“Furthermore, the data that OKCupid gathered from Match’s public filings and press kit were not completely accurate, he said, which he realized once he saw the real data.”

“And even though the two sites are now playing for the same team, it’ll be business as usual at OKCupid’s Midtown office, he said. OKCupid will remain free and OKTrends will keep publishing the popular research it culls from its members. (Data from Match and its affiliated sites will not be included.)”

So, rather than putting up a correction to the previous blog post that due to fresh data showing something different; they decided to take it down. I suppose either because Match either refuses to release the data, the blog post is confirmed to be true or they wanted to appease the new owners.

Patrick’s point is that if you have the skills to get users in a business with network effects that strong, there are many more lucrative ple. Online auctions is hugely lucrative, orders of magnitude more than dating, and EBay sucks in many ways. But their network effect is so strong that it’s virtually impossible to break in.

I think a smaller dating site would prosper quite well if it could eliminate wasting people’s time

eHarmony has a good practice in this regard, but eHarmony is also marriage, christian, straight focused – and excluded all others.

A dating site that disabled user accounts that hadn’t logged in or responded, initiated conversation eHarmony style, and somehow limited the spam that men send, well. that’d be worth checking out. It would drastically raise the signal to noise ratio.

For spam: perhaps you can only send one message per day to new people, and one message per person per reply. Choose wisely.

Also, for every uploaded picture, grab the date it was taken and put that on the page. Might not stop hackers, but that’s a small minority.

Maybe even a ‘ask a friend’ feature, where you email a reply history to a friend and ask their advice (helps with network effects).

People hate the idea of clickbait. But used properly – for good! – it’s one of the most powerful ways to grab attention in this increasingly glasgow sugar baby cost saturated world.

Why Clickbait Works:

It’s no great mystery. It ain’t like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. (Although BuzzFeed is kinda like the Bermuda Triangle of the internet.)

Clickbait works because it (a) appeals to your lizard brain and (b) tickles your innate desire for curiosity. (That’s the TL;DR version anyway.)

69,907 headlines can’t be wrong. That’s how many a few media outlets analyzed in 2014 to identify what the most successful had in common.

Unsurprisingly, the headlines that performed best just so happened to also be the most polarizing. (Turns out, Abercrombie and Fitch are right for hating fat people.)

The ‘cliffhanger’ or curiosity gap is one of the most powerful headline formulas for a reason. It uses pattern interruption to shock or surprise us, forcing us to click to uncover the reason.

It turns out we’re hardwired for this stuff, as George Loewenstein’s proved in the ‘90s with his “information-gap” theory. As reported by Wired:

Such information gaps produce the feeling of deprivation labeled curiosity. The curious individual is motivated to obtain the missing information to reduce or eliminate the feeling of deprivation.”

Another common technique for powerful lists and ‘how-to’ headlines are to promise a simple, step-by-step solution that acts like a lighthouse on a foggy night for our overworked, overstressed minds.