OkCupid is a world-renowned dating app, on par with other popular platforms like Tinder, Badoo, Plenty of Fish, and Bumble. The dating site was developed in New York back in 2004. In a short amount of time, a lot of users signed up from not just New York, but also Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and other cities. Learn more on new-york-future.
The Story Behind the New York Dating Site
The history of what would become the OkCupid dating site started with four students from Harvard University. They worked for a while on creating a website where people could take funny personality quizzes and other tests. The site also included a compatibility test that helped people find each other and start chatting. The guys named their project “The Spark.” The popularity of the site grew exponentially in a short time. Soon, the dating server was spun off into a separate site and named OkCupid. From that moment on, the guys began working diligently to improve and develop the dating site.
An Innovation from OkCupid: The Dating Service
After years of working on the project, the Harvard graduates concluded that their site needed a new, innovative solution. So, in 2007, they created a new free service based on the OkCupid site. This service organized blind dates without any prior communication between the people involved. Those who wanted to go on a blind date filled out a special questionnaire on the OkCupid site with questions about where they lived, where they wanted to go on the date, how they wanted the date to be, and some other questions about the blind date’s organization. In 2010, the blind dating service was significantly improved. They even created a mobile app for devices with Android and iOS operating systems.
The free blind dating service operated in San Francisco, New York City itself, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.
OkCupid Popularizes the Concept of Sapiosexuality
The 21st century is a time of freedom and democracy. That’s why the OkCupid developers had to follow global trends and meet the needs of people from all over the world. Both the OkCupid website and the mobile app had traditionally organized dates for heterosexuals. But by 2014, that was no longer enough. There were countless asexuals, genderfluid people, pansexuals, sapiosexuals, and transgender individuals who also wanted to use a mobile app to find their other half and go on a date. Based on these needs, the OkCupid developers began working to make their app and dating site more inclusive. In 2014, the app added the option for users to specify their orientation. Thanks to this innovation, OkCupid became one of the first apps to popularize the concept of sapiosexuality—sexual attraction based on intellectual rather than physical traits—around the world.