Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

Changing The Game

THEAGE.COM.AU - Feb 12 - A 2010 Nielsen random survey of 2K Australians found a quarter had tried online dating, of which 16% had formed long-term relationships as a result. One technology that has dramatically altered the playing field is Grindr, the mobile app that employs GPS tracking to allow gay men to check out other users in the area (a version for straight users, Blendr, recently entered the market). Grindr is so popular that Melbourne comic Nath Valvo created a show around it for this year's Midsumma festival and sold out every performance. The comedian says he knows men who wouldn't have been able to come out if they hadn't had access to the relative safety of chat rooms and other internet tools, and it's a case that extends beyond the gay community. Online dating can provide a sense of empowerment in that it can offer people a high level of control in how they manage their interactions and self-presentation.

See full article at TheAge.com.au

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Dating Sites Become Mainstream And Focus On More Niche Markets

MIAMI HERALD - Feb 12 - Jewcier, a new dating site for Jewish singles, is now open to the public and joins nearly 20 other general and niche dating sites owned and operated by Avalanche, co-founded by Meir Strahlberg and his business partner Kris Covino in 1997. Among Avalanche’s largest sites are Date.com, launched on Valentine’s Day in 1997; Matchmaker.com, which Avalanche bought in 2005, and Amor.com, a Latin dating site also launched in 2005, which has more than 20K members in South Florida alone. Avalanche’s domain names are words people naturally type into the Internet, so they don’t have to spend a lot in marketing, Internet dating experts say. “They’re well respected within the industry for being savvy operators,” said Mark Brooks, an online dating industry analyst and editor of onlinepersonalswatch.com. Within the last six months, Avalanche has added five gay dating sites to its portfolio, which already included GayDating.com, GayMen.com, GayMarriage.net, PinkWink.com, which is oriented toward gay women, MyPartner.com and Gay.mx, a Mexican site. Gay sites are “a growing part of our business,” Strahlberg said. Overall, the company’s sites have 10M members worldwide, and 5-10% of them are paying members, Strahlberg said. Strahlberg, who owns half the company, declined to disclose Avalanche’s revenues, but said it is “highly profitable” and has been since its inception. This year, the company may be looking for outside investors for the first time, he said.

by Ina Paiva Cordle
See full article at Miami Herald

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Grindr: Winner Of TechCrunch Crunchies Awards And 2012 iDate Awards

MARKETWATCH - Feb 2 - Grindr, the all male geo-social network app, was named the winner of TechCrunch's 2011 Crunchies Award for Best Location Application introduced at the Fifth Annual Crunchies Awards Ceremony in San Francisco at The Davies Symphony Hall. Separately, Grindr was crowned the winner of the 2012 iDate Awards in two of the 12 categories for Best Mobile Dating App and Best New Technology at the 9th annual Dating Industry & Internet Dating Conference in Miami. The iDate Awards highlight the best and most innovative aspects of the online dating and matchmaking industry. Grindr previously received an iDate Award in 2011 for Best Mobile Dating App.

See full article at Market Watch

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Manhunt Hits Sydney Billboards

MUMBRELLA – Jan 27 – Gay dating website Manhunt has launched a billboard campaign in the Paddington area advertising its new mobile product that helps gay men hook up. The campaign was devised by Pink Media Group, a gay media specialist that also works with gay hook-up app Grindr. Manhunt has 65k users in Australia.

See full article at Mumbrella

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Grindr ‘Mandatory Update’ To Tackle Hack

PINK NEWS - Jan 23 - The Sydney Morning Herald reported that a hacker had listed sensitive profile information online, allowing Grindr users to be impersonated. Grindr said last week only a small number of Australian users had been affected by the hacker’s site, but it would be taking urgent measures to protect security. Address and credit card information was not hacked.

by Stephen Gray
See full article at Pink News

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Interview With Eric Silverberg, co-Founder Of Scruff

OPW INTERVIEW - Jan 16 - Eric’s story is similar to Joel’s at Grindr. He runs a gay dating app, and its doing quite well. Here’s his story. - Mark Brooks

How many users do you have now?
We’ve had more than a million registered users since we launched in 2010.

You’re MIT educated and you worked at Intel, Microsoft and Google.  What led you to create the Scruff App and what’s your founding story?
It was the end of 2009 and I wanted to learn more about app development. I looked at the apps that were on the market at that point and I really wanted to do something different for the gay community. I partnered with my good friend Johnny and after some exploration we launched Scruff. In addition to Scruff being a dating/social app for the gay community we wanted to create a new kind of brand that people wouldn’t be embarrassed to say: “We met on Scruff”.

Are you going to launch a straight App?
Right now we’re happy with where we are so probably not any time in the near future.

