[onion2k]

Does "big data" style network graph analysis of people's social circles actually work to find people to date? Is there any evidence that the analysis bit of online dating does anything to promote successful relationships? Would simply showing people a randomised list of single people in their vicinity work just as well? I'd love it to be true that it's possible to work out an approximate level of compatibility using available data, but I've never seen any real evidence that it works. Undoubtedly online dating works; plenty of people find someone to date online. But pretty much 100% of the time it's down to the photo and the messages sent rather than anything in the user's profile (based on anecdotal evidence of myself and many friends).

Interestingly, KRUSH could actually test their algorithm for this really easily - just measure whether people message matches more often when they've rated the two people as compatible. Unfortunately you'd have to not show people their compatibility scores though otherwise you might be influencing the likelihood of someone sending a message, which presumably would devalue the perception of the product for users.

[krush]

Thanks for taking the time to articulate this :) I just responded to lun4r about why the proximity-based model doesn't work in the East.

We're not sure if there is evidence that "big data" style network graph analysis of people's social circles works. But what we do know is that a lot of relationships materialize between friends of friends offline.

Having said that, we used that as the germ of an idea for Krush. We have some way to go before the algorithms are satisfactorily refined, but hopefully Krush will be "the evidence" that you're talking about.

Stay tuned!! :)

[onion2k]

Interestingly, and probably because I'm a liberal, white Westerner, I hadn't even considered the impact prejudices (social class, race, religion, etc) make on who you might want to date. I just assumed that everyone who meets a few criteria and lives close by would be an option. To that end, an app makes a lot of sense.

But at the same time, maybe using an app will reinforce those prejudices, and that might not really be such a good thing.

[krush]

Point taken.

The Indian market is saturated with matrimonial services and there are no serious players in the casual dating market. Having said that, for now, we're focussing on giving people what they want :)