User recommendation in reciprocal and bipartite social networks -- a case study of online dating

Abstract: Many social networks in our daily life are bipartite networks built on reciprocity. How can we recommend users/friends to a user, so that the user is interested in and attractive to recommended users? In this research, we propose a new collaborative filtering model to improve user recommendations in reciprocal and bipartite social networks. The model considers a user's "taste" in picking others and "attractiveness" in being picked by others. A case study of an online dating network shows that the new model has good performance in recommending both initial and reciprocal contacts.