I watched the video ‘How i hacked online dating’ by Amy Webb (Ted 2014). Amy was in a life situation where she was ready to settle down and in essence find her life partner, the problem was based on her calculations of finding her ideal partner there appeared to be a slim success rate. She was based in Philadelphia, which has a population of 1.5 million people (Webb), through certain criteria which needed to be met Amy narrowed her ideal partners down to 35 people out of 1.5 million. Based on the 0dd of bumping into one of these 35, which is very low, Amy ventured onto online dating.
The online data sites use algorithms which uses the user data entered, for example their hobbies, and matches them to user who have the same/ similar answers. Amy’s experience of the matches the algorithms provided was not pleasant as the dates she had with the users suggested were all unsuccessful. The algorithms were doing the job they were designed for, however human error presented a flaw in the data, as humans are prone to not be 100% about themselves. Furthermore Amy believed the types of questions being asked such as ‘Are you a dog or cat person’ were questions to find your ideal pen pal and not a life partner. In attempt to bypass the the sites algorithms based which she believed was based on ‘superficial information’ she decided to reverse engineer the system.
By Amy reverse engineering the system she was able to collect the data she needed to be matched with her ideal partner, she did this through providing preferences to the characteristics she was looking for in her ideal man. Once this list was completed she set a scoring system which users had to match up to and then a data could be had etc. This allowed her to be matched with more preferable candidates, however the variable of her competition was not taken into account, and as such she decided to collect data on her competition, she did this by creating a number of fake male profiles. The data collected allowed her to create a ‘super profile’. The following is the criteria which is needed:
- 90 words (ish) on the about you section
- Non specific language to be used
- Not using superficial data
- optimising language use
This shows the power of data, effective use can enable a person to identify their potential life partner systematically. Whats more using this data effectively can allow individuals to attract their ideal partners, by understanding the information the more popular people are using and the style in which they are presenting it.