You’ve replaced winks with woofs. How many woofs are people sending around the world?
Quite a lot. It’s a really easy way to interact with people in addition to chat. At this point we see more than 30 messages a second being sent over our platform.

How else is your service different from the likes of Grindr?
We’ve built a rich, multi-platform set of features. We’ve also thought a lot about different ways that people can interact with each other in addition to chat.  For example; woofing, rate one another, see how you’ve been rated. We’re building a community around Scruff and Scruff is a group that encompasses lots of different types of people. It’s definitely resonated.

You’ve got a couple of paid subscriptions now.  What do people get for the paid services and how much are they?
We’ve launched a premium version that includes Browsing Pro and Messaging Pro. One enables you to view more profiles and customize your grid to a greater degree. The other gives you an unlimited inbox and message history.

Are you profitable at this stage?
We have just become profitable. 

Are you looking for funding?
No we’re not looking for funding right now.  It was a challenge in the beginning but we got through it and now it’s really exciting for us.

Where are you going to be in a year’s time? 
We've recently relocated back to Manhattan, which is really exciting! We're seeing great growth globally and hope to do more global travels.  In the next year we have a lot of really cool features we are going to launch - more with albums, search filters and a lot of events. We hope to bring Johnny Scruff and our team to even more events around the country and the world.

‘Eyebrow-Raising’ Billboard In Times Square

MEDIA BISTRO - Jan 1 - Gay social network site Manhunt is about to drum up some publicity by placing the above billboard in Times Square. Located at the corner of Broadway and 47th Street, Manhunt’s billboard, which will be up through Jan. 6, was described as “raising some eyebrows” and featuring “two sweaty guys in dog tags about to make out.” It’s already greatly offended one L.A. mom, despite the fact that a similar Michael Kors billboard (depicting a woman placing her hand inside a man’s briefs) has been the subject of no such controversy.

by Bob Marshall
See full article at Media Bistro

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Why Can't Women Have Grindr Too?

GUARDIAN.CO.UK - Dec 27 - Grindr is a smartphone app that allows men to find each other for "dating, socialising and friendship". Nearly 3M men are signed up globally, and the UK is one of the biggest markets. The people behind Grindr have been promising to create a version for women who want to find women. But it hasn't turned up. They've released Blendr, which says it's for "straight and lesbian" users but it's really a male-female app with no focus on queer women. Have other apps jumped on the Grindr bandwagon? Yes, but the ones aimed at queer women have mostly fallen off it again. There's Qrushr Girls but its address now redirects you to an insurance site. There's another called Brenda, but a recent iPhone app review complains that most of the people using it are men.

by Kate Harrad
See full article at Guardian.co.uk

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SinglesAroundMe Launches GaysAroundMe

PR WEB - Dec 14 - The popular global LB mobile dating app SinglesAroundMe launches a customized version for gays called GaysAroundMe. The main feature of GaysAroundMe is a search tool called "GAM" which shows singles from 100 feet to 100 miles of your current location worldwide. Results are displayed on a geographical map, where users can then view pictures and profiles and send winks and messages to begin flirting.

See full article at SF Gate

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Hornet: Gay App On The Buzz

TIME OUT - Dec 7 - A new dating app is hitting the LGBT scene. Developed in Hong Kong and San Francisco, Hornet operates much like Grindr. Setting up a Hornet account requires users to state their HIV status. If you choose ‘negative’, the app requests the date of your last doctor’s visit. Hornet will then send you a reminder when it’s time for your next HIV testing. Hornet is still in its beta phase – it’s slow, it crashes and chats aren’t uploaded properly. But it does have a lot of potential and provides interesting features that rivals lack. 

by Arthur Tam
See full article at Time Out

Manhunt’s New Ad Campaign

MANHUNT DAILY - Nov 28 - Manhunt is launching a new billboard campaign. They chose to debut the campaign in Los Angeles. Manhunt received dozens of complaints because citizens were concerned about children being able to view their billboards. All of this hubbub is over the fact that they depicted two men shirtless and semi-embracing. Another ad for fashion designer Michael Kors’ underwear line has a girl commencing a handjob on a guy. This ad is placed just a few blocks away from the Manhunt ad and there weren’t any complaints to Michael Kors, his ad agency, or to LA political officials. For some reason, gay sexuality is still scary and controversial for many people.

