Christian Rudder
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Articles by Christian Rudder
Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating
Today I'd like to show why the practice of paying for dates on sites like Match.com and eHarmony is fundamentally broken, and broken in ways that most people don't realize. For one thing, their business model exacerbates a problem found on every dating site: For another thing, as I'll explain, pay sites have a unique incentive to profit from their customers' disappointment. As a founder of OkCupid I'm of course motivated to point out our competitors' flaws.
Race and Attraction, 2009 - 2014
We looked at race in one of our very first posts, and today I’d like to revisit the topic with fresh data. This article folds in millions of person-to-person interactions, what one human being thinks of another. As such, it’s different from a look at, say, unemployment numbers or test scores. So much data on race gives you people vs. the system. OkCupid’s gives you people vs. people. Basically, the site’s ten-year history has been one long episode of Judge Judy. Here’s the verdict on race.
10 Charts About Sex
This was one of the first infographics ever made: Later remembered as "the map that made a nation cry", it depicts Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia in 1812. The wide tan swath shows his Grande Armée, almost half a million strong, marching East to Moscow; the black trickle shows the few who straggled back. It's an elegant fusion of geography, time, and temperature into a single statement of military disaster.
iPhone Users Have Twice as Much Sex as Android Users (Plus! Sexiest Cameras)
According to 11 million plus images indexed by users of dating site OK Cupid, iPhone users get laid twice as often as Android users. If you're anything like me, you usually think of your pics in terms of content: Here's me smiling. Here's me looking tough. Here's me in Hawaii with that wacky turtle. And so on. Today, however, we'll analyze photography from a numerical angle-we'll discuss flash, focus, and aperture instead.
The Best Dating Books
recommended by Mia Levitin OUT NOW The Future of Seduction by Mia Levitin “Love,” wrote Ovid, “is no assignment for cowards.” Cultural criticMia Levitin talks us through the history of seduction from the Classical era, through ballroom dancing, calling cards and into the present age of swiping on our mobile phones. Here she recommends five of the best books for those braving the modern dating scene.
How Your Race Affects The Messages You Get
Welcome back, dorks. We’ve processed the messaging habits of over a million people and are about to basically prove that, despite what you might’ve heard from the Obama campaign and organic cereal commercials, racism is alive and well. It would be awesome if the other major online dating players would go out on a limb and release their own race data, too. I can’t imagine they will: multi-million dollar enterprises rarely like to admit that the people paying them those millions act like turds.
Christian Rudder: Inside OKCupid: The math of online dating
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Your Looks and Your Inbox
This week we will confront an unfortunate truth of online dating: no matter how much time you spend polishing your profile, honing your IM banter, and perfecting your message introductions, it’s your picture that matters most. We’re going to look at how your photos affect both the messages you get and how successful your own outgoing messages are. We all know that beautiful people are more successful daters, but let’s quantify by exactly how much.
Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking): Christian Rudder: 9780385347372: Books
Review An NPR Best Book of 2014 A Globe & Mail Best Book of 2014 A Brain Pickings Best Science Book of 2014 A Bloomberg Best Book of 2014 One of Hudson Booksellers' 5 Best Business Books of 2014 Goodreads Semifinalist for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize "Most data-hyping books are vapor and slogans. This one has the real stuff: actual data and actual analysis taking place on the page. That’s something to be praised, loudly and at length.
Livros na Amazon Brasil
Preço sugerido: R$62,90 Você economiza: R$34,00 (54%) Frete GRÁTIS em pedidos enviados pela Amazon a partir de R$99,00 em livros. Em estoque. Enviado e vendido por Amazon.com.br. Quantidade:Quantidade:1 Adicionar ao carrinho Comprar agora Selecione o endereço Adicionar à Lista Virar para trás Virar para a frente Ouvir Reproduzindo... Pausado Você está ouvindo uma amostra da edição em áudio do Audible. Saiba mais Ver todas as 3 imagens Receba seu pedido: Qui, 31/out com frete GRÁTIS.
