Ask HN: What's wrong with all those dating sites?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=241702

by t0pj • 18 years ago

14 46 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What's your biggest peeve about the state of dating services on the web today and how could they become better?

Is there certain functionality that you think all dating sites must offer? i.e. location down to postal code or even year/month/day of birth.

Do you think the techniques sites use to reduce/remove the number of spam/predators/trolls go to far and actually detract from the user experience? i.e. captchas, super-long/detailed registration forms and surveys/compatibility tests, back-end automation to remove accounts according to preset criteria, etc.

There's gotta be a better way to build this mousetrap.

smalter• 18 years ago

simple: girl to guy ratio

fallentimes2• 18 years ago

The real question is - how do you entice more girls to sign up? Girls not only attract guys in to joining (obviously) but more girls as well.

maurycy• 18 years ago

I guess that rich guys attract girls.

eznet• 18 years ago

Find a way to make women as fascinated by men as men are by women? Also, I think the comment on 'rich guys' is likely onto something - advertise on ladders.

aston4• 18 years ago

I think OkCupid has a pretty good solution to the question. The book "The Game" classifies personality quizzes as "chick crack," and that's the majority of OkCupid's pull right now. ImInLikeWithYou's approach was not bad either; let the girls be the center of attention as guys fought over them.

ericb• 18 years ago

Can you work in babies to the dating site somehow? Babies are like candy to them. Also shoes.

shoesbabiesandboyfriends.com?

froo5• 18 years ago

I saw an interesting solution to this by the brits a couple years ago.. I think the site was "datemymate" or something to that effect.

Essentially the idea was that the friends of someone would sign up, and then start writing their friends profile - the idea I think was to mimic how women find their friends dates in the real world.

From what I understand, their female/male ratio was very good to the point where at times the females outnumbered the men - whereas on other dating sites this is just not the case.

notdarkyet3• 18 years ago

I think this problems stems from safety. It would seem as though women are more reluctant to meet people online because they do not want to find out that their date is a loon. Someone could come off as completely charming online and in person be a total crazy. If women knew that their safety was not in jeopardy, I think your would see the numbers even out.

drewcrawford• 18 years ago

I think the fundamental problem is that the reason people are on most of these dating sites is because they can't find a date elsewhere. Building a good dating site means solving that problem: making dating online more intuitive than flirting in real life. This is hard, because you've got however many billion/million years of evolution working against you.

On the other hand, there are some groups for whom physical flirting is already cumbersome. Busy professionals/entrepreneurs (arguably above-average dating material) don't necessarily have time to chat up people at coffee shops. People of a particular faith or with a particular medical condition may be genuinely afraid of simply meeting random people. There has been some success with this sort of 'longtail/niche' dating site.

pchristensen• 18 years ago

Spolsky mentioned jdate on his podcast - dating for Jews as a successful online-only product.

bprater• 18 years ago

A new niche play might be to figure out how to adapt the dating genre to the iPhone. Maybe a GPS-based play.

But I think the key continues to be -- find a good niche. But not so nichey that only 8 people are interested.

altano• 18 years ago

A niche play? Really? You might want to take a break from those bizdev2.0 blogs for a while...

neilk2• 18 years ago

There's nothing wrong with the dating services. The people are broken.

People lie. Solve that one and you may have something. (True.com tried to do this.)

Also, most dating sites act as a sort of amplification for the user's dating filters and skill at attracting interest. However, I believe that most people are lonely because their dating filters are broken, and because they have trouble attracting interest. Dating sites only help these people fail faster and at greater scale.

(Exception: tall women. They are not necessarily damaged, they really do have a sort of search problem that is more solveable at scale.)