See full article at Manhunt Daily

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Men Urged To Opt In For Nationwide Sexual Health Messaging Service

PINK NEWS - Nov 29 - The GMFA Sexual Health Messaging Service, which allows men to alert previous partners when they are diagnosed with an infection, is set to be rolled out to more clinics and websites with funding from the Elton John AIDS Foundation. The GMFA has worked with Gaydar, Fitlads, Recon and Manhunt.  After receiving a diagnosis at a clinic, the system offers users a unique PIN code to access the online SHMS service. Once there, contact details for recent sexual partners can be typed in, from mobile phone numbers to profile names. Messages can be sent anonymously, but the GMFA says the recipient may be more likely to take action if a name is included.

by Stephen Gray
See full article at Pink News

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Manhunt Says F*ck Censorship

GAY SOCIALITIES - Nov 23 - Manhunt.net new web-based mobile site that easily accessible via iPhone, iPad and Android browsers at m.manhunt.net. The new Manhunt Mobile is not a native app, and therefore not subject to the adult content restrictions imposed upon competing mobile dating and hookup applications by Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market.

by Jack Barbosa
See full article at Gay Socialities

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Grindr Is The Gay Foursquare

IRISH TIMES - Nov 2 - Most social networks connect people in the virtual world but Grindr helps gay people meet for real. And now its founder is launching an app for the straight community too. Grindr is uncomplicated. Create a profile, upload a photo and see gay men in your area who have done the same. Blendr replaces sexuality as a commonality with categories of “interests” concerning everything from sport to religion. But there are also complexities in creating a safe environment in which heterosexual people can interact.

by Una Mullally
See full article at Irish Times

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This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWach.

Young Gays Are More Comfortable than Straights Finding Love Online

LA WEEKLY - Aug 22 - Despite an exaggerated stereotype that gay men are online looking only for sex, most are actually looking for something more serious. According to OkCupid's in-house analysis of ~3.2M users, 45% of gay people have slept with five or fewer people (vs. 44% for straights), and 98% have slept with fewer than twenty (vs. 99% for straights). Among gay men, the quality of guys available online is allegedly a lot higher, as far more people feel comfortable using the Internet as matchmaker.

by Amanda Lewis
See full article at LA Weekly

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GaySpeedFlirt Screws Up App

OPW - Aug 16 - Thanks to SpeedDate, you can now dive into online dating right from your iPad, but it has some hiccups. When you search for dating in the app store, you might be surprised that the #1 suggested app is actually a dating app for gays - Gay Speed Flirt from SpeedDate that says "Date Local Men". This is where it gets confusing. A cute girl on the screen shot of the Gay Speed Flirt app is luring you in. Huh? Then on the next screen you'll find a guy, who is searching for women. See screen captures.  

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Interview: Henry Badenhorst, the Gaydar Guy

PINK NEWS - June 21 - Henry Badenhorst is arguably one of Britain’s most influential gay men. The source of his influence comes from his ownership of Gaydar, the online dating platform he co-founded, which boasts ~6M subscribers worldwide. While Gaydar is hugely popular in the UK, South Africa and Australia, the service hasn’t replicated that success in America. Gaydar initially entered the US market via a partner, but with mixed results. Looking ahead Badenhorst is contemplating becoming involved with London’s annual Pride event, which he thinks pales in comparison to similar events held by Sydney and Brighton.

by Laurence Watts
See full article at Pink News

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Grindr Hits 2 Million User Milestone

GRINDR - June 10 - Grindr, the world's largest Gay Social & Lifestyle App, hit 2M users today. Grindr has 45K active users per second on all 3 Grindr platforms (Android, BlackBerry, Apple) with 250 users refreshing their 'Cascade' display per second. Grindr launched in March 2009 and currently has 499,700 Grindr members logging on daily and spending an average of 1.5 hours a day using the app.

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Is Manhunt.net Helping Men Cheat on Their Wives?

GATHER - May 31 - Manhunt.net boasts millions of men looking for dates, friends, and hookups. It was founded in 2001 by Jonathan Crutchley and Larry Basile after the original telephone-dating venture "MANHUNT" had been a success. Unlike a traditional dating service such as Match.com, Manhunt.net is a sex-oriented destination. Many married men appear on the site as well. Naturally, the site can't be held responsible for people cheating of their own accord, unless Manhunt.net is intentionally giving them the means to do it. A free search option allows men to browse those located near them, and in doing so, see their interest in "Married Men."

by Chris Sosa
See full article at Gather

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Grindr Has Over 1 Million Users Across 180 Countries

VANITY FAIR - May 27 - Grindr, the popular location based social networking and dating tool for gay men, has more than 1 million users in 180 countries. Grindr is most popular in the UK with 160,000 users, 62,000 of which are in London alone. The app even has members in Sri Lanka, Djibouti, Haiti, Iraq and Iran, where homosexuality isn't tolerated.

by Matt Kapp
See full article at Vanity Fair

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