> Is it any coincidence that the blog stopped around the same time they were acquired? It served its purpose and ran its course. They're done innovating in the space. We'll have to let startups lead the next wave of innovation in online dating.
First, I used to work on the OkTrends team, but I'm speaking for myself, not on behalf of OkCupid.
OkTrends didn't shut down after the acquisition - in fact, they made two posts afterwards (one several months afterwards). The fact that they haven't posted much recently has more to do with the available staff.
It takes a LOT of work to make those posts. The research for "The Real Stuff White People Like" took me a month and a half of working full-time on that and not much else. (Remember that it's "easy" to solve a problem when you define the problem at the start, but with OkTrends, we weren't always starting with a specific problem - each post began as one idea, and then went through multiple iterations before we hit on the "real" question we wanted to answer.).
Around that time, there were three of us working on OkTrends, two of us full-time and the third more-or-less full-time. Once the two full-timers left (for reasons unrelated to the acquisition - I went back to school to finish my degree), you can see why it became much harder to work on those posts.
And before someone says that they could just hire someone else - yes, perhaps, but that's harder than it looks. Data scientist positions are already one of the most difficult to hire for (from a startup perspective), and OkCupid also sets the bar incredibly high. To date, I think that was probably my most intensive and comprehensive interview experience.
Trust me, I give the OkCupid folks crap about this every time I see them (particularly my old boss), because I'd love to see more posts too. But don't think the timing of the hiatus has anything to do with the acquisition; it's truly coincidental. Many startups stop innovating after they're acquired - OkCupid is definitely not one of them.
To be fair, from what I recall while I was there, the blog was also instead of paying for a PR firm and having Sam going on morning talk shows that didn't really hit our demographic or help our growth much. So once we got bought the need for it did decrease a lot.
I heard there is a book containing a lot of similar information coming out though.
Thanks for the detailed comment. It's interesting to hear from someone who worked on the OkTrends team. I'm still unconvinced that the reason they didn't start OKT back up is because they can't find some people like Chris Rudder or Chris Coyne to help. I found this excerpt interesting from a Quora article:
We had Christian Rudder writing the blog. Yes, he studied math at Harvard, but the math on OkTrends was high school level. And with a lot of statistical hand-waving and over-simplification. His posts were great because he's such an amazing writer, not because he's awesome at math. (He's certainly the best writer I know.)
Many startups stop innovating after they're acquired - OkCupid is definitely not one of them.
Can you elaborate on this? What innovation have they done since they were acquired by IAC, discounting Crazy Blind Date? I've used better mobile apps for dating than CBD, that app didn't work for me.
Perhaps, instead of bringing someone in to crunch their numbers and look for interesting correlations--they might rather be willing to license their data out to some think-tank or newspaper/magazine or something, who would do that analysis for its own (readership's) sake?
There was a site, I can't find it now, that had the anonymized question data for sale but I think it was $20K or in that ballpark. Also I think they do license the data to universities upon request. E.g. siepr.stanford.edu/system/files/shared/Piskorski-SIEPR.pdf
First, I used to work on the OkTrends team, but I'm speaking for myself, not on behalf of OkCupid.
OkTrends didn't shut down after the acquisition - in fact, they made two posts afterwards (one several months afterwards). The fact that they haven't posted much recently has more to do with the available staff.
It takes a LOT of work to make those posts. The research for "The Real Stuff White People Like" took me a month and a half of working full-time on that and not much else. (Remember that it's "easy" to solve a problem when you define the problem at the start, but with OkTrends, we weren't always starting with a specific problem - each post began as one idea, and then went through multiple iterations before we hit on the "real" question we wanted to answer.).
Around that time, there were three of us working on OkTrends, two of us full-time and the third more-or-less full-time. Once the two full-timers left (for reasons unrelated to the acquisition - I went back to school to finish my degree), you can see why it became much harder to work on those posts.
And before someone says that they could just hire someone else - yes, perhaps, but that's harder than it looks. Data scientist positions are already one of the most difficult to hire for (from a startup perspective), and OkCupid also sets the bar incredibly high. To date, I think that was probably my most intensive and comprehensive interview experience.
Trust me, I give the OkCupid folks crap about this every time I see them (particularly my old boss), because I'd love to see more posts too. But don't think the timing of the hiatus has anything to do with the acquisition; it's truly coincidental. Many startups stop innovating after they're acquired - OkCupid is definitely not one of them.