As we wrote earlier today, popular free dating site OKCupid has been acquired by unfree dating site Match.com for $50 million in cash plus other possible incentive bonuses. While Match hasn’t said anything about taking the “free” out of OKCupid, which still touts its freeness all over its homepage, a statement by the CEO of Match parent company IAC Greg Blatt left no ambiguity that Match.com would remain IAC’s favored site, possibly at the expense of OKCupid’s feature set:
“We know that many people who start out on advertising-based sites ultimately develop an appetite for the broader feature set and more committed community, which subscription sites like Match.com and Chemistry.com offer, creating a true complimentary relationship between our various business models. 2010 saw record growth both for Match and OkCupid, and we believe coordinating the adjacent business models will help fuel continued growth for both. This acquisition therefore goes a long way toward our objectives of bringing new people into the online dating world, offering the ability to meet in whatever type of online setting, and at whatever commitment level, our members desire, and facilitating a seamless evolution of the online dating experience without ever having to leave our portfolio of sites.”
And now, a fresh sign of regime change: A popular OKCupid article from last year entitled “Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating” has mysteriously disappeared from the company blog.
Eagle-eyed Hacker News readers were the first to spot the disappearance. The April 2010 article’s original URL was http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dating; this now redirects to the main blog page. Other old OKCupid blog entries, like November 2009’s “Your Looks and Your Inbox” (http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dating/) remain intact.
The article is still available via Google Cache, which shows that it was live on the site as recently as January 17th, 2011. Just in case that too goes down, we’ve taken a massive (warning, data-capped Canadians) screenshot of the disappeared article, which you can check out at the link below.
Screenshot: OKCupid: “Why You Should Never Pay for Online Dating,” April 7th, 2010.
Update: OKCupid CEO explains to Mashable why he pulled the article, and says it was his personal decision:
“I chose to take that down. Match didn’t ask,” Yagan says, denying that the other site was attempting to censor OkCupid. Apparently, the story was pieced together from public information, and Yagan has learned that some of the assumptions made in it were untrue.
Also, he says, “It’s a common sense thing to do. We’re joining a bunch of new colleagues, there’s no need to have that post.”
(h/t Hacker News)
Published: Feb 2, 2011 01:38 pm