full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Amy Webb: How I hacked online dating

Unscramble the Blue Letters


In the meantime, my very large Jewish family was already all married and well on their way to having lots and lots of children, and I felt like I was under tremendous peer pressure to get my life going already.

So I have two possible sriegetats at this point I'm sort of figuring out. One, I can take my grandmother's advice and sort of least-expect my way into maybe bumping into the one out of 35 possible men in the entire 1.5-million-person city of phelldihapia, or I could try onnile dating.

Now, I like the idea of online danitg, because it's predicated on an algorithm, and that's really just a simple way of saying I've got a plorbem, I'm going to use some data, run it through a system and get to a solution. So online dating is the second most popular way that people now meet each other, but as it turns out, aglroihtms have been around for thousands of years in almost every crtulue. In fact, in Judaism, there were matchmakers a long time ago, and though they didn't have an explicit algorithm per se, they definitely were running through formulas in their hdaes, like, is the girl going to like the boy? Are the families going to get along? What's the rabbi going to say? Are they going to start having cldherin right away? The matchmaker would sort of think through all of this, put two people together, and that would be the end of it. So in my case, I thought, well, will data and an alrotighm lead me to my Prince ciamrnhg? So I decided to sign on.

Open Cloze


In the meantime, my very large Jewish family was already all married and well on their way to having lots and lots of children, and I felt like I was under tremendous peer pressure to get my life going already.

So I have two possible __________ at this point I'm sort of figuring out. One, I can take my grandmother's advice and sort of least-expect my way into maybe bumping into the one out of 35 possible men in the entire 1.5-million-person city of ____________, or I could try ______ dating.

Now, I like the idea of online ______, because it's predicated on an algorithm, and that's really just a simple way of saying I've got a _______, I'm going to use some data, run it through a system and get to a solution. So online dating is the second most popular way that people now meet each other, but as it turns out, __________ have been around for thousands of years in almost every _______. In fact, in Judaism, there were matchmakers a long time ago, and though they didn't have an explicit algorithm per se, they definitely were running through formulas in their _____, like, is the girl going to like the boy? Are the families going to get along? What's the rabbi going to say? Are they going to start having ________ right away? The matchmaker would sort of think through all of this, put two people together, and that would be the end of it. So in my case, I thought, well, will data and an _________ lead me to my Prince ________? So I decided to sign on.

Solution


  1. philadelphia
  2. problem
  3. online
  4. heads
  5. algorithm
  6. children
  7. strategies
  8. algorithms
  9. charming
  10. dating
  11. culture

Original Text


In the meantime, my very large Jewish family was already all married and well on their way to having lots and lots of children, and I felt like I was under tremendous peer pressure to get my life going already.

So I have two possible strategies at this point I'm sort of figuring out. One, I can take my grandmother's advice and sort of least-expect my way into maybe bumping into the one out of 35 possible men in the entire 1.5-million-person city of Philadelphia, or I could try online dating.

Now, I like the idea of online dating, because it's predicated on an algorithm, and that's really just a simple way of saying I've got a problem, I'm going to use some data, run it through a system and get to a solution. So online dating is the second most popular way that people now meet each other, but as it turns out, algorithms have been around for thousands of years in almost every culture. In fact, in Judaism, there were matchmakers a long time ago, and though they didn't have an explicit algorithm per se, they definitely were running through formulas in their heads, like, is the girl going to like the boy? Are the families going to get along? What's the rabbi going to say? Are they going to start having children right away? The matchmaker would sort of think through all of this, put two people together, and that would be the end of it. So in my case, I thought, well, will data and an algorithm lead me to my Prince Charming? So I decided to sign on.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
online dating 3
biggest problem 2
data points 2
superficial data 2
coffee shop 2


Important Words


  1. advice
  2. algorithm
  3. algorithms
  4. boy
  5. bumping
  6. case
  7. charming
  8. children
  9. city
  10. culture
  11. data
  12. dating
  13. decided
  14. entire
  15. explicit
  16. fact
  17. families
  18. family
  19. felt
  20. figuring
  21. formulas
  22. girl
  23. heads
  24. idea
  25. jewish
  26. judaism
  27. large
  28. lead
  29. life
  30. long
  31. lots
  32. married
  33. matchmaker
  34. matchmakers
  35. meet
  36. men
  37. online
  38. peer
  39. people
  40. philadelphia
  41. point
  42. popular
  43. predicated
  44. pressure
  45. prince
  46. problem
  47. put
  48. rabbi
  49. run
  50. running
  51. se
  52. sign
  53. simple
  54. solution
  55. sort
  56. start
  57. strategies
  58. system
  59. thought
  60. thousands
  61. time
  62. tremendous
  63. turns
  64. years