How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating – The OkCupid Blog
The intersection of culture and matchmaking This week, we’re going to take a step back from examining messages to your matches and take a look at matching itself. We’ll slice OkCupid’s data on compatibility by religion, race, and other factors, and by the end we’ll have some unsettling conclusions on how people match and interact online. But first, I want to explain something important. What Does It Mean To “Match” Someone?
Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating
Today I'd like to show why the practice of paying for dates on sites like Match.com and eHarmony is fundamentally broken, and broken in ways that most people don't realize. For one thing, their business model exacerbates a problem found on every dating site: For another thing, as I'll explain, pay sites have a unique incentive to profit from their customers' disappointment. As a founder of OkCupid I'm of course motivated to point out our competitors' flaws.
Zodiac and Books: What the Signs Do in Bookstores (and What They’re Buying)
The stars have aligned and you’ve got some free time to visit a bookstore (sweet!). Romantic match-ups and food recommendations based on your zodiac sign are all well and good, but what’s really important is the zodiac and books. Are they in-and-out or spend hours browsing the shelves? Do they read the cover flap to make a decision about a purchase, or do they have to read the first chapter, too?
Mofo and Other Mysteries – The OkCupid Blog
Because we run a huge dating site?—?OkCupid, which is free?—?and we studied math together, Chris and I like to sit in a circle (a line, really) and look at your data. Normally the data is pertinent and leads to revealing studies of human interaction, like our last post about how race plays a big role in online dating.
How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating – The OkCupid Blog
This week, we’re going to take a step back from examining messages to your matches and take a look at matching itself. We’ll slice OkCupid’s data on compatibility by religion, race, and other factors, and by the end we’ll have some unsettling conclusions on how people match and interact online. But first, I want to explain something important. All OkCupid users create their own matching algorithms, so when we determine who matches who, we’re just crunching the numbers people give us.
When Websites Peek into Private Lives
This summer, a dating site I helped to found, OkCupid, announced that it had tested the effectiveness of its matching algorithm on a small number of users. We run tests on the site all the time, and we were particularly careful with this one because we were tinkering with something fundamental to the user experience. The test was brief, and everyone affected was made aware of it soon afterward.
We Got Married Despite The Statistics - Mama Knows It All
My marriage to Terrence never should have happened. If we really assess the situation, we probably never should have met. I was a single mom with a broken heart who was in no way ready for love. He was a hurt bachelor who had vowed to never get married. I lived in Philadelphia. He was in San Francisco. We met in the lobby of a hotel in Indianapolis 4 years ago, and we just celebrated our 1 year anniversary last month. How romantic comedy of us, right?
Bloodshot's 2015: Our Opinions (Artists & Staff)
We haven't heard a better relevant quotation in 2015, so we're gonna quote the wise Marc Maron again: "Ranking artists and making lists is a dead culture's version of intellectualism." And once again, we're holding on to that dead culture with cold, lifeless fingers. We're a dying breed in a lot of ways.
Five Myths About Online Dating
Like sex, love and attraction, online dating is an object of fascination and confusion. Some commentators credit it with helping singles feel more secure and confident, while others blame it for "ruining romance," "killing commitment" and contributing to the rise of the hook-up culture. As the head of OkCupid, I worked diligently to untangle many of the misconceptions about finding love on the Internet.
Five myths about online dating
Once upon a time, online daters were mocked as lonely losers, or worse. Not anymore. Today, at least 40 million Americans are looking for love on the Web. But that doesn’t mean we know what we’re doing. Like sex, love and attraction, online dating is an object of fascination and confusion. Some commentators credit it with helping singles feel more secure and confident, while others blame it for “ruining romance,” “killing commitment” and contributing to the rise of the hook-up culture.
Men's Favorite Ages Are 20, 21, 22, and 23: A Data Dive by the Co-Founder of OKCupid
A new parent is perhaps most sensitive to the milestones of getting older. It’s almost all you talk about with other people, and you get actual metrics at the doctor’s every few months. But the milestones keep coming long after babycenter.com and the pediatrician quit with the reminders. It’s just that we stop keeping track. Computers, however, have nothing better to do; keeping track is their only job. They don’t lose the scrapbook, or travel, or get drunk, or grow senile, or even blink.
