WEBVTT - Love: There's An App For That 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.960 Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from dot 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:15.800 com either and welcome to text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:19.160 and today I have a special guest host, Alison louder Milk, 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:23.280 wu's editor extraordinary here in Hell Stuff Works dot Com. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.159 Thank you very much, Donathan. I love that introp So 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.040 I'm glad now those of you who have been listening 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:33.240 to How Stuff Works podcast for a while will recognize 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.639 Allison's voice. She's an old hand at podcasting. Though you've 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:38.960 taken a nice long hiatus, I have that. It's a 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:41.479 pleasure to be here today. Yeah, fantastic, And so I 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:45.320 asked Allison what she would like to talk about. When 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.040 she agreed that, you know, she jump on and be 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:51.120 a guest. I give my guests the opportunity to pick 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.800 if they want to. And you jokingly suggested an app 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:58.240 called Cuddler, And while that was a joke, it led 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:02.120 to the actual choice of this episode, which goes beyond Cuddler. 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:04.680 But we will talk about that right, right, right, We 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:06.000 were talking about it in the break room and the 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.679 fascination that was Cuddler. Yeah, yeah, there's kind of a 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:12.480 horrid fascination for a lot of us here and how 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:17.120 stuff works. Who have very specific parameters, uh, within which 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.640 we welcome that kind of personal interaction, and when it's 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.960 outside those parameters, we get a little wigged out by it, 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.720 but we'll get there. So we decided we wanted to 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:31.720 talk about how the Internet has become an incredible tool 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.240 for people to first meet each other in the online 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:39.720 space or the digital space, and then event eventually transition 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:42.720 that into meeting in real life. And a lot of 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.320 what we're going to talk about today is focused on dating, 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:49.919 but that's not exclusively what we're going to talk about. 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.200 But it turns out that's a that's a big part 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.520 and has been a big part of the Internet since 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.520 the Internet became a thing that most of us got 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.480 access to. Yes, do you have any kind of early 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.320 memories of some emails you sent, maybe to a lady 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:06.760 you were interested in, or well, there's a there's a 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:10.000 lady that I was very much interested in, a lady 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.680 who I'm still very much interested in because she's my wife. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.880 I met her in a chat room online, Yeah, a 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.320 tell net chat room, so not even a web based one. 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.960 In fact, when I met my wife, the web was 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.000 new to me, Like I had not even used a browser. Uh. 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.360 I had seen other people on a browser, and I thought, well, 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.160 that looks really interesting. But I was jumping into chat 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.480 rooms just chatting about anything really and she and I 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.040 hit it off, and we ended up, uh, corresponding quite 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:41.320 a bit, and then we met in person, and then 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.520 we started dating, and then she moved to Georgia, and 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.120 then we got engaged, and then we got married. And 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:52.079 seventeen years later, here we are so early story of 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:54.960 using the Internet to do exactly what we're talking about. 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:58.560 So I have personal experience here, but you know, we've 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:00.960 seen the people use the Internet for all sorts of 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.800 things along those lines. And here's an interesting statistic I found. 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:09.000 According to the American National Academy of Sciences, which did 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.079 a survey back in two thousand thirteen, more than thirty 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.080 three of all people who got married in the United 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.760 States between two thousand five and two thousand twelve met 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.560 their spouse online. Yeah. That's a large swath of people. Yeah, 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:26.000 more than a third of all of all married couples 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:29.520 first met online, well married couples from two thousand five 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.400 to two thousand and twelve. And that's incredible to me. 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.680 I mean, I remember when I started dating my wife, 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:41.200 that was considered unusual. Yeah, we all have friends who've 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:43.480 met online, and I was kind of a novelty back 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.960 in the day. I remember thinking, you know, one of 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:49.040 my very dear friends met her husband on match dot com, 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.600 and I was a little wary, like, but it's it's 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.920 pretty it's pretty normal now normal if I when when 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.520 more than a third, you know, it's quickly becoming as 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.880 normal as other method of meeting people and getting to 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:05.520 know someone and dating them. And uh, yeah, for me, 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.960 it was it was outside the norm both because one 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:09.840 the Internet was so new, and too that I was 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.480 getting a date, so it was multiple outside the norms. 