Has social media rewritten the book of love? Today on the Morning Media Menu, GalleyCat editor Jason Boog spoke to author Dan Slater about his new book, “Love in the Time of Algorithms: What Technology Does to Meeting and Mating.”

Slater was 30 years old, single, and newly laid off from the Wall Street Journal when he decided to try online dating. “What I discovered was a common theme,” he said. “People seemed to be dating a lot more than they had in the past.”

His article on GQ about the origins of computer dating services led to a non-fiction book deal. Slater’s story balances the sociological and business sides of internet relationships, he said.

Explained the author: “Online dating is really just a niche in this larger world of Facebook, Twitter, Yelp…all these different social media sites that bring us all together.”

Press play below to hear more about the book, the ups and downs of internet dating, and tips for non-fiction writers on SoundCloud.

Click here to receive Mediabistro’s Daily Newsfeed via email. The show was hosted by GalleyCat editor Jason Boog. Music by Kevin MacLeod.

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So is there anything guys can do? Well, according to Flurry mobile analytics firm, they can ditch those Android phones:

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Combosaurus draws OkCupid’s 6 million dating profiles as well as data from Wikipedia, Goodreads, and Facebook to “suggest things you’ll like and people you should meet,” the website says. (Because Combosaurus belongs to the same company, using the data in this way does not count as sharing it with a third party; however, OkCupid also does that, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation.)

“While poring over OkCupid profiles on the hunt for meaningful data, we discovered that the connections between people and their favorite things made for a powerful search engine,” the website explains. OkCupid declined to provide further information.

Users rate and bookmark things to “teach Combosaurus and its users all about” them.

Kiss.com is a dating service that puts the users’ interests front and center. To create a profile, the user is asked to click on icons that represent interests, such as hiking, pop music and dogs. The user then chooses five interests to highlight as things he or she loves. Matches are made based on shared interests, rather than on the question-and-answer format OkCupid employs.

Kiss.com profiles also include online-dating standards like a brief self-description and a photo.

“12 million members can’t be wrong,” the website boasts, but it’s not clear what the number refers to. Kiss.com is only active for San Francisco (population 800,000). There are are about five OkCupid Labs employees working on the project.

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Asked if he’d ever had a fun blind date, Yagan said “Well, no, because they were set up by my mom.”

He’s betting that the blind date app his company launched today will prove that a machine algorithm can do better than users’ moms and nosy aunts at finding them a date.

Users who create an account using the app, Crazy Blind Date, are asked to provide their name, age, sexual preference, favorite spots and available free time. They submit a picture, but other uses see a Cubist-inspired fragmented rendering that can best be described as suggesting what the pictured romantic prospect might look like.

Users who link their Crazy Blind Date account to existing OkCupid accounts will benefit from the online dating site’s match ratings, which stem from users’ answers to dating-related questions and their rankings of other users. Users who don’t have an OkCupid account, or choose not to link it, will be dispatched to meet their blind dates based on little more than age and sexual preference.

“We think it’s the perfect complement to what we’re already doing. It really does what online dating applications have promised to do, which is get users out on real dates,” Yagan said.

After each date, users will be invited to review their dates, allowing the app to provide better matches next time, or at the very least see whether Crazy Blind Date reduces or increases the chance of being stood up.

“It takes the work out of it for the women and gives instant gratification for the men. Here there’s no excuse not to go out on a date every night of the week,” Yagan said.

His statement reflects feedback female and male users have given about using OkCupid to arrange a somewhat-less-blind date using its messaging system.

But isn’t scrambling the picture just cruel?

“We were trying to be true to the idea of a blind date,” Yagan said.

Of course, a photo with age and sexual orientation might have made the app dangerously similar to Grindr, which has earned a reputation for being little more than an anonymous hook-up app, or its heterosexual counterpart, Blendr, which hasn’t really taken off.

The scrambled photo aims to make the prospective date seem more real than a gray box would, hopefully reducing the risk for no-shows, Yagan said.

