Chemistry.com = epic fail?

A long time ago, in a dating galaxy far, far away from eHarmony…

…I filled out the Chemistry questionnaire and profile.

Sometime ago, I think about 6 months back, Chemistry.com started to offer free weekends, just like eHarmony, on roughly the same 6 week schedule. So, I figured, what the heck, I’ll give it a try. I gave it a try again, several times during each free weekend, the last one being this weekend.

During these free weekends, not one of them yielded a match going to their “open communication”. In fact, I think maybe at best, two matches ever responded.

In my opinion, Chemistry.com just doesn’t make the grade. It is overpriced compared to eHarmony when you look at multiple month memberships. The website is clunkier to use: first you have to “show interest”, then you have to actually click to send your first questions. Seriously?

They even recently overhauled their site and this was one of the things that got revised. Instead of using a “slider” to show how interested you are in a match, they seem to have three piles – yes, maybe and no. They sent me multiple e-mail messages about the “confusion” about this new change. Aside from revamping the appearance, it doesn’t look like they have fixed much in this overhaul.

Their matching algorithm is just as bad as Match.com. It is even worse when you consider their main advertising point is that it is supposed to be better and more targeted. For instance, the last few matches I’ve gotten are of a religion that I would accept in a match but when you look at their profile, they won’t consider someone of my religion. So, why are we being matched?

The list goes on and on. You can’t see matches that have shown interest in you as a non-subscriber or those that you have tried to communicate with. You can only see new matches, five at a time and you must review them before you get new matches.

I can not see why one would use their service in comparison to eH, especially if they continue to have the dwindling Quantcast numbers that I last recall seeing.

Does anyone who has actually paid to use Chemistry care to comment?

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Comments 10

Annoymous wrote:
Maybe we need to find people on our own or give up. I find it hard again to hear about how great eHarmony is when I now they rejected members, terminate then without due process. Of course Chemistry and Match may do the same. So what it is a lesser of two, three or four evils provided you are allow to play the game
Posted 06 Dec 2009 at 3:02 pm ¶
Fernando Ardenghi wrote:
I remember Dr. Fisher was contacted by the people of Match 5 years ago, during December 2004, to develop Chemistry.

Chemistry was live since 11th October 2005, and emerged from beta in 4th January 2006.

“As an anthropologist, using what I know about you, and me, and all the rest of us, I have designed a site that matches you not only by the standard means of similarity in background and good looks, but also by your chemistry.” Dr. Helen Fisher had said in a guest post at OnlineDatingPost last 5th January 2007.

I remember I had seen two draft papers from Chemistry:

The first clearly shows:
a) that Chemistry has a low successful “1.2.3 MEET in person step-by-step process”, low successful first meeting rate for its members.
b) its matching method only reported early stage attraction between prospective mates and after the first meeting; in some persons attraction reduces its level OR worse even, morphs/metamorphoses to rejection. i.e. it is working only for short_term_mating!!!

The second shows:
a) the high serotonin type (Builder) who is attracted to people like themselves and the high dopamine type (Explorer) who also is attracted to people like themselves, could be looking for a LONG term romantic relationship.
and
b) the high estrogen Negotiator who is attracted to the high testosterone Director and vice versa, could be looking for a SHORT term romantic relationship.
The persons who use the Chemistry site, meet in person, and after that want to continue dating, is only a very small percentage of them.
Less than 6% reach the first meeting in person stage.
Of that 6% who reach the first meeting in person stage, not known exactly the percentage of persons who want to continue dating, but I suspect it is very low.

The success rate of Chemistry is less than 6%. The majority of their members are not going to achieve a long term relationship with commitment (or marriage) using that site.

To my best knowledge there is no Scientifc Paper peer reviewed by Academics from different Universities (public scrutiny of findings) showing Chemistry’s matching algorithm can match prospective partners who will have more stable and satisfying relationships than couples matched by chance, astrological destiny, personal preferences, searching on one’s own, or other technique as the control group.

I had applied reverse engineering and discovered that Chemistry is in the range of 3 or 4 persons as highly compatible per 1,000 persons screened, the same range any person can achieve by searching on one’s own or mutual filtering methods (recommendation engines).

———————-

Since the beginning of 2003, I had been testing online dating sites -intended for serious daters- by creating dummy (fake) Male/Female profiles and using them as test points for reverse engineering purposes.

Any dater can easily apply some reverse engineering methods over Match, PerfectMatch, eHarmony, Chemistry, Parship, Meetic, Be2 and others. It is quite easy although a bit time consuming and boring.

You need to create at least 24 dummy (fake) profiles, 12 for Male and 12 for Female, each profile slightly different for the rest, as test points.

MATCH:
If you check Match or any other BIG site performing as a Powerful Searching Engine, you will see [on average] a person (mostly men) will strongly like 3 or 4 persons per 100 (one hundred) persons or 30 to 40 persons per 1,000 (one thousand) persons screened, then that person will send messages to them an only [on average] 10% will strongly like (mostly women) and reply to the person who initiated the contact.
Searching on one’s own is in the range [on average] of 3 or 4 persons who search and select to each other per 1,000 persons screened.

PERFECTMATCH:
If you check PerfectMatch or any other BIG site performing mostly as Matching based on Self-Reported Data / Bidirectional Recommendation Engine (personal preferences, likes and dislikes, ipsative personality tests: MBTI, DISC) you will see [on average] a person receives 3 or 4 persons as recommended for dating purposes per 1,000 (one thousand) persons screened in exactly the same range of searching on one’s own.

