IAC 2011 annual report

IAC 2011 annual report

At page 7:
"In February 2011, we acquired OkCupid, an advertiser-supported online personals service in the United States. During the third quarter of 2011, we increased our ownership stake in Meetic to 81% and acquired a 20% interest in Zhenai Inc., a leading provider of online matchmaking services in China. We are also the exclusive provider of subscription-based personals services on Yahoo.com."

At page 8:
"We refer to Match.com in the United States, Chemistry and PeopleMedia (through which we operate targeted dating websites) as Match's "Core" operations and to OkCupid, Singlesnet, mobile-only products and non-Meetic international operations as Match's "Developing" operations.

We primarily provide online personals services through branded websites that we own and operate, including Match.com, Chemistry.com, OurTime.com, BlackPeopleMeet.com and OkCupid.com, and through a variety of Meetic-branded websites abroad. These websites, all of which provide single adults with a private and convenient environment for meeting other single adults, primarily provide online personals services to registered members (those establishing usernames and passwords) and subscribers (those who establish a username and password and pay a subscription fee).

Competition
The personals business is very competitive and highly fragmented in the United States and abroad and barriers to entry are minimal."

At page 100, Year Ended December 31, 2011. Revenue by geography is based on where the customer is located.
United States USD 1,583,322,000 (76.88%)
All other countries USD 476,122,000 (23.12%)
Total USD 2,059,444,000

Last year I had posted about 2010 revenues
The IAC increased revenue in "All other countries" because they increased their ownership stake in Meetic to 81%. Meetic old, obsolete and rotten company.
We will see next year, because Match, Chemistry, OkCupid, Meetic, PeopleMedia, ParPerfeito will need to innovate or die.

Last year I had estimated Latam revenue for Match in USD 29 million less than ...... PlentyOfFish.
The unexploited Latin American Market remains enormous!

social dating is illusory/vaporware

Mark Brooks had written a whitepaper saying social dating as the hot trend in the Online Dating Industry.
But social dating is only a vaporware because big sites like eHarmony and Chemistry are old and obsolete, sleeping in laurels of past glories since years, more than 6 years without innovating.


Experience had shown serious daters do not tolerate friends / parents / neighbours / relatives / fans or other social networking users to be involved in a private matter as building a personal relationship with future in mind because they are "interested third parties ingredients" in a process that only concerns 2 persons. See failed proposals like SmartDate, HowAboutWe, Zoosk in decadence since months, Zingl, Engage (then rebranded to Ignighter group dating), Thread, Triangulate, Gelato (then rebranded to Twnty), WooMe, 12Like, LittleHint.

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.

The IAC to acquire eHarmony?

Heeyyyyyyyyy, a little birdie had come to my window this summer morning today in my South American home and said:

" .... last November Blatt contacted Verba in order to acquire all eharmony's properties. Blatt offered 500 million but Verba wanted 1 billion. Eharmony Japan was aborted. Verba and Blatt are now talking again.  "

Blatt is Mr. Gregory Blatt, IAC's CEO (InterActive Corporation. NASDAQ: IACI)
Verba is Mr. Jeremy Verba, eHarmony Inc.'s CEO.

Is it true: the IAC (Match, Chemistry and others) to acquire eHarmony Inc.? Who knows?

Because some days ago another old birdie had told me:
"Online dating is about selling hope, heavy consistent sex-based advertising and keeping as many of the creeps out of women's inboxes as possible. ...... eHarmony makes over $150 million a year and their ad spend is on target in terms of customer acquisition costs. ..... Match is demolishing eHarmony and everyone else and has another few acquisitions in the pipeline. .... Of course many dating sites are in it for the money and don't care about members. Every dating site is guilty of this to some degree. Its a business, not a charity. Deplorable at times, its the nature of the industry and thats never going to change."

"Shared life history strategy as a strong predictor of romantic relationship satisfaction."

"Shared life history strategy as a strong predictor of romantic relationship satisfaction." 

weak points:
* sample consisted of 428 University of Arizona undergraduate students, average age was 19.0 years (SD = 2.3), they are TOO young, they should had used a sample with persons over 26 years old.
* the authors should had controlled women of the sample taking contraceptive pills or not.
Remember: Several studies showing contraceptive pills users make different mate choices, on average, compared to non-users. "Only short-term but not long-term partner preferences tend to vary with the menstrual cycle"
* The NEO Five Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992) to assess personality and that test in an oversimplification.
(there are several ways to assess personality and several ways to calculate similarity. I had been suggesting the 16PF5 and pattern comparison by correlation since years)

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

 I had contacted the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to denounce PlentyOfFish & eVow as fraud.

