OKCupid
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
OKCupid is a social networking and online dating service, founded by The Humor Rainbow, Inc, which uses statistics based on weighted questions (some of which are member-submitted) to determine likely match percentages with other members.
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[edit] About
OKCupid's primary purpose is to serve as a matching service. OKCupid markets itself through boasting its matching technique, which it claims is markedly different from similar online services, and improves match results.
Advertisements support the matching service and community, which are provided free to members, along with the large number of member-submitted quizzes and questions. (According to the OKCupid Web site, there are more than 21,000 user-created quizzes and more than 2,000 user-created questions in the system as of June 2006.)
In 2005 OKCupid introduced a donation system through which members can receive extra benefits, which include an increased mailbox size and the removal of advertisements for set periods of time. The Web site also extends benefits to longtime or active users (e.g. members who have answered at least 500 questions can write their own questions for other members to answer).
[edit] History
The service was founded by Humor Rainbow, Inc. The founders of the site were all students at Harvard University when Chris Coyne, Sam Yagan, Max Krohn, and Eli Bolotin gained fame and notoriety with the creation of TheSpark and, later, Sparknotes. Eventually, they sold these sites to Barnes & Noble, and three of the members — Sam, Max, and Chris — came back to try again. Together with Christian Rudder from TheSpark, they founded The Humor Rainbow, Inc. and designed OKCupid. Currently, the OKCupid staff consists of seven people.
[edit] Traffic
These numbers, unless otherwise specified, are as of August 11, 2005:
- In January 2005, 90,000 unique users with accounts signed in (a statistic to track new growth, not including old users who joined and left).
- In December 2005, 250,000 unique users with accounts signed in.
- The site sees around 1,000,000 e-mails sent per month among users, and around 4,000,000 instant messages.
- The average number of users online regularly exceeds 2,000 and remains above 700 during off-morning hours in the United States.
- Total site page views around 3,000,000 per day.
[edit] Technical
The Web site makes advanced use of the client-side JavaScript scripting language to generate dynamic distribution graphs. In addition, it uses its own Web server, OKWS [1], which was designed for fast, high-load Web services, including its own instant messaging system.
