(Source: I used to work at OkCupid Labs, one of the things that Sam went on to do under Match, where he is now CEO.)
Edit: from other comments: http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_onl...
http://static.izs.me/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dat...
You're not the first person to propose this question - there's a comment like this almost every time OkCupid makes the front page - and here's what I wrote the last time[0], which I think explains it well:
There were a number of factors. A bit part is that, in 2010, there were 2.5 people working full-time[1] on doing research for OkTrends, which allowed us to research, write, and publish posts much more often.
The blog posts took a lot of work. "The Real Stuff White People Like"[2] took almost two months of my time, plus some from Max and Christian as well. (Much like the product design process, since we didn't start each post off with a clear end result in mind, not all the work was visible in the final product).
I left to go back to school. Max ended up taking on more responsibility for other data/stats work, which slowed the pace a bit, and he left at the beginning of 2012 to do his own stuff. And Christian became in charge of running OkCupid after the acquisition, which meant he had even less time then he did before Max and I joined.
People asked me for the last three years whether the reason OkTrends hadn't posted since 2011 was because of the Match.com acquisition and whether Match shut them down and I had to tell everyone "No, trust me, they're still around! It's just a coincidence!". Thankfully I no longer have to. :)
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8097780
[1] 2.5 full-time means: Two of us full-time, as well as Christian, though he split his work time between OkTrends (the blog) and other stuff.
[2] http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-real-stuff-white-peopl...
After getting acquired I think the general need for that type of PR was less (in addition to the manpower issues you mentioned).
I would suggest that in the interests of the OKCupid business, updating the blog would have been a better thing to do than write a book. The blog drew many users to OK Cupid. It's possible that writing a book was in Christian's interest.
If Christian was no longer working at OK Cupid while he wrote the book, then I understand. In that case the error is on the part of the New York Times for describing him as currently in that role.
You people are ridiculous.
EDIT: Might as well link to it while I am at it - http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_onl...
Also, I know the explanation they gave. I don't give a damn whether anyone was pressured into taking it down and they never bothered to actually explain what was wrong with the original analysis, identify the 'public sources' used, or to do anything but try to bury the story with a cheap excuse and hope we'd all forget.
Example of such an explanation: http://www.reddit.com/r/OkCupid/comments/pr2wo/dyk_that_okcu...
> Basically the breakdown was that rather than 93%+ of the people you are shown being "dead profiles" the actual number is more like 10-20%.
> But if you take these into consideration, our conclusion would say, "Match.com users get married at about the same rate or higher as people not using Match.com!"
That's not really a ringing endorsement here, at best it shows that if we change our estimates a little we can reverse our conclusions. That to me says that they were never able to come to very reliable conclusions in the first place on this issue.
And if you read the entire comment thread, you'll see that they removed the article precisely because they were unable to come to any real conclusions.
The original blog post stated that paid dating sites made one's odds worse. Real numbers demonstrated that paid sites were, at worst, a wash.
The thing is, access to private data didn't change the fact that they were using a self-reported stat to begin with. Given that OKC's data was self-reported to a significant degree, it's hard to see why this wasn't taken into account.
And then they go on to cite how they already knew it could be 10x higher (or more) by citing OKC data. This leads to the (paraphrased) conclusion that they can't be total frauds because they're still in business.