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.839 But uh, I read a CNN article which was not 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.760 entirely helpful because they reported that a survey which was 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:24.920 unnamed in the article, so that by two thousand nine 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:29.480 of all same sex couples reported meeting online first, and 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:33.279 about half of all married couples who met online did 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.960 so through dating sites. So in order for us to 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.120 really talk about it, we're gonna be looking a lot 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:42.120 at dating sites early on in this episode and what 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.840 they do and how they do it. So across platforms, 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.200 about eleven percent of Internet users have said they've used 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.440 an online dating site, and across cell phone users, about 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:54.880 seven percent have used a dating app on their phones, 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:57.000 and it seems like it's going more in that direction, 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.799 although if you look at it from a stock market 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.839 type perspective, it's still the online dating sites that are kicking, 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.160 but in terms of market share and actually making revenue, 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.560 and that that comes from a two thousand thirteen report 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.479 from the Pew Research Internet Project. And what's also interesting 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:16.400 is that it just continues to get more segmented, right, 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.720 so you have you know, Jonathan, maybe you and I 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:20.720 were first interested in this, but now it's our parents, 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.520 and now it's more niche markets to oh sure, yeah, 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:28.400 So we're seeing lots of of services and sites pop 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:32.680 up that are catering to very specific demographics. Right, So 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.440 you might see one that's catering specifically to uh, to 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.400 the baby boomer boomer generation, or some that are obviously 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.040 based just on the experience, geared towards folks who are 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.240 more in the college age range or uh. You know, 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.520 there are a ton of different variations on this. So there, 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.159 of course some sites that try to be all things 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:55.920 to all people, and then we're seeing a lot more 0:05:56.480 --> 0:06:00.000 of these that are kind of tailor made for specific demographics. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:01.839 It was funny. I was talking to a coworker who 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:05.400 just signed up her mom last night for I think 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.359 it was called Our World or My World. Her sixty 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:10.360 three year old mom was like, Hey, can you help 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:14.520 me get on some of these dating sites? And she said, okay, Mom, Yeah. 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.560 I mean again, that might sound unusual to us, in 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.840 particular not to put a number to our ages, but 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.600 Alison and I both can remember a time when the 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:29.240 Internet wasn't really a thing that we access um, So 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.960 it's certainly something that's still there's still elements of it 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.880 that are kind of unusual to us, but it's becoming 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:40.200 increasingly normal to the younger generations because they grew up 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:42.839 with this, And you know, why not have this be 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.640 a tool to to meet people and to try and 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:48.520 match yourself up with people who are sharing the same 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.159 sort of interest that you do and thus potentially find 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:54.400 someone with whom you're going to be really compatible with. 0:06:55.120 --> 0:07:00.279 You mentioned before that this is a big industry. You know, 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.880 you talked about a lot of how how many people 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:06.440 on the Internet had used a site, and you mentioned 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.040 that you know, there's there's real money to be made here. 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:13.640 But let's get to some real figures, right, So there 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:15.560 is some serious money to be made here. I was 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.720 reading a report from IBIS World looks like some sort 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.000 of industry research type of report at two thousand fourteen, 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:24.640 and the authors were estimating that it's about a two 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.920 billion dollar market dating services in the US. So that's 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.680 the broader context. And within that, of course, online is 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:32.480 going to be you know, a slice of that, and 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:36.400 that slice is about so one point four billion is 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.520 what we're talking about now, and I can only see 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.880 that growing. Yeah, yeah, I agree, And we're seeing it 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:46.880 grow in interesting ways too. Whereas the desktop online dating 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.080 sites are still very much a thing, we're seeing an 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:53.080 explosion of this kind of stuff in the mobile space, 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.600 both mobile apps that are tied into an existing online 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.320 dating site and those that are its own experience ends. 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.800 And we'll talk about some of those two. And uh, 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:08.040 it's not it's not just that's big business, but for 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:11.120 the consumer, as in the person who's looking for a date, 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:15.360 it turns out to make sense financially too, right, So 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.000 this is pretty interesting. Um I. And another report um 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.920 from the Topeka Capital Markets that was again like two thousand, 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:26.320 fourteen or so. Um, they found that it was cheaper. Right, 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.000 So you're paying for your subscription to your online site, 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:32.559 but what you're looking at, according to this report, is 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:36.280 about a twenty three dollar tab before you finally wind 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:41.600 up making a match of your dreams. Yeah, so these 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.280 guys are saying that if you pay your subscription of 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:46.959 you know, maybe two d or some dollars, you're gonna 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.240 wind up with cost savings, like in a thousands of dollars. 