Ideas are worthless.  Execution is valuable.  That’s why I’m going to give you this idea for nothing.

A/B Testing on a dating website.  On every dating site, you complete some sort of profile.  Other people read that profile and contact you if they’re interested.  Occasionally you change your profile.  The change may lead to more contacts, or it may not.  If it does, you can’t be sure if it’s because of the change or some other factor.  For instance, if you change your profile in November and get a surge of responses, you might attribute that to the new profile.  However, it may be that more people are looking for love during the holidays.

Neither DA nor my boss had heard of A/B testing so I’ll assume you haven’t either.  A/B testing refers to serving up two different versions of a web page and measuring some desired result.  For example, assume you have website and a newsletter.  The website exists to get people to sign up for your newsletter.  On the site, you have a big button that says “sign up for my newsletter”.  You make two versions of the button, one with a smiley face and one with a lightening bolt.  Of the next 3,000 people who visit your site, half see the smiley and half see the lightening.  The smiley people sign up 4.3% of the time and the lightening people sign up 12.6% of the time.  The lightening bolt leads to better results, so you use it.  Then you immediately start another A/B test, either on the sign up button, on the background color, on the font size, or on some other aspect of the webpage.  Each test leads to a better website, measured in terms of your goals.

Back to the dating site.  When you sign up at YouDateMeNow.com, you create a profile.  That profile has five sections; job, education, hobbies, what you’re looking for, and miscellaneous.  After a bit, the web site prompts you to change the job section of your profile.  You rewrite the little section about what you do.  Maybe you had a pretty encyclopedic entry and now you right something more playful.  The site takes your two “job” paragraphs and A/B tests that for while and reports back to you.  It says you get better response from this version versus that version.  Then it tells you to try a different profile picture, tests it, and tells you which is better.  “Better” means that more people contacted you after reading your profile and the difference is statistically significant.

Dating website patrons don’t give a shit about A/B testing.  Like you, dear reader, they think it’s pretty stupid.  But they’re wrong and they don’t know it.  I mean really, nobody loves them so what the hell do they know (just kidding).  I don’t think I would start a dating website just to have A/B testing, but if you were starting a dating website already (or already have one) you should implement A/B testing.  It will lead to better profiles, more dates, more marriages, and more money for you.

This isn’t my best idea, but if you execute, it could be valuable.

Don’t wait for a perfect moment.

Take a moment and make it perfect.

Ryan Freitas writes about 35 lessons he’s learned in 35 years.

Some of them are right on

- She wants you to listen, not to offer a solution to what she’s venting about.
- Food is neither a fashion nor a way of life. Avoid eating meals with anyone who describes themselves as a “foodie”.
- Pick a drink. Stick with it.

Some are enlightening

- Having a good tailor is important; talking too much about having one is a pretension.
- Debt, no matter how creatively structured, is anathema to peace of mind.
- No one gives a damn about the size of your to-do list.

Some I don’t get

- They call them crushes for a reason.
- Spend time with as many well-behaved dogs as you can.
- Gentlemen remove their hats indoors.

Go read the whole list. It’s worth it.

I don’t want to brag or make anybody jealous or anything,
but I can still fit into the sneakers I wore in high school!

Thanks James

Video link

A couple questions come to mind.

1. How does a doctor remove it?
2. If you were a rapist would you call the doctor?
3. Does an increase in murders come to anyone elses head other than mine?

Don’t get me wrong, I think this is an awesome idea.   Instant justice! 

However, I can see all kinds of legal battles if the Rape aXe takes off.  If a burglar can sue a homeowner, what’s to stop a rapist from suing for entrapment?

en·trap

Look at the stars.

They are the same stars as last week.

Last year.

Same as when we where kids.

Same as when your parents where kids.

Same stars 100 years ago

and the same stars 100 years from now.

In a few hundred years no one will know who we were.

But, they will know the same stars.

So very true.

I’m sure issues like health care and immigration are important. But let’s focus on something we can actually accomplish. Here are five things I would do as President.

1. Government guarantees of loans to build nuclear power plants. If we hadn’t quit building them after Three Mile Island, we’d be in much better shape energy-wise. I don’t know the best way for the government to spur growth in that area, but I’m not inclined to give tax cuts or credits. If guaranteed loans don’t do it, maybe I’ll use eminent domain to secure the land. Whatever the barriers are, I’ll knock them down. I want 20 new plants under construction in my first month as President.
2. Stop making pennies. What a freakin’ waste. Everything has to be rounded to the nickel.
3. Stop making dollar bills. I know dollar coins haven’t ever caught on here, and I don’t want more coins in my pocket, but we have to be sensible about this. Bills last a couple years and coins last 10 times that. Let’s make a one dollar and a two dollar coin. Let’s not put a portrait on it that is controversial or makes a point. Good ol’ George Washington for the $1 coin will be fine. And I nominate John Adams for the $2 coin. No civil rights people or American Indians or anything else that will prevent rednecks from using it. When Nancy and I were in Australia, we ended up with four pounds of coins in our pockets every day, so I have that concern. But I think with time, we’d learn to manage.
4. No more home postal delivery. Having your mail delivered to your door was probably a good idea at one point. They probably need to get people to use this new fangled pony express and making people go to the post office just wouldn’t do. Well, there are lot of things that were a good idea in 1870 that aren’t so good any more. I would start building huge post offices that would contain enough post office boxes for everyone in the area. Then I would put huge dumpsters at each end so you could throw your junk mail away before you even left. I would sell that trash back to the junk mailers so they could gauge how many people read their crap. This would put a lot of mail carriers out of work, so it would have to be phased in. Face it, you don’t need your mail every day. If you have Netflix, you need it every third day. Otherwise, once per week is fine. The elderly and disabled could apply for home delivery, which would happen on Tuesdays and Fridays.
5. WIFI for everyone. I would give WIFI monopolies to companies all over the country. In exchange for the monopoly, they have to provide 95% coverage of the area at 1mb download and 1mb upload speeds for free. They could then charge for higher download/upload speeds to anyone in the area that’s wants or needs something better. Other providers could still provide wired cable, just not wireless. Phone companies that use cell networks can continue to provide that.

I’m quite sure I’ll never be President. For one, I don’t have enough skeletons in my closet. But if I were, this is where I’d spend my time.