We don't really date online, meet people online, court online or set up long-lasting rock-solid relationships online, but most of us know someone who does or did, or is planning to do. And it seems as if the trend is up and running. So you end up wondering how long it will be before we reach that "Tipping Point", the point of no-return where online life will become an actual standard. Especially when some are buying virtual real estate for jaw-dropping prices. Seen as such, online dating is a phenomenon to keep an eye on. And this is exactly what Nanoeconomics (the human-scale economics that tries to better the understanding of the economy using Public Massive Passive Social Data) is here to for. One striking example of a firm that is using Nanoeconomics on itself is French Smardate's blog : Smartdate Labs. Its latest discovery : Women with names ending with an "A" are sexually more productive than others. A traditional survey revealed that leading the hit parade of sexually productive names is Laura (with an average of 9.7 partners), Tania (9.6), and Lola (9.5). By contrast, women named Thérèse averaged 1.1 lovers, just behind 1.2 for Françoise, and 1.3 for Martine.
But what's Nanoeconomic about all of this and what's Nanoeconomic about a traditional survey ? Well this is :
By using Massive Passive data about messages sent to women with given names, Smartdate was able to support and validate the data it had obtained from simply asking women how many partners they had had in their life. So beyond the French attraction for exotic names ending by "A", this work shows that Nanoeconomic initiatives can be, are and will from now on be a validating tool to traditional approaches. Why so sure ? Because they tap into a much more reliable source.
Nothing could've guaranteed that all Tanias weren't lying about their number of sexual partners, out of a basic self-conciliatory need. Nothing but the fact-checking, social-focused, human-scale Nanoeconomic approach.