I have started to think that a really successful dating site would start from the premise that the user is broken and cannot be relied on to find or choose a partner. Maybe use social networks so that their friends help them find someone? Or even anonymous strangers, for karma points? Straight women do this sort of thing anyway (straight guys tend to use these sites alone) and if a woman gets all her female friends to come on board, that helps solve the female-male ratio.

jamongkad2• 18 years ago

Hmmm to be honest nothing screams "Plan B" more than a dating site. Honestly I have never used the service because most of the women I date are from referrals from friends and family. So there's that element of trust right there. Made me feel safer! Maybe if you could build dating site that applies that element of trust. Maybe you could have the said "dater" try to earn some sort of "trust" points. Make it so that the more trust points they have. The better partner they are. This is just off the top of my head though and it worth experimenting.

Anon84• 18 years ago

As my data structures professor would say: "Bipartite matching is a hard problem, specially when it involves women!"

Seriously, though...

IMHO the most successful dating site would probably start off as a Linked In like social network, where you could have matches based on the people you know. Matching algorithms of any sort (like Match.com Chemistry.com eHarmony.com, etc use) could be used to improve the matches, but I think that having a "recommendation" from people you already trust would be a very big plus. This is probably why pre-existing social newtworks like Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, et al usually end up being used for such purposes.

dusklight• 18 years ago

The biggest problem is that the incentive of the dating site is to make money, not to help people get together. If your service is really good at getting people together, boom! There goes your userbase as they all hook up and log off.

Financially speaking it is better to give users the ILLUSION of someone out there being for you, while stringing them along and milking them for as much cash as possible.

aston4• 18 years ago

Yah, this is too true. The worst thing you can do for your bottom line on a dating site is make a real, long-term match. There go two really happy users, and whatever ad revenue or monthly subscription fee they were making you.

But if you don't care about your site making money, this is a non-issue. And if you're growing faster than you're connecting people, it's a moot point anyhow.

sanj• 18 years ago

This seems to be a failure of imagination.

It seems to me that a successful long term match should be your best advertising. But I haven't seen any web sites capture that or use it at all effectively. Or feed it back into their site/algorithm design.

I'm not saying this lightly: I got married about 6 weeks ago to an amazing woman that I met (thanks Aston!) on OKCupid!

I'd be more than happy to do testimonials and such, but no one's ever contacted me.

gaius2• 18 years ago

I'm not convinced that's true. E.g. you go to the newsagents and there is a rack full of wedding magazines - how many people buy a subscription?

aston4• 18 years ago

I used to work at OkCupid. I could talk to you at length about the ups and downs and ins and outs of online dating, but the moral of the story I gleaned from my time there can be summed up pretty easily:

People just want a ton of attractive/dateable people within a keyboard's reach, and if your site does any filtering on their behalf, people need to trust that it actually works.

Most of the variations in online dating sites focus on optimizing pieces of that. The big guys (Match.com, eHarmony) make sure they get huge user numbers by campaigning on national TV, and they apply some simple internal filters that are 'approved by a doctor.' Smaller sites can't compete with that, so concentrate more on making sure you only run into people you'd actually be attracted to (see JDate). OkCupid's on the smaller side, and focuses on community building (for numbers) and uses mathematically semi-sound calculation coupled with quiz questions to create a user-driven but rigorous-feeling people filter. Basically everyone that's successful fits somewhere in that model.

If I were you, I would focus less on specific features or trying to build a better datetrap. Instead, figure out what it'll take for you to get fifty thousand people signed up, approximately all at the same time, and then how you'll keep the site growing over time. If you get big numbers, the dating stuff will follow (MySpace...).

vaksel2• 18 years ago

how about the simple fact that it doesn't work?

1) In the real world, you compete for the woman's attention only with people she sees throughout her day. Out of which maybe 5 will initiate a conversation.

On the net, same woman, you are competing with every single guy within 50 miles. Out of which almost every single one will initiate a conversation.

2) In the real world, you see the woman as she is.

On the web, you see myspace angles, copy pastes of likes/dislikes. And lets not forget all those bots and guys pretending to be a girl .

3) You gotta remember that if a woman is good looking, there is ABSOLUTELY no reason for her to go on a crappy dating site. Its not like she doesn't get offered dates everywhere she goes.