Here is the copy of the email I had sent to them.

-------------------------- 

A Denounce about Canadian sites: PlentyOfFish & eVow

 From: FERNANDO ARDENGHI ardenghifer@gmail.com
Date: Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 4:31 PM
Subject: A Denounce about Canadian sites: PlentyOfFish & eVow
To: Jennifer.Stoddart@priv.gc.ca, chantal.bernier@priv.gc.ca


Dear Ms. Stoddart:
Dear Ms. Bernier:

I write to inform / alert you about a big Canadian Online Dating site called PlentyOfFish (POF) and its paid version eVow whose CEO/owner/founder Mr. Markus Frind and his wife Ms. Anne Kanciar are conducting a big human experiment as per a post written in their blog  "The PlentyOfFish's blog."
http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/eli-j-finkel-and-benjamin-r-karney-are-wrong-at-least-when-it-comes-to-pof/

There, Mr. Frind tried a rebuttal of the fresh paper "Online Dating: A Critical Analysis From the Perspective of Psychological Science" published by Dr. Eli Finkel et al.

I had contacted Mr. Frind by email and sent him screenshots showing the contradictions/inconsistencies he had written in his post like:
http://onlinedatingsoundbarrier.blogspot.com/2012/02/plentyoffish-ceo-conducting-big-human.html
"Similarity and other Psychological constructs  are not used in our matching system.   This is something a Psychologicist would do if they were responsible for making a matching system."
but at http://www.pof.com/poftest.aspx can be read
Plentyoffish Chemistry Predictor
The Plentyoffish Relationship Chemistry Predictor (POFCP) measures five broad dimensions of personality that are each essential for building a romantic relationship.
and at http://www.pof.com/faq.aspx can be read
Find out how your personality affects your love life. Take these personality tests!
then he had written
"... I created a behavioral matchmaking system that helped match people up.  ....  but it is a poor system  for predicting relationships."
but at http://www.pof.com/viewultramatches.aspx can be read
Ultra Match is our newest and most advanced matchmatching system!
POF invented the first Behavioral Matching System, and it's still the best in the online dating industry.

There are also several privacy concerns about security at PlentyOfFish (POF) explained at:
http://onlinedatingsoundbarrier.blogspot.com/2012/02/security-hole-at-plentyoffish.html


Please find also screenshots attached as proof.


