Note: This page is historical.

Current pages about Yenta are here. Please look at those pages first.

Yenta is still under active development, but this particular page is not. If you're interested in current research papers about Yenta, or obtaining a copy of Yenta, please start here instead.

This page is one of many that were written in late 1994 and early 1995, and are being preserved here for historical purposes. If you're viewing this page, you probably found it via an old link or are interested in the history of how Yenta came to be. These pages have not been actively maintained since 1995, so you'll find all sorts of older descriptions which may not match the current system, citations to old papers and old results, and so forth.

Matching users by interests

There are several reasons why one might want to match users by interest. The most obvious is that of finding people who share a passion for some subject that you have never met; a collection of such people form a coalition from which one might get questions answered, or turn into an instant discussion group. Particular members from this coalition would be the basis for potential introductions.

But even people who know each other are good candidates for being matched by their interests, if they do not know everything about each other. This happens repeatedly in companies larger than a few people, for instance: it is very often the case that people working just a few doors away from each other do not know that they are working on similar projects and could benefit from combining their efforts.

For several papers describing the algorithm used in Yenta to match people by interests, including some simulation results, look here.

Lenny Foner

Last modified: Wed Dec 7 20:51:29 1994