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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Arkansas Culture and Characters Little Rock native Christian Rudder sells company to Match.com for $50 million

Posted By Lindsey Millar on Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 2:07 PM

Today, Match.com announced that it has acquired OKCupid.com, a dating website co-founded by Little Rock native Christian Rudder, for $50 million in cash.

Rudder, a Central High grad, is something of a cultural polymath. He plays guitar in the popular indie band Bishop Allen. He's acted in independent films. And before OK Cupid, he was the editorial director of TheSpark.com, a web publishing company that Barnes & Noble acquired in 2001.

Rudder's helped grow OK Cupid's profile in the last few years with his hugely entertaining pop science blog, OK Trends, where, through data mining OK Cupid's 3.5 million users, he explores topics like "how races and religions match in online dating" and "the mathematics of beauty."

When the deal was announced this morning, some bloggers noticed that one of Rudder's posts, "Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating," had been removed from the OKTrends blog.

Here's how Rudder explained the decision, via email:

"We took down the “Pay Dating” post not on Match’s order, but as a courtesy. At this point, we’re the free compliment to their pay service, and we thought it would set the right tone for our on-going relationship to not be slagging them in our blog."

He also confirmed that he's staying on board at OK Cupid and will continue to write OK Trends.

Look for a new post on Monday: “The Best Questions To Ask A First Date”.

Tags: OKCupid.com, OKTrends, Bishop Allen, Arkansas Culture and Characters, Image

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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Arkansas Culture and Characters Little Rock native Christian Rudder sells company to Match.com for $50 million

Posted By Lindsey Millar on Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 2:07 PM

From the ArkTimes store

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