Regards,

Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com

TOP 45 scientific papers for the Online Dating Industry

1. "Online Dating: A Critical Analysis From the Perspective of Psychological Science" 2012 Eli J. Finkel, Paul W. Eastwick, Benjamin R. Karney, Harry T. Reis and Susan Sprecher.
2. "Partner Preferences of the Intellectually Gifted" 2012 Pieternel Dijkstra, D. P. H. Barelds et al.
3. "Stability and change of personality across the life course: The impact of age and major life events on mean-level and rank-order stability of the Big Five." 2011 Jule Specht, Boris Egloff and Stefan C. Schmukle.
4. "Relationship Compatibility, Compatible Matches, and Compatibility Matching" 2011 Susan Sprecher.
5. "Generalization in mate choice copying in humans" 2012 Robert I. Bowers, Skyler S. Place, Peter M. Todd, Lars Penke, and Jens B. Asendorpf.
6. "Personality, Partner Similarity and Couple Satisfaction: Do Opposites Attract or Birds of a Feather Flock Together?"  2011 Adrienne Kaufman
7. "Changes in women's interpersonal styles across the menstrual cycle." 2011 Markey, P. M. and Markey, C. N.
8. "The Role Of Linguistic Properties In Online Dating Communication – A Large-Scale Study Of Contact Initiation Messages" 2011 Valentin Schöndienst and Linh Dang-Xuan
9. "Personality and meta-accuracy: A social relations model approach" 2011 Mitja Back
10. "Knowing your own mate value: Sex-specific personality effects on the accuracy of expected mate choices" 2011 Back, M. D., Penke, L., Schmukle, S. C. and Asendorpf, J. B.
    - IDS review by Kathryn Lord
11. "Online Friend Recommendation through Personality Matching and Collaborative Filtering" 2011 Li Bian and Henry Holtzman.
12. "Do Birds of a Feather Flock Together? A Differential Approach to Similarity Effects in the Association Between Personality Traits and Life Satisfaction in Intimate Relationships" 2011 Katrin Furler and Veronica Gomez.
13. "Personality similarity between self, partner and parents" 2011 D. P. H. Barelds and Pieternel Dijkstra.
14. "An assessment of positive illusions of the physical attractiveness of romantic partners" 2011 D. P. H. Barelds, Pieternel Dijkstra, Namkje Koudenburg and Viren Swami.
15. "Perceptions of Ideal and Former Partners' Personality and Similarity" 2010 Pieternel Dijkstra / D. P. H. Barelds.
    - IDS review by Dr Brenner
16. "Personality similarity, perceptual accuracy, and relationship satisfaction in dating and married couples" 2011 Mieke Decuyper, Marleen De Bolle and Filip De Fruyt.
17. "Goal Complementarity in Intimate Relationships: Is Couples' Perception of Acting in Concert Positively Related to Subjective Well-Being?" 2011 Karin Stadler and Veronica Gomez.
18. "It's that time of the month: The effects of hormonal shifts on female mate value, depressive symptomology, and short term mating orientation." 2011 Heather Adams and Victor Luévano.
19. "The Relations Between Actual and Perceived Similarity in Personality" 2011 Jessica Wortan and Dustin Wood.
20. "Similarity predicts relationship satisfaction in Brazil" 2011 Erina Lee, Gian Gonzaga.
21. "Assortative mating, convergence, and satisfaction in married couples" 2010 Gian Gonzaga, Steve Carter and J. Galen BuckWalter.
22. "Predicting relationship and life satisfaction from personality in nationally representative samples from three countries: the relative importance of actor, partner, and similarity effects." 2010 Portia Dyrenforth et al.
23. "Why Mate Choices are not as Reciprocal as we Assume: The Role of Personality, Flirting and Physical Attractiveness" 2010 Lars Penke, et al.
24. "What lies beneath: The linguistic traces of deception in online dating profiles. Journal of Communication." 2010 Toma, C. and Hancock, J.T.
25. "Genetic and environmental influences on personality trait stability and growth during the transition to adulthood: A three wave longitudinal study." 2010 Hopwood, C.J., Donnellan, M.B., Blonigen, D.M., Krueger, R.F., McGue, M., Iacono, W.G., and Burt, S.A.
26. "Is spousal similarity for personality a matter of convergence or selection?" 2010 Mikhila N. Humbad, M. Brent Donnellan, William G. Iacono et al.
27. "From Dating to Mating and Relating: Predictors of Initial and Long-Term Outcomes of Speed-Dating in a Community Sample" 2010 Lars Penke, et al.
    - IDS review by Dr Brenner
28. "The attraction–similarity model and dating couples: Projection, perceived similarity, and psychological benefits" 2010 Marian M. Morry, Mie Kito and Lindsey Ortiz.
    - IDS review by Dr Brenner
29. "Personality influences on marital satisfaction: Integrating the empirical evidence using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) model" 2009 Charania and Ickes.
30. "Does the contraceptive pill alter mate choice in humans?" 2009 Alvergne and Lummaa.
31. "Human oestrus" 2008 Gangestad and Thornhill
32. "Only the congruent survive - Personality similarities in couples. Personality and Individual Differences" 2008 Rammstedt and Schupp.
33. "Personality trait change in adulthood." 2008 Roberts, B. W. and Mroczek, D.
34. "Do People Know What They Want: A Similar or Complementary Partner?" 2008 D. P. H. Barelds and Pieternel Dijkstra.
35. "Personality Trait Similarity Between Spouses in Four Cultures" 2008 McCrae, Martin, Hrebícková, Urbánek, Boomsma et al.
36. "Love at first sight or friends first? Ties among partner personality trait similarity, relationship onset, relationship quality, and love" 2007 D. P. H. Barelds and Pieternel Dijkstra.
37. "Preferences for symmetry in faces change across the menstrual cycle." 2007 Little, A. C., Jones, B. C., Burt, D. M. and Perrett, D. I.
38. "Assortative mating for perceived facial personality traits. Personality and Individual" 2006 Little, AC, Burt, DM and Perrett, DI. 
39. "The ideal romantic partner personality" 2006 Figueredo, Sefcek and Jones.
40. "Social Structure and Personality Assortment Among Married Couples" 2006 Bekkers, van Aken and Denissen.
41. "A New Method for Dimensionality Reduction using K-Means Clustering Algorithm for High Dimensional Data Set" International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 13– No.7, January 2011
42. "Addressing the new user problem with a personality based user similarity measure" 2010 Marko Tkalcic, Matevz Kunaver, Andrej Kosir, Jurij Tasic
43. "Towards to Psychological-based Recommenders Systems: A survey on Recommender Systems" 2010 Maria Augusta Nunes
44. "Design and User Issues in Personality-based Recommender Systems" 2010 Rong Hu
45. "How Shared Preferences in Music Create Bonds Between People: Values as the Missing Link" 2011 Diana Boer, Ronald Fischer, Micha Strack, Michael H. Bond, Eva Lo, and Jason Lam