EHARMONY:
If you check eHarmony or any other BIG site like Chemisty, Parship, Be2, Meetic, etc performing mostly as a Compatibility Matching Algorithm (those sites are mostly using different versions of the Big5 normative personality test as its core) you will see [on average] a person receives 3 or 4 persons as highly compatible for dating purposes per 1,000 (one thousand) persons screened in exactly the same range of searching on one’s own and mutual filtering methods.

If you carefully complete all that homework, You will re-discover what I had discovered some years ago, “the online dating sound barrier” for Compatibility Matching Algorithms.

Breaking “the online dating sound barrier” is to achieve far better precision than searching on one’s own or mutual filtering.

Actual Online Dating sites are fully intoxicated with different versions of the FFI five factor inventory / Big5 or other proprietary models instead (like Chemistry or PerfectMatch), to measure personality traits, and all of those tests are more simplified versions than the 16PF5 normative personality test.

Breaking “the online dating sound barrier” is to achieve at least:
3 most compatible persons in a 100,000 persons database.
12 most compatible persons in a 1,000,000 persons database.
48 most compatible persons in a 10,000,000 persons database.
100 times better than Compatibility Matching Algorithms used by actual online dating sites!

The only way to achieve that is:
- using the 16PF5 normative personality test, available in different languages to assess personality of members, or a proprietary test with exactly the same traits of the 16PF5. The ensemble of the 16PF5 is: 10E16, big number as All World Population is nearly 6.7 * 10E9
(WorldWide, there are over 5,000 -five thousand- online dating sites, but no one is using the 16PF5)

- expressing compatibility with eight decimals, like The pattern 6.7.6.8.9.6.7.7.8.7.2.5.8.7.3.4 is 92.55033557% +/- 0.00000001% similar to the pattern 7.7.6.8.8.7.6.5.8.7.4.5.7.7.3.4
Using a quantized pattern comparison method (part of pattern recognition by cross-correlation) to calculate similarity between prospective mates.

That is the only way to revolutionize the Online Dating Industry.

I am awfully tired of saying the same and the same since years!!!

Regards,

Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com

Regards,

Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Posted 06 Dec 2009 at 7:38 pm ¶
Ron wrote:
http://www.unblinking.com/arc/20081226.htm
Posted 06 Dec 2009 at 8:36 pm ¶
annoymous wrote:
What would you advise individuals who had turn away from eHarmony. The argument is academic to me. I think there are other dates sites. Perhaps again we need to look on our own. This is strictly an elitists date site for customer that eHarmony wants. To say it is better then any other dates sites is again academic since eHarmony has become in my view elitists.
Posted 07 Dec 2009 at 2:01 pm ¶
annoymous wrote:
Maybe eHarmony’s model would be OK, if they lived up to their hype. And maybe another dating site can do what they have failed to do. However, in all honesty, I think we need to find a way to meet individuals in our own community and we need to find ways to meet people we might have something in common with. But, this argument that this is the best way to meet people just doesn’t equate to me when they turn people away, terminate them with out due process and so forth. I don’t buy it.
Posted 07 Dec 2009 at 2:08 pm ¶
annoymous wrote:
BTW I am necessarily saying that Chemistry in the long run will be any better. After all no dating agency can guarantee that you meet anybody much less have a good relationship. And there terms and condition are the same. And so it goes. It not any good to say that a dating is the only good one in town, if you can’t play. Perhaps if matches could meet on their own and then get counseling to see if their compatible that might work. But in my views they should stay out of matching people up.
Posted 07 Dec 2009 at 2:22 pm ¶
annoymous wrote:
My typing is not always good. In the above I meant to write “BTW I am not necessarily saying that Chemistry in the long run will be any better. After all not dating agency can guarantee that you meet anybody much less have a good relationship. And their terms and condition are the same.”
Anyway, the argument h that eHarmony is better than Chemistry, Match, Together, Forever or Whatever is meaningless to those of us that eHarmony has rejected or terminated without “Due Process.”
Posted 08 Dec 2009 at 7:14 am ¶
annoymous1 wrote:
I may get on chemistry myself at some point. If I do I mayl let this blog know how it works or doesn’t. It sounds to me like a more relaxed eHarmony and the argument about which is better is academic to me since I am not on eHarmony. And I think that since they accept some of eHarmony so called rejects that they are a little less inclined to bump their customers even though their terms and conditions are the same. In the meantime I am on my own on various single lines I won’t mention. There is life after eHarmony.
Posted 29 Dec 2009 at 11:00 am ¶
annoymous1 wrote:
Finally here again is eHarmony’s disclaimer about compatibility. “You understand that the Company makes no guarantees, either express or implied, regarding your ultimate compatibility with individuals you meet through the Service”

I think an interesting approach would be for marketing to try to get customers on eHarmony’s “terms and conditions.” I won’t hold my breath.
Posted 29 Dec 2009 at 12:58 pm ¶
annoymous1 wrote:
3 most compatible persons in a 100,000 persons database.
12 most compatible persons in a 1,000,000 persons database.
48 most compatible persons in a 10,000,000 persons database.

Twelve in one million. 48 in ten million.
three in one tenth of a million

Sounds almost like the odds of winning a lottery. Geez.
Posted 29 Dec 2009 at 2:04 pm ¶

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