Abstract

A method for grouping computer subscribers by common preferences to establish non-intimate relationships. The method of the present invention provides a subscriber access to a computerized database having stored non-intimate profile information from fellow subscribers. The user registers and stores non-intimate profile information into a database. The present invention groups the user with at least two of the fellow subscribers to form at least one group based on similarities between the subscriber's profile information and the fellow subscriber's profile information. The present invention utilizes an algorithm to determine a level of similarity between the subscriber's profile information and the fellow subscribers' profile information, wherein preferences are assigned integer values concatenated to form a lookup key and used to access an entry in a table containing the corresponding similarity value between two preferences. The similarity values between all profile preferences are added to create a final similarity total for the subscribers. Multi-way matching is also employed to ensure that similarity values for each subscriber in the group and all other subscribers in said group exceeds a threshold value. The list of subscribers in the group as well as similarities between the subscribers in the group are displayed for viewing and for editing by the subscriber.