If you are a researcher and you are not cited in this list, it is because you had fallen asleep!

Do you see how 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 several studies showing contraceptive pills users make different mate choices, on average, compared to non-users and people often report partner preferences that are not compatible with their choices in real life [uncovered by Eastwick and Finkel (2008); Kurzban and Weeden (2007); Todd, Penke, Fasolo, and Lenton (2007)].

The PlentyOfFish CEO conducting a big human experiment

The PlentyOfFish CEO is conducting a big human experiment as per his post in his blog.
He had written
"Similarity and other Psychological constructs  are not used in our matching system.   This is something a Psychologicist would do if they were responsible for making a matching system."
but at http://www.pof.com/poftest.aspx can be read
Plentyoffish Chemistry Predictor
The Plentyoffish Relationship Chemistry Predictor (POFCP) measures five broad dimensions of personality that are each essential for building a romantic relationship.
We measure...
Factor 1: Self-Confidence This dimension was created to measure the extent to which an individual feel comfortable with him or herself. The items in this dimension reflect elements of self-confidence in both private and public contexts.
Factor 2: Family Orientation This dimension was developed to assess the degree to which a person possess a family orientation.
Factor 3: Self-Control This dimension measures the extent to which a person exerts control over sundry aspects of their lives and the lives of others.
Factor 4: Social Dependency/Openness This dimension measures the extent to which a person is open to and dependent upon other people.
Factor 5: Easygoingness This dimension taps into characteristics associated with being relaxed and psychologically flexible. We then generate matches for you from a statistical model based on thousands of successful couples who have taken our chemistry test. Our statistical model picks matches that we're especially confident in. We believe the resulting set of matches are users that you will most likely date and maybe marry!

and at http://www.pof.com/faq.aspx can be read
Find out how your personality affects your love life. Take these personality tests!

then he had written
"... I created a behavioral matchmaking system that helped match people up.  ....  but it is a poor system  for predicting relationships."
but at http://www.pof.com/viewultramatches.aspx can be read
Ultra Match is our newest and most advanced matchmatching system!
POF invented the first Behavioral Matching System, and it's still the best in the online dating industry.

I had contacted him by email and said:

"Marital stability / couple stability are not the same as marital satisfaction.
Commingling analysis is a statistical method for distinguishing between one (usually normal) distribution and a mixture of two or more distributions. I seriously doubt you can apply commingling analysis techniques to REAL data from REAL couples and discover if there is a hidden variable (a variable can be masked by other variable).

Why do not you publish your findings -without revealing proprietary information- in a peer reviewed Scientific Paper for public and Academic scrutiny?

Does eVow, the paid site from PlentyOfFish uses the same predictive model?

It seems you are only a charlatan with money. No more than that.

I seriously doubt your predictive model is working as effective as you claim, because:
In compatibility matching methods there are 2 steps:
1) to objectively measure personality traits or other human variables without distortion.
2) to calculate compatibility between prospective mates.

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."

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

SNAP Interactive Reports 2011 Results

Net loss for the year was USD3.5M compared to a net loss of USD1.2M for 2010.

Zonacitas infographic

59% of men and 84% of women would not date someone who has been dating before with one of their friends.

paper: Partner Preferences of the Intellectually Gifted

 Dr. Pieternel Dijkstra had been publishing outstanding papers for the Online Dating Industry, but C-Level executives had been ignoring her research since years.

