Backtesting eHarmony

John Tierney (who I really should read more often) has an amusing story about the online matchmaking service eHarmony. He and his wife tested the site by registering separately to see if it would match the two of them. It didn't. So the question is whether eHarmony is flawed or whether is marriage is (in the long term).

Steve Hsu has a wry take on the issue:

What Tierney doesn't seem to understand is that, under almost any algorithm for matching (including the "correct" algorithm that would predict happiness in his case), it is highly unlikely that the wife he found is actually optimal.  Within a 10 mile radius (in NYC) there are dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of better matches he unfortunately never met. It's unromantic but true that chance played a bigger role in his marriage choice than optimality.

He also wonders what the emergence of social networks and online dating sites means for the future of relationships:

On a related note, I wonder whether social networking and online dating are gradually increasing the overall quality of marriages. It seems much easier to meet compatible partners than it was in the pre-Internet dark ages.

Maybe, or maybe they'll reduce friction and switching costs...

Comments

[free dating site]

What are some great dating tips for shy men when it comes to women?

[oakley uk]

The NYT offers a very cool interactive chart to visualize over 20 years of data from the box offices. It's definitely worth taking some time just playing around with it, entering in various movie titles to see what their box office like looks like.

[ray ban]

Here's something that struck me: In the search bar, find the representations of Top Gun, Crocodile Dundee, Fatal Attraction and Rain Man. Look at how long each of those spent in the theater. They had runs that went on for several months, with relatively little variation from week to week.

[pandora sale]

it is highly unlikely that the wife he found is actually optimal. Within a 10 mile radius (in NYC) there are dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of better matches he unfortunately never met. It's unromantic but true that chance played a bigger role in his marriage choice than optimality.

[sheepskin ugg]

it is highly unlikely that the wife he found is actually optimal. Within a 10 mile radius (in NYC) there are dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of better matches he unfortunately never met. It's unromantic but true that chance played a bigger role in his marriage choice than optimality.

[authentic ugg]

John Tierney (who I really should read more often) has an amusing story about the online matchmaking service eHarmony. He and his wife tested the site by registering separately to see if it would match the two of them. It didn't. So the question is whether eHarmony is flawed or whether is marriage is (in the long term).

[uggs boots clearance]

Within a 10 mile radius (in NYC) there are dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of better matches he unfortunately never met. It's unromantic but true that chance played a bigger role in his marriage choice than optimality.

[ティンバーランド]

京都府の担当者も「処理の実働部隊となる市町村に受け入れを要請する際の国の基準が不明確で、検討する予定はない」としており、まずは国基準をさらに明確化する必要があると主張。滋賀県も、県内の全１９市町が「受け入れ困難」としているため、県としても検討していないという。

　ティンバーランドまた、近畿で唯一、広域連合に加盟していない奈良県の担当者も「県民の理解や感情論を考えると現状では難しい」と話している。