eHarmony Blog

One of resident techies predicts what Compatible Partners would be.

March 31, the deadline given by the terms of the settlement agreement between eHarmony and the New Jersey Attorney General for starting to provide same-sex matching, is fast approaching.

Meanwhile, the placeholder page on the URL http://compatiblepartners.net/ hasn’t changed one bit. In fact, peeking at the HTML of that page tells me the “submit” button doesn’t do anything.

How much software development is involved to build the new website and offer the new service? Given the site’s past software development, what can we expect?

Forced?

I apologize because I have to begin with a political point. eHarmony wasn’t “forced” to do this. The story is simple: a person filed a complaint in his local courts, and after two years of hearings and proceedings, the defendant decided to propose a settlement, which the complainant accepted. The court therefore made no ruling or decision.

Offering this new service therefore is completely the idea of the company. eHarmony therefore had two years to make a thorough assessment of their software and systems and make an informed proposition.

Part 1. Gender-specific language

The most notable change is the gender-specific language of the site. Anne is reading Mary’s profile and Mary is sending Anne a communication request. The system screens should never read “he”, “his” or “man”.

Here, eHarmony is extremely lucky. All its website code use the gender of the sender. That is, whether a male or a female member views Mary’s profile, the profile would still say “Mary’s best friends describe her as….” So, eHarmony has no modifications to do.

eHarmony does have gender-specific banners, but fortunately these rely on the gender of the viewer.

By the KISS principle, I expect to see nothing different in the communication processes in the new site. The site is practically ready as-is.

The Premium Personality Profile, RelyID and Secure Call

I predict they will offer these add-on services as well. Yes, I predict no changes.

The Questionnaire and the Personality Profile

I predict the questionnaire to be exactly the same.

The matchmaking algorithm

Here is where things get messy. eHarmony escapes much of it with a disclaimer in the new site’s Terms of Service:

5.a. Research Basis of Service. You understand and acknowledge that the Company’s patented Compatibility Matching System® was developed on the basis of research limited to married heterosexual couples, and that the Company has not conducted similar research on same-sex relationships.

eHarmony matches people using a mathematical technique called “multivariate statistics.” For example, if eHarmony’s belief or previous research shows that males Dominance=6 and females Dominance=2, as couples, reported a high mutual satisfaction in surveys, the software gives a pair of members with those Dominance scores a higher satisfaction score. When the accumulated satisfaction scores for this pair of members exceeds a threshold, the software creates a match. Of course, this explanation is simplified — eHarmony won’t reveal their secret sauce.

The bulk of the work is rewriting the matchmaking software to pick members from the same gender.

But which of the two is considered Dominance=6 and other Dominance=2? I don’t think it really matters. eHarmony, in all admission, has no urgency to do a good job at all.

Site graphics and layout

eHarmony Canada, eHarmony Australia and eHarmony UK have identical site layout and graphics when they launched. I predict the new site will carry the same design.

Subscription rates

I predict that they wouldn’t decide on pricing until after several months. The new site would be free-for-all for the first six months.

Advertising on TV and elsewhere

I doubt this happening in the first six months, but I look forward to be wrong.

Bisexual matching

What I hope to see is bisexual matching. Some members of the existing Singles service are bisexuals and they would definitely want to be matched with consensual men and women. Indeed, more than one person has asked, “Do bisexuals need to register on both sites?”

This issue will be a controversy, obviously, and I predict eHarmony would be mum about it.

The Match IDs

The best hint whether eHarmony will have bisexual matching is looking at the match IDs (“set=”) made on the new site. If it starts at 1, then the new site is a completely separate database. If it starts at 1.2 billion, then, yes, members can be transferred and match settings can be expanded, if not today, later on.

Gay and lesbian Customer Support

Sorry, eHarmony isn’t hiring customer service staff.

Frustrations: the same

I wonder if Eric McKinley knew what a PITA the site is, he might not even have bothered pursuing the lawsuit. I look forward to hearing lesbians and gays complain about bad matches, poofers, glitches and “Other”s. The more the merrier.