OkCupid is a personal favorite; I’ve met some amazing people there. It has attracted an artier, edgier crowd than most of the big sites, and has a number of really interesting innovations. However the site isn’t for everyone. The demographic is younger on average than, say, Match.com, and some of its users are less interested in finding a serious partner than in enjoying some of the fun features of the site.

Here are things you should know about OkCupid…

It’s free

You don’t have to pay, which is good. This also means that the users of OkCupid tend to be a more casual crowd. A lot of them are just there for laughs – to do quizzes or to chat – and don’t want to actually meet up with people. Users of paid sites tend to be more ’serious’ about online dating – after all, they shell out a monthly fee for the privilege – and so may be more likely to meet you. They may also be more likely to want to marry and have kids with you. This could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you’re looking for.

A paid option was recently introduced to OkCupid. This ~$4 monthly investment gives you a few extra options – you can award other users with special badges, you get highlighted in searches, and a couple of other small advantages. It’s a small charge compared to paid sites, but the free version is fully functional without it.

The site is supported by ads instead of subscription revenue, but the ads aren’t too intrusive – no annoying pop-ups for example.

It’s has quizzes and tests!

One of the coolest features of OkCupid is the unique matching system. Answer questions in a never-ending quiz to to determine your compatibility with other users. Each question asks for a multiple choice response, gauging your feelings about a particular issue – social, political, sexual, and more. You are also asked to give your perfect partner’s response – how do you want your dream boy/girl to think? – and also an indication of how important that question is to you. There are many hundreds of questions, and you can answer as many as you like. When you look at another profile, OkCupid compares responses from questions that you both answered, and calculates a % match, a % friend, and a % enemy. You can also click the “compare” button and you will be present with a detail statistical analysis of your relative levels of kinkiness, compassion, coolness, and anything else that the quiz has measured.

The usefulness of the OkCupid matching system depends very much on how honest you are with yourself, and on how well you really know your own preferences in a partner. If the answer to both of those is “reasonably well”, then the system is actually pretty good. You’ll have a hell of a lot more in common with a 90% match than a 60% match, but don’t sweat a difference of only a few percentage points.

This match system is a significant improvement over the usual dating site questionaires that ask you for the most superficial criteria – physical attributes, wealth, education, political affiliation, etc. While these things may be important, OkCupid’s system is much, much better at identifying ‘your peeps’ – folks that you might have a real connection with.

The questionaire is also used to award you with badges that appear below your profile, labelling you as things like “more desiring of love”, “less adventurous”, and “more kinky” than the average user.

And then there are the tests. These are great fun, especially if you don’t mind being pidgeonholed. Answer a series of questions and OkCupid will determine dating persona, whether you are a geek, nerd or dork, and even the accuracy of your gaydar. Some of these tests are designed by OkCupid, but most are submitted by enthusiastic users. There are thousands upon thousands of these tests, and they help to make OkCupid a real community site. On the down side, these tests might be a little TOO fun, because there are lots of people who sign up just to do the tests, and have no desire to meet new people.

One other point in favor of the quiz and tests – they offer a handy excuse if you ever need to lie about why you joined the site. For all you scaredy cats out there.

It’s a community

OkCupid has been very successful in building an online community. The forum is very active, full of online dating anecdotes and ‘expert’ advice. If you ask nicely, you’ll get lots of (usually) useful feedback on your profile and your photos. Each OkCupid profile comes with a blog. For the most part these go unused, but if you see that your subject of interest has some blog entries you should definitely read them for that bit of extra insight. You can even mess with other people’s profiles – in a very limited way; you can suggest edits, and if you have a paid a-list account you can give out special awards.

The official OkCupid blog, OkTrends, is something altogether different. Found at blog.okcupid.com, OkTrends presents some truly fascinating studies of the habits of OkCupid users. Want to know which enthicities or religious groups respond to which? Curious whether starting a message with “hi” or “how’s it going” gets a higher response rate? Ever pondered the effect of including the word “zombie” in your missives? OkTends will tell you.

And last of all, the IM feature. It works, and can be great for having random chats with complete strangers without exchanging any contact information. You can chat with as many people as you like at once. You can also block the use of this feature, or filter which people can contact you. If fact, so many people block its use – perhaps most of the women on the site – that its use has become somewhat limited.

It’s relatively uncensored

Since it’s free, OkCupid doesn’t need to police the content of profiles for illegal contact information. You’ll often see links to peoples’ other sites, YouTube vids, and whatnot in their profiles. You’ll also see more profanity and sexually explicit text than in paid, mainstream sites. Photos with nudity and truly obnoxious profiles (or ads for prostitutes) are flagged by users and usually removed pretty quickly.

It’s big

And OkCupid is getting bigger and bigger. At the time of writing there are typically between 10,000 and 20,000 users logged on at a time. There are over half a million reasonably active users. It’s predominately a US site, but is also somewhat active in the UK and Canada.

The demographic

The demographic is definitely a little younger than mainstream paid sites like match.com and chemistry.com. It’s free and it’s fun, and has developed the reputation of being a little edgier than the other big sites, and so the majority of users are in their 20’s, although there are still plenty of 30- and 40-somethings.

Functionality

The site is fairly mature, and everything works pretty well.

Privacy options are OK – you can block others from turning up in your searches, and you can filter who can and can’t message or IM you based on a range of criteria. One glaring omission is that you can’t block individual people from viewing your profile, which sucks if you find your boss on the site before she finds you…

The search function is decent – you can search based on a range of criteria (including some test results) or keywords within the profile, and you can order the results in many different ways. One slight issue is the navigation to the search page – the “Search” button doesn’t lead to a criteria search. To get this you need to click on “Match”. I’ve had reports of  people being confused by this.

Is it for you?

Well, it’s free, so it’s only a small investment in time to give it a shot. In general, it’s best for a slightly younger (at heart) crowd. If you wouldn’t mind dabbling in online dating, but want a laid-back approach, then OkCupid is a great option. If you want to meet people who aren’t fervently searching for their one-true love, then OkCupid could be for you. If you like doing quizzes and tests, then sign up immediately. However the OkCupid crowd is a little less mainstream, so if that’s not you then you’ll have less luck.

The Lowdown

Pros:

• it’s free
• fun quizzes and tests
• innovative and effective matching system
• active online community aspect
• less ’serious’ users

Cons:

• some users aren’t there to meet people
• some profanity may be found – if that shit bothers you
• no way to block others from seeing your profile
• less ’serious’ users