At
"Perceptions of Ideal and Former Partners' Personality and Similarity"
Pieternel Dijkstra / Dick P. H. Barelds / University of Groningen, The Netherlands
she had written "our study showed that individuals did not rate similarity in personality as very important when seeking a mate. Our findings may help understand why so many relationships end in divorce due to mismatches in personality."
"The present study's results, as well as the results found in previous studies (e.g., Eastwick & Finkel, 2008), may be used to educate people, especially singles, about what really matters in long-term relationships, for instance, similarity in personality, instead of complementarity."

Dr. Pieternel Dijkstra had also published the paper "Partner Preferences of the Intellectually Gifted"
".... dissimilarities in, for instance, age, values, interests, and personality are usually mentioned as the main reason for relationship breakup (e.g., Amato & Previti, 2003). For instance, in The Netherlands, where the present study was conducted, almost 40% of the divorcees report mismatches in personalities as the major cause of their break-up (De Graaf, 2006). Based on the similarity-attraction hypothesis we therefore expected the intellectually gifted, compared with other people, to more strongly value a potential partner’s high intelligence."

The tests used by Intelligent Elite (IQElite), Brainiac Dating, IQ Gorgeous and the others DO NOT meet IRT, they are all ... rubbish because  IQ tests are ability tests, answers could be Right or Wrong, so the questions should be sorted in increasing difficulty forming a Rasch Hierarchy. Those IQ tests sould be constructed using Modern Test Theory / Item Response Theory (IRT)..

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.

A security hole at PlentyOfFish

Yesterday, as many days, I was using Google to browse profiles from PlentyOfFish, like the word you want to find in a profile + site:www.pof.com

See sample with: similarity site:www.pof.com

Now reading this article about "Online Dating Sites: Seek Love, Find Privacy Violations"

PlentyOfFish in a mess!

Funny post at PlentyOfFish's blog.
Because at
http://www.pof.com/faq_features.aspx
it says:
"PlentyOfFish's Exclusive Tests
The Chemistry Test measures five broad dimensions of your personality that are essential for building a romantic relationship."
"Ultra Match is our newest and most advanced Behavioural Matchmaking System!"
and at
http://www.pof.com/personality_faq.aspx
"The mechanics of the CP are proprietary, and its success in creating online dating partners will soon be published in an academic journal together with outcome data from actual daters. "

In a previous email I had received from PlentyOfFish's CEO, he said:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Markus Frind
Date: Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 12:02 AM
Subject: Re: PlentyOfFish Success Rate disclosed / 6% to 9%
To: FERNANDO ARDENGHI

There is a huge difference  between YEARLY numbers and  LIFETIME Numbers.  
You can't compare  yearly stats to lifetime.  
In your numbers all relationships formed before 2011  suddenly don't count?
 
The success rate is between 30 and 50% depending on region and demographic.
 
Markus.

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 7:42 PM, FERNANDO ARDENGHI wrote:

Ms. Kate Bilenki, "director of love at PlentyOfFish, the Vancouver-based dating site with more than 33 million registered users worldwide" (the site’s membership has increased 40% over the last two years), had also said "PlentyOfFish is responsible over a million relationships per year, and about 300,000 of those result in marriage"
http://onlinedatingsoundbarrier.blogspot.com/2011/09/plentyoffish-success-rate.html
    1 M relationships == 2 M persons.
    2 million / 33 million == 0.06 or 6% Success Rate
    but if it is over a million but less than 1.5 million
    less than 3 million persons / 33 million == 0.09 or 9% Success Rate
    i.e. PlentyOfFish is performing as placebo, Success Rate less than 10%.

    eHarmony reached 30 million members during 2009
    148,311 marriages and 1,130,006 non-married, monogamous relationships (ESTIMATED TO BE) started by eHarmony, between January 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009.
    2,556,634 persons / 30 million == 0.085 or 8.5% Success Rate for eHarmony.
  
