<![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, okcupid]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, okcupid]]> http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/okcupid http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/okcupid <![CDATA[OKCupid offers recession relief]]> It's official: "We're in a recession," begins the latest update from hipster dating site OKCupid. There's a lesson in messaging for marketers and salespeople everywhere: Yes, you're afraid, but you can still get laid. Now more than ever!

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<![CDATA[How a women-on-demand website saved OKCupid]]> When OKCupid, the site where Internet users too cool to date online date online, needed some fresh blood, founders Sam Yagan and Chris Coyne took a page from the sex business to stay afloat: dates on demand. Describing the premise of CrazyBlindDate.com, which matches users by location and a vague sense of mutual compatibility that has more to do with scheduling than anything, Yagan says:

"Men will look at this and say, 'Sweet; I can get a woman delivered to me. But for some women it'll seem creepy. This way they'll only need to bring half a canister of mace."

How many hookups did the site manage? By January, a few months after launch, Yagan and Coyne claimed 50 a night wasn't unusual. The real boon was a surge in OKCupid users — doubled with the influx of CrazyBlindDaters. Of course, unlike the sex biz, all of this matchmaking is without a pricetag. Yagan sees the company as having more in common with Facebook than pay-per-play Match.com, especially when it comes to the price point. "Facebook is a great site, and they don't charge. So what is a lame site like Match.com doing charging?"

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<![CDATA[Still a few bugs in OkCupid's system]]> The Web's most normal pool of singles, OkCupid, is so easy. I thought it a testament to their smart matching software that my ex-boy and I bumped into one another there regularly. That is, until I heard of a match made by an OkCupid bug that tried to hook up a well-behaved lady with a married guy she knows from work. Here's my bug report.

Married Guy was looking for a little adventure with or without his wife, who had approved the whole thing. He signed up at OkCupid, and got a teaser email with photos and opening profile quotes of a few available women in his area. He recognized one as Single Girl, a professional colleague of his wife. Out of curiosity, he clicked Single Girl's profile.

What he didn't realize was OkCupid notifies its members as to which other members have checked out their profiles. Single Girl, unbeknownst to Married Guy, found his profile in her inbox and realized omigod he's cheating on his wife what do I say to her? She had specified "no married men" in her preferences, so she presumed he had listed himself as single. He, on the other hand, presumed she was into married guys, since OkCupid sent him her profile. Cue mutual embarrassment.

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