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.160 So so online dating makes sense to your wallet, Yeah, 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.320 because it means that what what it means is that 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.760 while you're in pursuit of finding this person who's going 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.800 to compatible with you, you can do a lot of 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:08.040 that early work online as opposed to meeting people in places, 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:12.160 going out to take people out to to, you know, whatever, 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.520 a dinner or a movie or whatever, even if everyone's 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:16.600 paying for their own thing. Obviously, all of that stuff 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.360 starts to mount up, and not every date turns out 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:21.520 to be a success. Sometimes you realize, oh, you know, 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:25.160 this person is really nice, but we're not really clicking things. Yeah, 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.319 there's no spark there, and so yeah, I could I 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.760 could definitely see this. I am personally very thankful for 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.520 the money that the Internet has saved me in that sense. 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:40.559 So looking more closely at what's going on with these 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:43.160 dating sites, like how they work, you actually have to 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.200 go all the way back to nineteen sixty five. Now, 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.680 clearly I'm not talking about an Internet dating service that 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.800 far back, because that's pre Internet. We're talking arpennet days 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.480 back then. But ninety five was before the era of 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.760 the personal computer. We didn't even have PCs yet. But 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:05.600 a Harvard undergraduate named Jeff Tar was working on this idea. 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:07.840 He had come up with a notion. He noticed that 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.840 a lot of other Harvard undergraduate graduates were talking about 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.960 finding it difficult to find a date, like it's just 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.319 hard to go out and meet people that were compatible. 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.280 And he thought, hmm, there are these computer things that 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.480 crunched numbers really well. And he was he was a 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:27.079 math major, uh, and he he got to work with computers, 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.440 but he didn't really understand programming. At this point, they said, 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:32.000 you know, there are these computers that are really good 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:36.280 at number crunching. If we were to reduce the personality, 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:41.000 uh preferences of people to numbers, then a computer could 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:45.679 theoretically start matching people who have the most similar responses 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:47.600 to a survey. So that's why he did. He developed 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:52.960 a survey, gave it to tons of his classmates, and 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:57.040 he essentially relied on the second person to create a 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.960 computer program that would match up these were ponses, and 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:05.520 he rented time on one of the enormous computers at Harvard. 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:07.440 I think it was like a hundred dollars a day 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:09.760 or something in order for him to rent the time 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:12.760 on this machine. It might have even been higher than that, 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:17.720 but it was a wild success. People loved the idea 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:20.800 of being able to use a machine to take out 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:23.960 the guesswork of trying to find that perfect person. In fact, 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.880 there was one report of a young lady who was 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:32.040 matched up with her ex boyfriend and got back with 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:35.360 him because the computer told her to. So that we 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:37.880 started to act like the computer was like the oracle 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:42.280 and that we must obey the machine. Uh. But you 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.640 know again, it kind of showed a couple of different 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.400 things that showed how people really wanted to find someone 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:49.960 who was compatible. And it also showed that there was 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:54.080 this reverence for computers because they were objects a myth 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:56.880 and legend to most people back in the sixties, they 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.560 didn't have the experience with computers that we do today. 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:01.960 Once you've gone through a few blue screens of death, 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:05.360 you realize they're not infallible machines. But at any rate, 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:09.120 if you flash forward to the nineteen nineties, by then 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:12.920 you had had some computer dating services uh competing in 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.640 the United States. But now we see the rise of 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:18.520 the Internet, especially with the World Wide Web. The Internet 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:20.240 had been around, but the World Wide Web was what 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.760 made it accessible, and uh so you've got those earliest 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:27.240 days of regular folks getting access to it, and the 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:31.360 connectivity opened up the opportunity for meeting new people that 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.559 you might never have ever encountered in your life otherwise. 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.199 So we've got an article actually on how Stuffworks dot 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:42.199 Com about how online dating works. So it'll cover all 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.120 the basics. But if anyone has ever done any browsing 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.920 on an online dating site, you know typically what they're about. 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:53.920 It's usually you you create a profile, probably include a picture. Absolutely, 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.680 you probably include the best pictures you possibly can to 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.840 present yourself in the best light possible professional head shot. 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.000 Then you are going to fill out a profile that 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.200 includes a lot of your preferences, things that you enjoy 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:10.600 things that you're you're not into. It might be things, 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:14.640 yeah I'm a non smoker, that kind of stuff. Political affiliation, 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.400 it could be is, and it really depends upon the site. 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:21.120 Like some sites, that's true. Also, are you are you 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:23.040 into pets? Do you like pets? Do you like kids, 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:25.679 you're not like kids? Do you want to have kids? 