-----------------------------
Several times I had debunked PlentyOfFish as a HOAX, a complete scam for its members. They are wasting precious time.
No matter which compatibility matching system in use at PlentyOfFish, I would love to see PlentyOfFish showing any kind of compatibility distribution curves for each and every dater!
http://eharmony-blog.com/2368

Online Dating: A Critical Analysis

Dr. Eli Finkel had appeared at the recent CNBC's "Love at First Byte: The Secret Science of Online Dating" documentary. He co authored the paper "Online Dating: A Critical Analysis From the Perspective of Psychological Science"

Abstract
Online dating sites frequently claim that they have fundamentally altered the dating landscape for the better. This article employs psychological science to examine
(a) whether online dating is fundamentally different from conventional offline dating
and
(b) whether online dating promotes better romantic outcomes than conventional offline dating.
The answer to the first question (uniqueness) is yes, and the answer to the second question (superiority) is yes and no.
To understand how online dating fundamentally differs from conventional offline dating and the circumstances under which online dating promotes better romantic outcomes than conventional offline dating, we consider the three major services online dating sites offer: access, communication, and matching
...........
The past 15 to 20 years have witnessed the development of Web-based companies that specialize in providing some combination of:
a. access to potential romantic partners
b. communication with potential romantic partners
c. matching with compatible romantic partners.
...........
Although matching has existed for millennia, basing matching decisions upon scientific principles and sophisticated mathematical algorithms is a 21st-century innovation.
...........
We illustrate algorithm-based matching by providing an indepth analysis of the approaches taken by three prominent sites that claim their matching process is scientific: eHarmony, PerfectMatch, and Chemistry. Our examples draw most heavily from eHarmony, which is in a league of its own because (a) it was the first of the new generation of matching sites to employ claims of scientific validity; (b) it has the greatest media presence, with television advertisements, other forms of media, and Internet blogs highlighting its matching system; and (c) it has patented its matching system.
...........
Regarding matching, no compelling evidence supports matching sites' claims that mathematical algorithms work, that they foster romantic outcomes that are superior to those fostered by other means of pairing partners.

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

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". I agreed and said: 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 performing like the Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Industry before the USA Food and Drug Administration was created. The Online Dating Industry is selling elixirs, tonics, snake oil liniments and other patent medicine.

The Simpsons, Apple, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, YouTube, Blogger, Wikipedia, Bing, Twitter, Skype are BIG successes in Argentina!!!
I have the theory that if something is successful in Argentina, it could be a success in the World.
If it can NOT be a success here in Argentina, it will definitely NOT be a success in the World.
NO online dating company (for serious daters) has success here in Argentina nor Brazil or other Latin American country.

2012 Eastern Psychological Association (EPA) Meeting Abstracts and Schedule

2012 Eastern Psychological Association (EPA)  Meeting Abstracts and Schedule
2012 Westin Convention Center Pittsburgh, PA
Thursday March 1 - Sunday March 4, 2012

MatchWise, Chemistry, PlentyOfFish Chemistry Predictor, eVow  and other sites use/used the Birth Order Item, but it is useless at all for Serious Online Dating!
ARE YOU THE FAMILY OVERACHIEVER? THE RELATIONSHIP OF BIRTH ORDER TO PERSONALITY
Abstract In this study the relationship between birth order and personality was examined. Participants were college students (n=72) and professors (n=26) who completed questionnaires assessing responsibility, authority, and fear of negative evaluation. As predicted, more than half of the students and more than half of the professors were first-borns. However, first-borns were not different from later-borns on the measures of personality. The results provide partial support for birth order effects on personality.

ONLINE DATING AND THE PARADOX OF SO MANY POTENTIAL PARTNERS
Unlimited options can impair decision-making in certain situations. This study examined how number of options, decision-making style (maximizing v. satisficing), and gender affect choice in online date selection. Extended options were preferred over limited options, but were associated with greater difficulty and lower confidence. Females experienced these effects more than males, also reporting less satisfaction and more regret.  Decision-making style differences were not significant. The data better fit a cognitive overload than anticipatory regret model.

EMERGING ADULTS RETROSPECTIONS OF ADOLESCENT ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS AND SUBSEQUENT PARTNER CHOICE
This study examined ratings of how initial serious romantic relationships (SRR) influence current romantic perspectives. In comparison to other relationships typologies, first SRR were endorsed as the most influential relationship in determining current relationship perspectives. Compared to men, women rated their first SRR as more influential on their current relationship perspectives and their first SRR as more similar in personality to their current partner. Personality factors were not associated with SRR endorsements.