Crazy Blind Date is available for iOS and Android.

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But, even now, when housemates say they met online, they still mean they met through Craigslist.

That may be about to change: OKCupid is beta-testing a housemate-matching service on an undisclosed domain, according to co-founder and CEO Sam Yagan.
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Path Confirms Series B Funding From Redpoint, Richard Branson and Others (AllThingsD)
CEO Dave Morin noted the investors’ commitment to building Path “for the long term,” and said the funding would be used for “international growth and expansion as well as user adoption.” Inside Mobile Apps In February, Path revealed it has passed 2 million registered users, more than half of which had joined since the service relaunched in December as a personal journal app, pivoting from its original vision as a private photo-sharing service. GigaOM Ever since Facebook decided that Instagram was worth $1 billion, there has been recurring talk of Path, another social service being the next big buyout target. And while I am happy for the Path team, I find the comparisons with Instagram unfounded and premature. Business Insider Here’s what’s odd: RedPoint just invested in a startup that is in many ways very similar to Path: Caterina Fake’s new startup PinWheel. continued…

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Twitter Admits ‘Unfollowing Bug’ (The Telegraph)
The microblogging company has now admitted that there is a problem. A Twitter spokesman said: “This is a bug, and our team is working to fix it.” The bug is causing Twitter users to randomly unfollow people without account holders’ prior consent or knowledge. Twitter has advised affected people to visit its support page and go to fellow tweeters’ profile pages to check whether they are still following them or not. Cnet The site has finally acknowledged a glitch that’s causing people you follow to appear as if they’ve been unfollowed. Twitter is working on a fix but insists the bug only makes it seem like you’re no longer following someone. Clicking on the user’s actual profile page can confirm that you’re still a follower. Mashable Many Twitter users have long complained about the unfollowing problem, but it wasn’t officially acknowledged by the company until Wednesday. continued…

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Internet dating sites confuse me. Not logistically, I mean, but conceptually. Do people really think they’re going to find the wo/man of their dreams online? What happened to fate? What happened to the romantic serendipity of a happen-chance encounter on the subway or in a cafe? I’ve always thought it would happen like this: he’d see me from across the room. My hair would be blowing in the wind, and I’d be radiating angelic light – like when Tony spots Maria across the dance hall in West Side Story.

While I wait for my cinematic romance, thousands of more practical, level-headed people use social media dating sites to hook up. While Facebook tried to launch a “Matchmaker” application last month, it failed miserably, as Facebook reps quickly realized that – despite the site’s “social” quality – few people turn to Facebook looking for romance. Instead, the love-hungry turn to websites like Ashley Madison and Plenty of Fish.

Add to that list “Date Buzz,” a new social media website dedicated to connecting web- savvy romantics. “Vote on what you like and don’t like. We’ll connect the dots to find someone just right for you” boasts the site’s homepage. Date Buzz wants to remove the hassle of finding a partner, and instead, hand-deliver an interested partner to your doorstep – or in this case, to your profile’s inbox.

Here’s how Date Buzz works: you log on, create a profile, answer a bunch of questions, and the machine crunches some numbers and pops out a soulmate for you: a match made in computer heaven On Date Buzz, you don’t even have to go through the hassle of creating a profile. Simply sync your Date Buzz profile to your Facebook account and your profile information and pictures can be shared.

On the one hand, social media dating sites connect people that would’ve otherwise never met, acting as the middleman or matchmaker. On the other hand, how lazy and socially stunted are we becoming? We won’t even take the time to create an online profile, let alone go out to actually meet someone (in person, I mean).

While Date Buzz may play Cupid for thousands of people, I prefer to do my own socially connecting. Call me old-school, but I’ll stick to serendipity.

For more information on Date Buzz, visit their website.

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What do these lovely Hollywood starlets have in common? MEOW! They are call cougars. And should they become single in the near future, they have their own social network, Cougared.com. continued…

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