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.199 Do you already have kids? These are all the sorts 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:31.360 of questions that you would put it there, and then 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:34.640 when you go for a search, then you can say 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:39.319 which parameters you consider to be the most important, like say, uh, 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:41.920 they need their age needs to fall within this range, 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:43.520 or I'm not going to have anything in common with 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:46.360 this person, or height is a big one. Height is 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:47.880 a big one. I read that b m I in 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:51.360 regards to men looking for women was a big factor. Yeah, yeah, 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:54.240 I think it was around like eighteen point five percent. 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:56.880 Was one figure sided like they like women with that 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:00.760 sort of b m I, which is ridiculous. Well, now 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:04.079 there's a whole other discussion we could have about expectations 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:08.920 and realism. But at any rate, one of the interesting 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:14.440 things I found was that we don't necessarily know what 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:16.719 it is we're looking for when we're looking for it 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.200 nor or we may we may have a suspicion, but 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:22.520 we may not be honest about it when we're doing 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:26.120 our search. For example, let's say that I put in 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:28.600 there that I really want to meet someone who's really 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.760 interested in reading, but it turns out that there are 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:33.920 other factors that I think are way more important. But 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.200 I'm trying to present myself as someone who is an 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:41.640 intellectual and therefore value this. Some online dating sites can 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.760 figure out when you're fibbing, because it's your behavior that 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:49.400 tells the site what you're really into. Because if I 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:53.240 start going through profiles and I'm spending less than a 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:55.680 couple of seconds on them, and I'm zooming through them 0:14:55.680 --> 0:15:00.120 really quickly, the the online dating stars can log all 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.800 that and say, all right, well, we gave him the 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.200 matches based upon what he said he wanted, but he 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.200 totally breathed through them all so except this one. He 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:10.160 spent a couple of months looking at this one. So 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:13.680 really he's looking more for what this person represents rather 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.120 than what he says he represents. And as more and 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.080 more data gets accumulated, the more people who use the site, 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:24.200 the dating site algorithms adjust themselves and start showing you 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.520 what you really want, even if you're not aware that 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.880 that's what you want to you. Yeah, which is kind 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:33.640 of weird. I mean, we've talked on tech stuff many 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.920 times about how it only takes a little data to 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.520 give a system a great idea of who you are 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.120 as a person, but it even is true in the 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:48.080 dating world. There's also approach called collaborative filter filtering. This 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:52.520 is where a system will organize people into large groups 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.760 just based on preferences which might not even be obvious 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:59.600 from the outside. So, all right, so let's say we've 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.760 we've at a population of like ten thousand people and 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:06.080 they've all created profiles. The algorithm will start to find 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.640 commonalities between those people that again, if you were just 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.080 to look at the profiles as a human being, you 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:14.320 might not even be able to pick out which things 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:18.320 they have in common. But because we're talking about sites 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.520 that have access to such huge amounts of data and 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:25.440 can run all these different types of comparisons against one another, 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:29.360 it makes perfect sense to the algorithm, which is kind 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.000 of creepy in a way when you think about it, 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.400 because it ultimately starts to divide people into large groups 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.000 and it suggests that there are a limited number of 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.480 groups that people fall into. In other words, it's kind 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.560 of like thinking about horoscopes. I don't like the idea 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.480 of a horoscope because it suggests that there are only 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.600 twelve types of people in the world, right, I mean, 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:53.360 if you if you leap to that, if you say, 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:57.880 my horoscope for today is, etcetera, that means that roughly 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:00.200 one twelfth of the world's population is going to have 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.040 the same sort of day I'm going to have, which 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:05.680 doesn't make sense. But these systems actually show that that's 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:07.760 not that far off from the truth in the sense 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.000 that there a limited number of categories that you can 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:15.399 actually shove people into, and from at least a mathematic perspective, 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:20.000 it makes sense. It works. Yeah, so little creepy um, 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.000 But it turns out like that's not it's not always 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:27.560 just about the data, the personal data about yourself, right right. 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:31.199 So one really interesting thing that I found, um was 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.160 I happened to stumble upon a gentleman by the name 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:36.359 of Dan Arielli. I believe that's how you say his 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:38.720 last name. And he's over a duke, and he's a 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:42.880 professor of psychology and behavioral economics. By the way, behavioral 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:48.360 economics is so fascinating. So um Dan gave an interview 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.520 to the big thing, and what he was saying was right, 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:53.720 it's not all about the personal data. It's not about 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.879 the boxes you check or you know, your particular preferences. 