My startup (not launched yet) is a dating site and one of the features we have is showing the response rate of the users (with some tweaks that solve the problems that I talk about in the next sentence). However, you need to be careful in how you present this data to the user. Because even if a girl's response rate is only 20% it might simply be that she's attractive and has gotten all the guys to contact her and she just can't respond back. So the response rate is not a really accurate way of telling the user "you have a 20% chance of getting a response".
By asking the user for criteria and then saying "20% of users that met her/his criteria received a response" is not a good idea. A lot of users of online dating sites are frustrated with the perfection that they need to achieve. Not everyone can be perfect and fit your criteria, and just because the user doesn't fit the criteria doesn't mean that they can't be a perfect match for the user.
Is that a serious question? If it is, the answer is no.
We hope this feature as part of the whole feature set and the way we present the features to the user will make dating easier for the user. Dating sites (both paid and free) don't have to suck.
Facebook has already solved online dating. My housemates and I got bored last week so we decided that we would each ask out a girl to lunch on Facebook. We had a 100% success rate. Facebook works because it leverages the power of networks and the strength of weak ties. With match.com and plentyoffish there is no identy, no reputation-- that is, no shadow of the future. Facebook has effectively solved this.
That's probably, the most CLASSIC phrase people said when they heared about the lamp, the clock, typography, and will continue to say for every other invention that exists out there. Real entrepreneurs don't start their phrases like that.
You just said that to convince yourself. By the way you used 4 times the word facebook in one 1 paragraph.
You'll surely admit though, that this won't work for everyone. It's fair to say that facebook solved online dating for some people, but that raises more questions than it answers.
It's not obvious to me that solving online dating is profitable enough. I just met a lead architect on a major personals site, and he noted that none of their success stories are repeat customers. Perhaps the ideal (evil) business model is to find people with a steady income and lots of hope but prevent their success.
By asking the user for criteria and then saying "20% of users that met her/his criteria received a response" is not a good idea. A lot of users of online dating sites are frustrated with the perfection that they need to achieve. Not everyone can be perfect and fit your criteria, and just because the user doesn't fit the criteria doesn't mean that they can't be a perfect match for the user.