Hey all! A Twitter pal recently shared an insight on how he used Tinder to great success. If you ever need to help someone whose preferred type of partner is “silly with a hint of bitterness” – putting “idiot” as the only word in the Tinder bio works wonders. It’s a scarily good filter. I agree! Let’s get all analytical for …
OkCupid removed unpopular questions
Tons of my clients use OkCupid, and sometimes I have access to their profile backends for when we’re working on new writing, or when I need to see detailed info on their messaging or browsing history. The other day, I was working with one such client and I noticed something weird. Two specific questions seemed to be missing from his profile: …
Learning from NYC’s most popular singles
NY Magazine ran a fascinating interview with NYC’s four most popular OkCupid members—a straight gal, a straight guy, a gay gal, and a gay guy. Check out these (clearly highly stylized) swanky portraits: I urge you to read the entire piece. It’s fun! But if you want to skip right to the practical takeaways, here are the tactics we can …
Wired’s online dating infographics
Last week Wired came out with a pseudo-article entitled How to Create the Perfect Online Dating Profile, in 25 Infographics. Today, Amanda Hess came out with a great follow-up article identifying that many of the Wired tips involved breaking out of more traditional gender stereotypes. Amanda’s not wrong, in the sense that Wired’s data does often highlight gender non-conformity. But I …
Another math/data genius who “hacked” online dating
Remember a few months back, when Amy Webb’s TED Talk about how she hacked online dating went viral? Well I sure do; I still get tons of clients from my analysis of her strategy. And now we’ve got this Wired article about a mathematician dude who “hacked” OkCupid over the course of several years. You can’t blame me for analyzing …
Why you shouldn’t pay for eHarmony Plus
Ever since I’ve started seeing trailers for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, I’ve also seen a plethora of links about eHarmony’s new Plus service. This is a new offering in which you pay an expert $5,000 to be your personal online dating… surrogate. They call it a ‘matchmaking professional,’ but in many ways, it’s also a surrogate. Or an …
The Pew (Pew! Pew!) Report
The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a mouthful. (And I’m sorry, but I couldn’t resist a dorky post title!) They recently released a report about online dating and relationships—you can read an overview here, or the full report here. Surveys like this are always interesting, but they’re hardly comprehensive. After all, you can’t get the entire world to …
Singles Warehouse piece
Hey folks, hope you all had a lovely weekend! Grant and I had an overwhelmingly social one—he’s been in crunch mode for months and I’ve been under the weather, but we packed in FOUR separate engagements, and he even managed to mow the lawn and do laundry (while I lazed around and caught up with my DVR). I guess we’re …
Amy Webb’s Ted Talk about hacking online dating
I’ve mentioned Amy Webb before, and her book Data: A Love Story. She recently gave a TED Talk on the same subject, which is pretty darn entertaining. But of course, being an online dating coach with lots of experience and strong opinions, I have to pick apart her approach and warn you away from the aspects I think might harm …
Monday roundup
Hey lovebirds, hope you all had a fantastic weekend! I sure did. 🙂 My husband has been working insane hours lately, but he actually got to stay home and chill out with his wife for the first time in a while. It was pretty swell. Also, I got my podcast back up and running! Listen, I’m no fancy producer, and …