Overview
OkCupid (often abbreviated as OKC, but officially OkC) is a U.S.-based, internationally operating online dating, friendship, and formerly also a social networking website and application. It features multiple-choice questions to match members. Registration is free. OkCupid is owned by Match Group, which also owns Tinder, Hinge, Plenty of Fish, and many other popular dating apps and sites.
While the site and app once supported multiple modes of communication, this has been restricted to messaging. OkCupid was listed in Time magazine's 2007 Top 10 dating websites. The website was acquired by IAC's Match.com division in 2011.
History
OkCupid was originally owned by Humor Rainbow, Inc. OkCupid's founders (Chris Coyne, Christian Rudder, Sam Yagan, and Max Krohn) were students at Harvard University when they gained recognition for their creation of TheSpark and, later, SparkNotes. Among other things, TheSpark.com featured a number of humorous self-quizzes and personality tests, including the four-variable Myers-Briggs style Match Test. SparkMatch debuted as a beta experiment of allowing registered users who had taken the Match Test to search for and contact each other based on their Match Test types. The popularity of SparkMatch took off and it was launched as its own site, later renamed OkCupid. In 2001, they sold SparkNotes to Barnes & Noble, and began work on OkCupid.
In November 2007, OkCupid launched Crazy Blind Date, a no-cost dating service that set people up on blind dates with little to no notice. The site served people in Boston, San Francisco, Austin, New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. Daters would complete an optional questionnaire about their availability, preferred neighborhood for dates and their preferred type of date. They would meet up at an agreed upon location without knowing how their date would look ahead of time. In April 2010, Time Out reported that the website was under construction for updates, but would remain free once it resumed operation. In 2013, it was relaunched and integrated into the OkCupid platform as an app for iPhone and Android devices.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).