Same goes for the guys really, you'll have much higher chances if you start asking women in the real world.

omouse• 18 years ago

So, you could say that a dating site needs a different focus that can complement the real-world somehow?

kingkongrevenge2• 18 years ago

No. A dating site needs a big FDA warning label that says "This is a load of snake oil and can never work. Go get a life."

Maybe a site can help people get a life, but it wouldn't be a dating site. And I think the best site for that is a glorified local bulletin board, which is pretty well saturated by craigslist and the local alt papers/sites.

froo5• 18 years ago

re part 3 - thats not necessarily the case.

Often some good looking women are single for lengths of time as a result of their looks. Its a weird paradox, but its true

Case in point: Halle Berry - she is one of the hottest women on the planet, but is often single.

There are two possible reasons for this, firstly men just assume that she is not single, as a result of her looks and status. Secondly, perhaps some men are intimidated by her looks and status and simply dont approach her as a result. In regards to celebrities, it seems that this can happen often.

Either way, Being good looking != being instantly attached or approachable.

pfedor• 18 years ago

My observation is that online dating not only works but has by now become totally mainstream. I keep hearing about couples which met on the Internet, in fact I would say that this is true about 100% of the weddings I'm attending this year. It's no longer something that warrants even a lifted brow. My perception may be biased by living in the Bay Area, but even if so, then it's just a matter of time.

This does not mean that the dating sites are particularly good right now, just that the demand is so great that people are willing to suffer the poorest UIs to get to the good stuff.

eyudkowsky• 18 years ago

I met my mate on the Internet, but not on a dating site. There's a large difference!

notdarkyet3• 18 years ago

I think the key to a successful dating site is both privacy and safety. Women want to know that they are not going to get raped or be caught off guard with someone who has obviously lied about themselves. If you could establish a method that would allow people to feel secure with the site, it could go miles.

The other issue is privacy. By joining these sites, you are opening yourself up to not only your personality and private information but revealing your real identity online. If people could trust that the information about themselves or the interactions they have with other members would never be made public, I think you would see a surge in rates.

jamongkad2• 18 years ago

Honestly I don't why someone would downmod your comment. I think it plays well with the "Trust" points idea I've pitched a few comments up.

notdarkyet3• 18 years ago

Yeah, thanks, I agree with what you mentioned as well. From my experience, people tend to date within their social circles because of those very reasons.

nycfam• 18 years ago

dating sites are too complicating. Most of the dating sites which I have seen lately make me sick to be honest. How can I find a match in the middle of a smog? I want less complex and more fun. Illuminate the complexity and you'll reach your goal.

kingkongrevenge2• 18 years ago

Dating sites are a stupid idea in the first place. Your system or algorithm cannot ever hope to compete with 30 seconds of face to face interaction, ideally with that first meeting occurring by way of mutual friends.

Sorry, but building a better dating web site is trying to drive a nail with a screw driver. People who need help dating need a larger and more active social circle. They don't need a dating website. Anyone trying to sell a dating site will inevitably discover they're hawking snake oil and surrender to that reality.

neilk2• 18 years ago

Actually, that's a pretty good idea. A site with no fancy profiles, just some really light filtering for age and location, and then a parade of people you can video chat with for 30 seconds. As the 30 seconds winds down, both partners have to press a big "greenlight" button to continue chatting.

This might be like skydiving for some people but I bet it would ultimately make them more confident. And it could be sort of addicting -- if you hate this guy/girl, just wait a few seconds.

vulpes• 18 years ago

woome.com attempts to recreate that, in fact almost exactly like you are describing...eerie.

froo5• 18 years ago

Channeling PG for a moment: Make something people want.

I think that on the whole, most dating sites are more concerned with figuring out how to make a buck off someone than what their users want.

If you use Wordtrackers keyword tool which people normally use for SEO purposes and type in "dating"... 4 out of the top 10 keyword are related to free dating sites, but how many dating sites can you name that are free?