How Trump divides and conquers
The key is divisiveness. Users whose ratings reflect a deep difference in opinion about them ultimately prove to be more successful. The canonical example of a trait that creates such a situation is tattoos. Some people really like them. Some people find them repellent. Thus, a user with prominent tattoos will often end up with many people who like her a lot and also many people who dislike her a lot. Her overall rating—the average of these likes and dislikes—will seem fairly mediocre.
Thinking about online dating? 4 rules for nailing the perfect profile picture
Thinking about online dating? 4 rules for nailing the perfect profile picture If you're thinking about venturing into the world of online dating, there are a few things you should think about — after all, it's the first impression you'll likely make on someone swiping from the opposite end. As part of TODAY's Summer of Secrets Series, Christian Rudder, co-founder of OkCupid and author of Dataclysm: Who We Are shares 4 tips for mastering the perfect profile picture in the world of online dating.
Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking)
Using the data he collected from his dating website as well as other social media sources, Harvard grad and OkCupid cofounder Christian Rudder presents us with a highly readable, honest, and funny look at human behavior. From flirting demographics to marital success stats, he demonstrates our changeable yet predictable nature in a way that is neither plauditory nor judgmental.
The Mathematics Of Beauty
This post investigates female attractiveness, but without the usual photo analysis stuff. Instead, we look past a woman's picture, into the reaction she creates in the reptile mind of the human male. Among the remarkable things we'll show: Fair warning: we're about to objectify women, big-time. The whole purpose of this blog is to analyze OkCupid's data, and without a little bit of objectification that's impossible. Men will get their turn under the microscope soon enough.
The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures
Hello, old friends. I am back from dark months of data mining, here now to present my ores. To write this piece, we cataloged over 7,000 photographs on OkCupid.com, analyzing three primary things: In looking closely at the astonishingly wide variety of ways our users have chosen to represent themselves, we discovered much of the collective wisdom about profile pictures was wrong. For interested readers, I explain our measurement process, and how we collected our data, at the end of the post.
The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information: Frank Pasquale: 9780674368279: Amazon.com: Books
Every day, corporations are connecting the dots about our personal behavior—silently scrutinizing clues left behind by our work habits and Internet use. The data compiled and portraits created are incredibly detailed, to the point of being invasive. But who connects the dots about what firms are doing with this information? The Black Box Society argues that we all need to be able to do so—and to set limits on how big data affects our lives.
5 Great Nonfiction Reads to Close 2014
A few years ago, one of my reading goals was to add more nonfiction to my To-Be-Read pile, shortly after I came to the realization that almost everything on my nightstand was fiction. Over the last few years, I have increased nonfiction to about one-third of my list. In doing so, I have read some absolutely amazing books that I might have otherwise passed by. Some are "big idea" books, some thought provoking and eye-opening, and others are great frolicking reads of past exploits.
25 Amazing Business Books From 2014
Grow Your Business, Not Your Inbox Stay informed and join our daily newsletter now! Email Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy December 12, 2014 9 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Whether you're planning a much-needed vacation or gearing up to visit the family during the upcoming holidays, now is the perfect time to find a book to help you kill the time during your travels. But why not get something more out of your reading?
Education Books - Best Sellers - Books - Nov. 9, 2014
When you purchase an independently ranked book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Best Sellers Symbol Key Up in Rank since last week Down in Rank since last week If a book is not in a rank since the previous week, it will not have an arrow. The last few titles on the list known as the extended list, never have arrows. An asterisk indicates that a book's sales are barely distinguishable from those of the book above it.
Mapmaking using Reddit, OKCupid, Twitter, and other social media websites.
The boundaries of many communities were created by fiat or accident—or both. The United States and the USSR split Korea on the 38th parallel because that line stood out on a map in an officer’s National Geographic. Earlier that same month, Germany was divided into zones of occupation that reflected, more than anything else, whose troops were standing where at the time.
Mapmaking using Reddit, OKCupid, Twitter, and other social media websites.
Adapted from Dataclysm: Who We Are When We Think No One’s Looking by Christian Rudder. Out now from Crown Publishers. One of the beautiful things about digital data, besides its sheer volume, is that it has both physical and social dimensions. A piece of paper has two axes, space-time has four. String theory predicts that our physical existence requires somewhere between 10 and 26 dimensions. Our emotional universe surely has that many and more.
