality based recommender systems.

The only way to break "the online dating sound barrier" and revolutionize the Online Dating Industry is:
- using the 16PF5 normative personality test, available in different languages to assess personality of members, or a proprietary test with exactly the same traits of the 16PF5. The ensemble of the 16PF5 is: 10E16, big number as All World Population is nearly 7.0 * 10E9 (estimated OCT 2011)
- expressing compatibility with eight decimals, like The pattern 6.7.6.8.9.6.7.7.8.7.2.5.8.7.3.4 is 92.55033557%  +/- 0.00000001% similar to the pattern 7.7.6.8.8.7.6.5.8.7.4.5.7.7.3.4
Using a quantized pattern comparison method (part of pattern recognition by cross-correlation) to calculate similarity between prospective mates.


All other proposals are .............. NOISE

2 tips for matching algorithms

1) Matching algorithms do not need to be complex or sophisticated, they need to be effective.
2) When you evaluate a matching algorithm for the Online Dating Industry, you FIRST need to estimate its resources consumption, the power calculation it requires.

LIFEPROJECT METHOD is quite simple, fully written in less than 10 A4 pages.
But it is so powerful!

ALGORITHMS & POWER CALCULATION

The new eHarmony's CEO had ordered eHarmony's Team to develop a new high precision compatibility matching algorithm by strict personality similarity using the NORMATIVE 16PF5 or similar test and launch it in a new site before February 2012. They plan to imitate what I had invented over 10 years ago.

Several online dating sites are NOW (year 2011) offering compatibility matching engines based on the Big5 to assess personality of members, like the fremium PlentyOfFish Chemistry Predictor and eHarmony's algorithm is 11+ years old and obsolete. [success rate of less than 10%, high rate of false positives that irritates clients]

eHarmony's biggest competitor  is IAC Personals: Match; who also owns Chemistry, OkCupid, SinglesNet, People Media's Communities and had recently completed the acquisition of Meetic Group which includes Meetic, Meetic Affinity and ParPerfeito in Brazil.

Match's Team is testing a new compatibility matching algorithm using the 16PF5 test, to replace Chemistry, a 6+ years old and obsolete site based on an IPSATIVE personality model, which also has a low success rate and high level of false positives.

When you evaluate a matching algorithm for the Online Dating Industry, you FIRST need to estimate its resources consumption, the power calculation it requires.

Both eHarmony and Match will need to acquire a Cray, Fujitsu or Hitachi supercomputer OR over a 1,000 high speed servers arrangement due to the high volume of floating point operations you need to calculate similarity between quantized patterns using the 16PF5 test. (In this case compatibility is equal to similarity)

In the "first run" you not only need to calculate similarity between each and every women compared to men, but also men to men similarity to avoid women seeing men as all the same, and women to women similarity to avoid men seeing women as all the same.

How to estimate power calculation:
For N clients, needs [N * (N-1)] / 2 nearly equal to (N * N) /2 comparisons.
For a 100,000 daters database; 50,000 men and 50,000 women you need  5,000,000,000 of matricial comparisons.
For 1,000,000 clients needs over  500,000,000,000 of matricial comparisons.

For a 1,000,000 persons Database.
Number of Comparisons == (1,000,000)raisedto2 / 2 == 500,000,000,000 each one to calculate similarity between persons.
If the supercomputer (or high speed server arrangement) calculates similarity between quantized patterns as fast as 1,000,000 per second, it will require 500,000 seconds, nearly 139 hours!!! and that is only for the "first run"

I had challenged eHarmony and Match to offer Compatibility Distribution Curves for each and every dater, i.e. how compatible you are with the rest of the daters.

Breaking "the online dating sound barrier" is to achieve at least:
3 most compatible persons in a 100,000 persons database.
12 most compatible persons in a 1,000,000 persons database.
48 most compatible persons in a 10,000,000 persons database.
100 times better than Compatibility Matching Algorithms used by actual online dating sites!

The only way to achieve that is:
- using the 16PF5 normative personality test, available in different languages to assess personality of members, or a proprietary test with exactly the same traits of the 16PF5. The ensemble of the 16PF5 is: 10E16, big number as All World Population is nearly 7.0 * 10E9 (estimated OCT 2011)
- expressing compatibility with eight decimals, like The pattern 6.7.6.8.9.6.7.7.8.7.2.5.8.7.3.4 is 92.55033557%  +/- 0.00000001% similar to the pattern 7.7.6.8.8.7.6.5.8.7.4.5.7.7.3.4
Using a quantized pattern comparison method (part of pattern recognition by cross-correlation) to calculate similarity between prospective mates.

That is the only way to revolutionize the Online Dating Industry.

All other proposals are .............. NOISE

You can also read the article: Teller Ulam design and LIFEPROJECT METHOD.