I can only think of one off the top of my head (penty of fish) - and Markus is making a killing with his site. [edit: if you take the social networks like facebook and myspace into account, you have a couple more - but the traffic to those sites is less qualified, IE not people specifically looking for dates]

I think that if you can build a decent site (it really doesn't have to be that fancy) that you can run free - I think you would have a better chance at success than simply trying to build more complex functionality and charge people for it.

Make the site simple, make it user friendly.

time_management• 18 years ago

These websites exist to solve people's problems in dating, and dating problems are like depression in that there are so many causes that it's impossible to find a single cure.

The bureaucratic categories that people have to box themselves into for many of these websites are not very useful. For example, "Christian/Protestant" and "Atheist/Agnostic/Other" are enormous categories. Instead of equality-matching over these bureaucratic buckets, a better matching question might be something like "Do you meditate?".

Dating ultimately comes down to interpersonal chemistry, which is very subjective. By contrast, online dating often comes down to objective criteria like race, age, and religious affiliation, which simply aren't usually relevant in predicting whether a match is possible.

If I were to build a dating site, I would:

1. Unapologetically make it a niche site for intellectuals, targeting people from solid schools and graduate programs. This is a group of people who (1) tend to prefer each other, and would pay a premium for an elite dating site, and (2) tend to have difficulty in dating that is not due to personality problems.

2. Use Amazon book-recommendations style comparisons to define a metric for "similar tastes" in books, movies, and hobbies, then match people based on that. My site would be AI-driven, because while interpersonal chemistry is really difficult to nail down, one can probably get closer by using similar artistic inclinations than by assessing people according to bureaucratic categories.

3. Concentrate on building a real off-line community, with meetups and speed-date events, which the dating site would supplement. This would implicitly imply that the site would be focused on a few major cities, at least when it started.

mdakin• 18 years ago

Semirecently got out of a long relationship. So long that I was basically a kid when it started and if there was such a thing as a dating site on the Internet at the time I knew nothing about it.

I've not tried any dating sites. Why?

1. The factors that attract me to a girl are difficult to quantify and encode digitally. But relatively easy to sense in a face-to-face interaction.

2. I trust my own senses and instincts more than second or third parties when it comes to gleaning truthful information about someone. I am confident in my ability to read people in face-to-face situations. Why put a computer in the middle given that it essentially hobbles that critical ability?

3. I believe seconds/minutes/hours spent messing around with dating websites would be better spent out in the wild meeting, hanging out with and getting to know girls in person.

4. I suspect "permanently single" people are disproportionately attracted to these various tools and I'm better off fishing from a random sample to find who I'm looking for rather than a negatively biased sample. Or, ideally, I'm better fishing from a better-than-random sample biased, for example, by people I know and trust in the real world and THEIR extended circles of friends.

5. I strongly suspect that the hypothetical girl I like is basically feeling the same way and taking the same approach that I am.

Perhaps I'm off-base. And perhaps I will modify my views with time but this is what keeps me away from such sites currently.

MaysonL• 18 years ago

Here's an interesting idea for a (niche) dating site:

One for people who spend more time reading books than watching tv or movies.

pavelludiq• 18 years ago

Here are my thoughts on the topic.First in the real world people don't go around with profile info printed on their shirts, and mathematically filtering people based on that information. People in the real world interact and exchange information differently from what most dating sites do. I have a few online female friends(no girlfriends yet though) and I've met6 them all in different online communities. Mostly music sites like last.fm or different internet forums specialized in my favorite music genres. Basically if you want to make a dating site, don't, instead make an online community where people can interact and communicate about a specific topic of interest. Sites that just offer communication(myspace) might have a lot of users, but the users have to search for people with the same interests and stuff. In a specialized community, that problem is solved, and people can just discus stuff they like. In Bulgaria most dating sites are filled with 14-15 year whores who just want some attention, i wouldn't date girls like that, even if they were my age, they are just to boring(boring girl:I like music, and parties, and chatting with friends; interesting girl:dating sites are boring.)

Ask HN: What's wrong with all those dating sites?

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