Why You Should Put Less Effort Into Your Online-Dating Messages
Users on OkCupid exchange about 4 million messages a day. Of course, they do so with a special purpose — dating — but the interface provides no specific prompt and enforces no limit on what or how much anyone types. Think of it as Gmail for strangers: the communication on the site is about two people getting to know each other; the romance comes much later, offline.
Education Books - Best Sellers - Books - Oct. 12, 2014
When you purchase an independently ranked book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Best Sellers Symbol Key Up in Rank since last week Down in Rank since last week If a book is not in a rank since the previous week, it will not have an arrow. The last few titles on the list known as the extended list, never have arrows. An asterisk indicates that a book's sales are barely distinguishable from those of the book above it.
Online Dating Stats Reveal A 'Dataclysm' Of Telling Trends
Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking) by Christian Rudder Hardcover, 300 pages | purchase close overlay Buy Featured Book TitleDataclysmSubtitleWho We Are (When We Think No One's Looking)AuthorChristian RudderYour purchase helps support NPR programming. How? OkCupid co-founder Christian Rudder is a man obsessed with data.
We Experiment On Human Beings!
I’m the first to admit it: we might be popular, we might create a lot of great relationships, we might blah blah blah. But OkCupid doesn’t really know what it’s doing. Neither does any other website. It’s not like people have been building these things for very long, or you can go look up a blueprint or something. Most ideas are bad. Even good ideas could be better. Experiments are how you sort all this out. Like this young buck, trying to get a potato to cry.
How Your Race Affects The Messages You Get – The OkCupid Blog
Welcome back, dorks. We’ve processed the messaging habits of over a million people and are about to basically prove that, despite what you might’ve heard from the Obama campaign and organic cereal commercials, racism is alive and well. It would be awesome if other big websites would go out on a limb and release their own race data, too. I can’t imagine they will: multi-million dollar enterprises rarely like to admit that the people generating those millions act like turds.
Your Looks and Your Inbox – The OkCupid Blog
This week we will confront an unfortunate truth of online dating: no matter how much time you spend polishing your profile, honing your IM banter, and perfecting your message introductions, it’s your picture that matters most. We’re going to look at how your photos affect both the messages you get and how successful your own outgoing messages are. We all know that beautiful people are more successful daters, but let’s quantify by exactly how much.
Exactly What To Say In A First Message – The OkCupid Blog
Ok, here’s the experiment. We analyzed over 500,000 first contacts on our dating site, OkCupid. Our program looked at keywords and phrases, how they affected reply rates, and what trends were statistically significant. The result: a set of rules for what you should and shouldn’t say when introducing yourself. Online dating advice at its best. Let’s go: Netspeak, bad grammar, and bad spelling are huge turn-offs. Our negative correlation list is a fool’s lexicon: ur, u, wat, wont, and so on.
Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex – The OkCupid Blog
Gay issues have been in the news a lot lately, from the debate over same-sex marriage in Congress to a sickening rash of gay-bashing here in New York City. We see a lot of emotion out there, instead of information, and we wanted to provide some data-based context on sexuality so that people might make better choices about what they say, think, and do. We run a massive dating site and therefore have unparalleled insight into sex and relationships. Here's what we've found, in numbers and charts.
The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures
Hello, old friends. I am back from dark months of data mining, here now to present my ores. To write this piece, we cataloged over 7,000 photographs on OkCupid.com, analyzing three primary things: Facial Attitude. Is the person smiling? Staring straight ahead? Doing that flirty lip-pursing thing? Photo Context. Is there alcohol? Is there a pet? Is the photo outdoors? Is it in a bedroom? Skin. How much skin is the person showing? How much face? How much breasts? How much ripped abs?
Your Looks and Your Inbox
This week we will confront an unfortunate truth of online dating: no matter how much time you spend polishing your profile, honing your IM banter, and perfecting your message introductions, it’s your picture that matters most. We’re going to look at how your photos affect both the messages you get and how successful your own outgoing messages are. We all know that beautiful people are more successful daters, but let’s quantify by exactly how much.
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