MY PARTNER IS BETTER THAN YOURS: THE MERE OWNERSHIP EFFECT IN  RELATIONSHIPS
The present study examines the mere ownership effect (i.e. the preference for objects primarily because one owns them) within the context of romantic relationships. Participants viewed personality profiles and were told that it was their romantic partner or that it was someone else’s partner. Consistent with mere ownership, those evaluating their own romantic partner provided superior ratings on attractiveness, commitment, and investment compared to those evaluating another’s partner.

ONLINE SPEED-DATING: VERBAL BEHAVIOR CHARACTERISTIC OF “YES” RATINGS
An online speed-dating experiment manipulated verbal behavior and physical attractiveness of confederate “matches.” In particular, autoclitics as verbal operants, which modify the response of the listener, were investigated. Specifically, valence of statements and differing frames of reference were varied across dates. Data were analyzed to determine relationships between these variables and a survival analysis was performed to identify verbal behavior likely to result in use of the full chat time allotted.

ABUSE IN DATING RELATIONSHIPS: PERSONALITY, DATING PREFERENCES, AND ATTRACTION IN COLLEGE STUDENTS
The present study investigated the relationship between personality traits, prior childhood abuse, abuse within the family of origin, and gender on abuse within college student relationships. Fifty-nine college aged subjects participated. The results suggest that there needs to be a re-evaluation of current victim support programs to include males and to include polyvictim relationships. Psychologists need to place emphasis on gender, personality traits, and history of abuse in predicting and treating dating violence.

NARCISSISM IN RELATION TO PERSONALITY, ATHLETICISM, LEADERSHIP, AND ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS
This study explored the relationship of subclinical narcissism to the five-factor model of personality and the constructs of leadership, athleticism, and romantic relationships. Narcissism correlated positively with leadership, numbers of romantic relationships and sexual partners, Extraversion, Openness, and Conscientiousness, and negatively with athleticism, romantic relationship length, Neuroticism, and Agreeableness.

HOW MARITAL STATUS AFFECTS SOCIAL PERCEPTIONS OF MEN VERSUS WOMEN
This study explores assumptions made about unmarried persons. After reading fictional vignettes, participants reported their impressions of an actor. I hypothesized that married individuals would be perceived more positively and happier than single individuals and that males would be perceived more positively than females. My hypothesis was partially confirmed; single individuals were rated more negatively and as less happy, but the only gender difference was in the assumption of personality characteristics for males and females.

DO ROMANTIC PARTNERS' CURIOSITY SCORES CONTRIBUTE TO RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTION, INVESTMENT, AND COMMITMENT?
Does curiosity play a role in the success of romantic relationships? Is partner similarity in curiosity more predictive of relationship outcomes than the total level of curiosity in the couple? 124 heterosexual couples completed measures of trait curiosity and relationship quality. Couple’s score totals and differences were correlated with ratings of satisfaction, investment, and commitment. Though correlations between curiosity and relationship outcomes were not significant, some minimal relationships emerged. Future questions and directions are discussed.

THE EFFECTS OF PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS AND ACADEMIC STATUS ON SOCIAL NETWORKING USE
Many people are using social networking sites, yet there is little research about the effect use on psychological factors. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of academic status and personality type of social networking use. Participants consisted of 142 undergraduates who completed an online survey. Although there were no differences with regard to academic status and use, there were personality differences with extraverts using social.

IAC's Q4 versus Q3 / 2011

Have you compared IAC's Q4 versus Q3?

Total paid subscribers Match Core + Match Developing + Meetic
Q3: 2,748,000
Q4: 2,696,000

Match Core consists of Match in the United States, Chemistry and People Media.
Match Developing consists of OkCupid, Singlesnet, mobile-only products and non-Meetic international operations.
Meetic consists of the publicly traded personals company Meetic S.A., which operates principally in Europe.


Lack Of Innovation & Decadence can summarize the Online Dating Industry 2011.
Traffic of paid dating sites declined sharply during 2011 and continues.
Worldwide there are less than 7 million paid members (adding up all the ones at eHarmony,  Match, Chemistry, Meetic, MeeticAffinity, OkCupid, PeopleMedia's Communities, PlentyOfFish, Parship, eCift, etc). The market remains enormous for new players.
Online Dating for serious daters does not need to be more social, it needs to be more effective, more efficient.
The Online Dating Industry is performing like the Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Industry before the USA Food and Drug Administration was created.
The Online Dating Industry needs Innovations!!! But innovations are not adding more bells and whistles to actual online dating sites. Or launching new ones with the same stupidities as the old ones saying “the first dating social network”.

