When Facebook was found to be tampering with its users' news feed for the sake of experimentation, many other social-network based companies came under watch. Like OKCupid for example, which explored the compatibility of its users.
"If you use the Internet, you're the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That's how websites work," wrote OKCupid president Christian Rudder in a company blog post on Monday.
All of the users of the website were involved in three experiments without even knowing it.
The first experiment tested the "blind date" feature supported by OKCupid. By deleting all profile pictures on the first day of its launch, the experiment showed that communication worked better without photos. The numbers were: 44 percent of users likelier to respond, exchanging contact information quickly with others. When the profile pictures were brought back, 2,200 conversations ended abruptly.
"The goodness was gone, in fact, worse than gone. It was like we'd turned on the bright lights at the bar at midnight," wrote Rudder.
The second experiment analyzed the results of a poll where they found that most users believed personality and looks were of equal value. They proved this to be wrong by deleting some of the users text bios and found that people still sent messages to users with pictures only, while text bio's only constituted less than 10% of their decision.
"So, your picture is worth that fabled thousand words, but your actual words are worth...almost nothing," Rudder explained.
The final experiment evaluated the influence of "match percentage" in one's decision and found that users sent their first messages to those they were better compatible with.
"OkCupid doesn't really know what it's doing. Neither does any other website... Experiments are how you sort all this out." Said Rudder, defending the network.
