I’ve had ideas sort of like this at the back of my mind since seeing Paul Graham pointing out how broken online dating is in one of his essays. (Not so much analyzing all of someone’s existing data, but analyzing IM transcripts to match people with IM buddies they’d be likely to make good friends with is a thing I considered doing.) Haven’t gotten too far with any of them yet, but I’m glad you reminded me, since I was planning on playing with some of my own data soon just to see what I find.
Do you think that not having dated much would be much of a comparative disadvantage in working on this problem? That’s one of the reasons I hesitate to make it my main project.
A possibly-related problem—why does every site I see that says it is for matching strangers who might like to be friends get full of people looking for a date? (Small sample size, but I’ve never seen one that didn’t give me the sense that the vast majority of the members were looking for romance or a one night stand or something.)
A possibly-related problem—why does every site I see that says it is for matching strangers who might like to be friends get full of people looking for a date?
So that people can look for dates without breaking plausible deniability.
So that people can look for dates without breaking plausible deniability.
I think it’s the web site, rather than its clients, that needs the plausible deniability. It cannot seem to be in the business of selling sex, so it has to have a wider focus.
I’ve had ideas sort of like this at the back of my mind since seeing Paul Graham pointing out how broken online dating is in one of his essays. (Not so much analyzing all of someone’s existing data, but analyzing IM transcripts to match people with IM buddies they’d be likely to make good friends with is a thing I considered doing.) Haven’t gotten too far with any of them yet, but I’m glad you reminded me, since I was planning on playing with some of my own data soon just to see what I find.
Do you think that not having dated much would be much of a comparative disadvantage in working on this problem? That’s one of the reasons I hesitate to make it my main project.
A possibly-related problem—why does every site I see that says it is for matching strangers who might like to be friends get full of people looking for a date? (Small sample size, but I’ve never seen one that didn’t give me the sense that the vast majority of the members were looking for romance or a one night stand or something.)
So that people can look for dates without breaking plausible deniability.
I think it’s the web site, rather than its clients, that needs the plausible deniability. It cannot seem to be in the business of selling sex, so it has to have a wider focus.