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:00.920 And what he was postulating after he kind of browsed 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:05.080 online dating sites and found them significantly lacking, was that 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.600 it's more about your interaction with the person. That you 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:09.600 can tell a lot more about an interaction with a 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:13.240 person than by simply like knowing that you're eyes are 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:17.520 blue and you like cats and whatever it is about you. Right, 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.280 It's kind of like the difference between a resume and 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:24.080 a job interview. Absolutely, And so his idea is, let's 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:26.000 get away from the check boxes and let's set up 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.560 ways for people to interact. And so he set up 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.719 this website and it was basically you can pick an 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:33.760 avatar and just really simple. It wasn't like one of 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.600 these crazy avatars. It was maybe a triangle and a square, 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:40.639 there's some color in there. And then he basically put 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:44.439 like movies and images and words, and you kind of 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:48.359 move around and navigate and you talk to other avatars 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.000 as you encounter them, and so how all these encounters went, 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.639 which is set up like a better interaction for people 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:55.240 to meet each other and get to know each other 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.879 and have a successful date ultimately. Well, that's really cool 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.360 that the channel of that is that it kind of 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:06.040 requires a synchronous approach, meaning that both parties need to 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:08.840 be active at the same time, whereas we're seeing a 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:13.000 lot of communication online is asynchronous, right, the idea that 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:15.760 I can send you a message, Allison, and then you 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.600 respond to it when you have the availability when you 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:20.840 may not even notice that you have a message until 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:24.040 an hour later, and you respond and I might not 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:26.639 notice till three hours later. But we can continue to 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:31.760 have this communication, which is effective in many ways, but 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:36.159 it because, yeah, it's disjointed. It's it's you don't have 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.280 a continuous experience. It takes away a lot of that 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.119 spontaneity that you would have in a conversation with an 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.840 actual person in real time. So it's not that there's 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.919 no value in that type of communication. There certainly is. 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:51.679 And uh, and I love using all the tools that 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:56.119 have this asynchronous communication aspect to them, but uh, you know, 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.400 this approach, while it might be more effective than say, 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:04.399 just a a collection of profiles. It demands that you 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:08.320 have this you know, real time interaction with somebody, which 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:12.240 limits the number of people that you can presumably encounter 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.080 because it all depends on when both parties are available 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.840 to interact, right, So if you're available to interact at 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:21.360 the same time, I'm thinking that a synchronous interaction, I mean, 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:25.160 it just seems like it would be more effective, right 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.120 because you're talking to somebody who's in the same frame 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:29.159 of minded view. Sure, yeah, I mean, and there are 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.920 a lot of dating sites that have a message system 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:35.639 where you know, either it's like an instant message type 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.440 thing or something along those lines, where you can set 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.160 that sort of thing up if both parties are online, 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:45.040 but they don't, they don't depend upon that, right. That's 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.160 that's an added benefit to those sites. You could totally 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:53.520 have and asynchronous conversation with someone in a series of messages, 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:56.560 you know, back and forth between each other. But I 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.400 do think that ari elli is onto something. I think 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:02.760 Arie Ellie is right and that these kind of interactions 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:06.919 tend to have more value to them than the asynchronous type. 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:09.919 So he had a funny stat and what he was 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:14.320 suggesting with that online dating right is ineffective and inefficient. 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:16.320 And so one of the things that he said was 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:19.680 that about six hours of chat for one lousy coffee date. 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:22.840 I mean that's a lot of time invested. There's a 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:26.080 lot of time invested. Yeah, I mean it's And that's 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:29.879 the thing is that you can't expect every single interaction 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:32.119 to go well. In fact, we'll be talking about expectations 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:35.119 a lot in this episode. Uh, you know, the people 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.600 are people, and you may think going into something that 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:41.800 you're going to have this incredible interaction, which might just 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:45.879 be unrealistic expectations. Um, And that's just a human problem 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:47.840 that's been around forever. I mean that has nothing to 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:51.639 do necessarily with the Internet. It's or or these dating 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:55.719 apps and sites. The dating sites often create kind of 0:21:55.760 --> 0:22:01.000 a problem with this because they're built upon the promise 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.920 that their service will help you find someone special. So 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:09.959 it behooves them to kind of foster this image that 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:13.000 you are going to meet Mr or Mrs Wright just 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:16.719