Can an Algorithm Really Predict Romance?

Can an Algorithm Really Predict Romance?
will be aired Feb. 9th 2012 at 9:00 pm ET/PT CNBC

USA
23+ million singles (registered at online dating sites)
USD 2 billion revenue

Love at First Byte: The Secret Science of Online Dating


Of course actual online dating sites offering compatibility matching methods are only fueled by big marketing budgets and not by serious scientific evidence. No one (eHarmony, Chemistry, etc) can prove its matching algorithm can match prospective partners who will have more stable and satisfying relationships than couples matched by chance, astrological destiny, personal preferences, searching on one's own, or other technique as the control group in a peer reviewed Scientific Paper. They are all like placebo!

Auralist: Introducing Serendipity into Music Recommendation

Auralist: Introducing Serendipity into Music Recommendation

Abstract
Recommendation systems exist to help users discover content in a large body of items. An ideal recommendation system should mimic the actions of a trusted friend or expert, producing a personalised collection of recommendations that balance between the desired goals of accuracy, diversity, novelty and serendipity. We introduce the Auralist recommendation framework, a system that - in contrast to previous work - attempts to balance and improve all four factors simultaneously. Using a collection of novel algorithms inspired by principles of 'serendipitous discovery', we demonstrate a method of successfully injecting serendipity, novelty and diversity into recommendations whilst limiting the impact on accuracy. We evaluate Auralist quantitatively over a broad set of metrics and, with a user study on music recommendation, show that Auralist’s emphasis on serendipity indeed improves user satisfaction.

Although the paper is full rubbish, it is interesting to analyze the formulas the authors use to calculate similarity between users and to notice recommender systems are evolving.

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.

Online Friend Recommendation through Personality Matching

If you had read the paper "Online Friend Recommendation through Personality Matching and Collaborative Filtering"

It is useless at all for Online Dating because that recommender system called MatchMaker does not assess personality of members using a normative personality test.
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Abstract: Most social network websites rely on people's proximity on the social graph for friend recommendation. In this paper, we present MatchMaker, a collaborative filtering friend recommendation system based on personality matching. The goal of MatchMaker is to leverage the social information and mutual understanding among people in existing social network connections, and produce friend recommendations based on rich contextual data from people's physical world interactions. MatchMaker allows users' network to match them with similar TV characters, and uses relationships in the TV programs as parallel comparison matrix to suggest to the users friends that have been voted to suit their personality the best. The system’s ranking schema allows progressive improvement on the personality matching consensus and more diverse branching of users' social network connections. Lastly, our user study shows that the application can also induce more TV content consumption by driving users' curiosity in the ranking process.

(the authors had several problems to calculate similarity)

"....While "People you may know" from Facebook recommends a friend to a user based upon the number of their mutual friends, work and education information, MatchMaker recommends a friend to a user based upon the matching in personality and characteristics that their social network friends, and TV show story writers, have collectively concluded.
Facebook uses proximity matching whereas MatchMaker uses personality matching for friend recommendation.
... our research on Facebook profiles has shown that the profile information is usually kept at a minimal level and gives not much information on the actual personality and characteristics of the recommended friends."

Singles in USA study by Match

If you had read Singles in America (USA), it is only a bunch of silly statistics, useless at all for the Online Dating Industry, because it needs innovations.
Henry Ford was fond to say "If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse than the one I have; and not a car."

Lack Of Innovation & Decadence can summarize the Online Dating Industry 2011.
The Online Dating Industry is performing like the Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Industry before the USA Food and Drug Administration was created.
The Online Dating Industry needs Innovations!!! But innovations are not adding more bells and whistles to actual online dating sites. Or launching new ones with the same stupidities as the old ones saying “the first dating social network”.
Only 3 major discoveries can help to revolutionize the online dating industry.
I) Several studies showing contraceptive pills users make different mate choices, on average, compared to non-users. "Only short-term but not long-term partner preferences tend to vary with the menstrual cycle"
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) What is important in attracting people to one another may not be important in making couples happy. Compatibility is all about a high level on personality similarity between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment.