Online Personals Watch: News on the Online Dating Industry and Business

"Big Data Demystified" - Author Interview

OPW INTERVIEW - Nov 16 - We're moving towards a world where big data and A.I. will be far more significant in online dating. For some dating companies, it already is. But some terms and the general realm of big data and artificial intelligence seems shrouded in mystique. It would be nice to demystify big data and A.I. Dr David Stephenson does just this with his new book Big Data Demystified. I interviewed him to get a better sense of some of the mystique of big data. Dr Stephenson was head of Global Business Analytics at eBay and is a Cornell PhD.

Post by Mark Brooks, CEO IDEA

Tinder Is Launching the 'Swipe Surge'

WIRED - Nov 15 - Tinder is testing a new feature called Swipe Surge, which sends a push notification when usage is spiking in a specific geographic area. During those periods, Tinder says the odds of finding a match are increased. Swipe Surges are triggered by a number of variables, including when activity in an area is two times normal averages. Users in cities where Swipe Surge is being tested can expect to receive around one notification a week. Tinder says surges tend to occur on Monday nights, though they can happen at any time. A surge might happen in response to a local event, like a music festival or conference. The company also says that in some cities, like New York, surges may happen later at night than elsewhere.

by Louise Matsakis
See full article at Wired

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Bumble Is Open to a Future IPO

WALL STREET JOURNAL - Nov 14 - Speaking at The Wall Street Journal's WSJ Tech D.Live conference on Wednesday, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said an IPO could give her company more momentum to expand further internationally. Wolfe Herd founded the dating app in 2014 as a site where women must make the first move. The company now has ~45M users and is profitable, she said. Still, an IPO is more of an option than a necessity for Bumble right now. Wolfe Herd said her company's next phase of growth isn't contingent on raising this money this way and noted the offering is far from certain. "We're exploring a lot of different options right now," Wolfe Herd said.

by Georgia Wells
See full article at Wall Street Journal

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Tinder Tests an Expansion of Tinder U

TECH CRUNCH - Nov 15 - Starting this weekend, Tinder will allow college students on its Tinder U service to match with others outside their own university for the first time. The dating app is positioning this market test of a potential Tinder U expansion as the "Rivals Week" - a way to match users with those who attend a rival university (for a limited period of time). Tinder U's Rivalry Week starts Nov 17 in the U.S. for students attending four-year, degree-granting colleges and universities. It ends Nov 24. Tinder U launched a few months ago as a way to attract more younger users to its service. College students can choose to opt into Tinder U by signing up with their ".edu" email address. Until now, however, Tinder U limited users to matching only with those who attend their same school. That changes with "Rivals Week". The Tinder U product is live in ~1,200 colleges across the U.S.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Bumble's Mental Health Notification Missed the Mark

THE MIGHTY - Nov 15 - On Tuesday, Canadian users of Bumble received a push notification that said, "Did you know 1 in 10 men will experience depression in their lives? Match today to support men's mental health." The purpose of the notification was to raise money for Movember Canada, the leading international charity addressing men's mental health, but some social media users took issue with the way it was worded, believing it encouraged women to take on the emotional burdens of men. Bumble quickly replied to Twitter users expressing discomfort with the wording of the push notification. While Bumble's intentions were good, the notification touched a nerve for many social media users because women are often expected to carry emotional weight of others.

by Juliette Virzi
See full article at The Mighty

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Summarized by the IDEA team

The Meet Group to Raise $10K for Action Against Hunger

PRESS RELEASE - Nov 15 - The Meet Group's members (MeetMe, Skout and Tagged) have been successful in raising $10K for Alex's Lemonade Stand in September and $10K for Ryan's Well Foundation in August. This month, the Meet Group is partnering with Action Against Hunger. The campaign is set to launch today (Nov 15) to raise an additional $10K to fight global hunger. The company will offer a limited edition virtual gift in its MeetMe, Skout, and Tagged mobile apps. For every gift sent to broadcasters, The Meet Group will donate $0.25. Action Against Hunger has led the global fight against hunger for ~40 years. The organization is committed to doubling the number of children who receive urgent hunger care, from 3M to 6M by 2020.

See full article at The Meet Group website

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Summarized by the IDEA team

How Bumble Plans to Get Buy-In From Women in India

WALL STREET JOURNAL - Nov 15 - Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd discussed the dating app's strategy for getting women in India to buy in and the company's move to producing primetime video content. "In India, we recruit hyper, hyper local influencers - people who have a voice in a college, people the young women look up to and respect," she said. "No social platform has really been able to create major traction because they have not had the buy in from women in India. Women don't feel safe. Women are not even creating profiles for themselves because of the safety issues", she continued. "We are launching all sorts of safety features. You have to verify yourself as a user, we are letting women register without their first name, just the first initial."

See full article at Wall Street Journal

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Tinder's Head of Product Has Left

TECH CRUNCH - Nov 14 - Tinder's chief product officer Brian Norgard wants to get back to his entrepreneurial roots, citing former PayPal executive-turned-venture capitalist Keith Rabois as inspiration. Norgard, who joined Tinder as part of the acquisition of his Kleiner Perkins-backed ephemeral messaging startup Tappy in 2014, has confirmed that he's left Tinder to focus on building products and investing in early-stage businesses. Tinder has not yet identified his successor, but Norgard says "it's all positive vibes" between him and the company. Norgard began as Tinder's head of revenue before being promoted to the chief product role in late 2016. Prior to joining Tinder via Tappy, he co-founded two other successful startups: Chill, a Facebook app that garnered 30M users, and adtech startup Newroo, which was acquired by FOX Interactive in 2006.

by Kate Clark
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Summarized by the IDEA team

New Pair App Brings Respect, Safety and Honesty to Dating

BUSINESS WIRE - Nov 14 - Pair, a new app for iPhone designed to bring respect, safety and honesty to dating, is launching in US. On the app, users give each other a thumbs up or down for behavior, whether they are safe to be around, and whether their profiles are accurate. Pair then generates a safety and profile accuracy rating for each member. Members are rewarded for being responsive, behaving well and being active on the service. This reward comes in the form of prioritizing a member's profile.

See full article at Businesswire

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Shady Data Brokers Are Selling Online Dating Profiles by the Millions

MOTHERBOARD - Nov 14 - Tactical Tech and artist Joana Moll bought one million dating profiles for $153 from the data broker USDate. The profiles came from numerous dating sites including Match, Tinder, Plenty of Fish, and OkCupid. The datasets included usernames, email addresses, gender, age, sexual orientation, interests, profession, as well as detailed physical and personality traits and 5M photos. USDate claims on its website that the profiles it's selling are "genuine and that the profiles were created and belong to real people actively dating today and looking for partners." Most of the dating app companies that Moll contacted to comment on the practice of selling users' data to third parties didn't respond, she said. USDate did speak with her, and told her it was completely legal. In the company's frequently asked questions section on its website, it states that it sells "100% legal dating profiles as we have permission from the owners. Selling fake profiles is illegal because generated fake profiles use real people's photos without their permission."

by Samantha Cole
See full article at Motherboard

Summarized by the IDEA team

Increasing Number of People Pay Virtual Dating Assistants to Get a Date

GQ MAGAZINE - Nov 14 - For people too busy to swipe themselves, there's a new generation of cyber-cupids to help them hook up, break up and everything in between - from polishing profiles, to messaging potential dates. With a budget of £15K, Scott Valdez used Craigslist to hire two freelance writers and a PR manager, then founded Virtual Dating Assistants (styled Vida) in 2009. Since then, the business has grown exponentially. Vida has hundreds of clients. In the last year alone, it has seen a 50% increase in sign-ups and almost a third of its customers are women. The team has grown from a staff of three to 80, with matchmakers, profile writers, photo analysts and app swipers joining the ghostwriters. With pay-as-you-go monthly packages ranging from £400 (20 hours of dating assistance and an expected two-to-four dates per month) to £2k (100 hours, and eight to 20 dates per month), Vida already has a seven-figure revenue stream, and it's just getting started. Vida says that 99.6% of clients get dates, 63% of which turn into serious relationships, usually after 12 dates within three and a half months. After Vida obtains a phone number from a potential date, the client is sent an email with the full transcript of the conversation to read over and memorise (they are then expected to takeover via SMS).

by Eleanor Halls
See full article at GQ Magazine

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Badoo Finds a Dramatic Increase in Matches During 'Cuffing Season'

CNET - Nov 12 - Cuffing season refers to that "the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful" period when singles are typically more eager to be "cuffed," or shackled, to a significant other. Badoo found that matches increased by 105% for women and 67% for men in the winter, compared to in the summer. Badoo surveyed 2K of its users, and 71% of respondents admitted they search for a soulmate in the winter because it's the most romantic season to date.

by Joshua Rotter
See full article at CNet

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Personals, a New Instagram Dating Community for LGBT, to Launch as a Dating App

FORBES - Nov 14 - Kelly Rakowski didn't intend to start a dating service, especially not one based on the seemingly antiquated personal ad. With her upcoming app, Personals, however, Rakowski is demonstrating that personal ads may be far from obsolete. It started with an accidental discovery. For four years, Rakowski had been running the popular Instagram account, @h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y, which showcases lesbian culture throughout history, when she found a group of personal ads written in the back of some 80s and 90s lesbian magazines. After a while, she asked the @h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y community to submit personal ads of their own. As she posted the submitted ads, people began using them to connect. There were so many submissions that Rakowski had to start a separate Instagram account, which she has run for the past two years. Now, there are even too many submissions for that account to sustain. That's where the dating app comes in. Personals will resemble the feel of Instagram and is designed for the LBTQ community. For now, it is not available to cisgender gay men because Rakowski feels there are already many options for them. "It's important for us to take our space first," she says.

by Molly Sprayregen
See full article at Forbes

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Q&A With Alexandra Tweten, Creator of Bye Felipe Instagram

MAGENTA MAGAZINE - Nov 14 - Alexandra Tweten started Instagram account, Bye Felipe, that outs creeps for their bad online-dating behaviors. She posts screenshots submitted by women who have been harassed by men on dating apps. Since Bye Felipe's creation four years ago, Tweten has amassed 500K followers. She also wrote a book Bye Felipe.

Q: Where did you originally get the idea for Bye Felipe?
A: It was October 2014, and I was in a Facebook group for women in L.A. One woman posted a screenshot of a message she had received on OkCupid. I started the Instagram as a joke just for me and my friends to make fun of these guys. Two weeks later, Olga Khazan at the Atlantic found it and asked to interview me. After her article came out, it blew up from there.

Q: Have you ever found success in online dating, personally?
A: Yes, I've met a lot of really great guys; I was in a relationship with someone I met on OkCupid for 2 ½ years. The point of Bye Felipe has never been to encourage women not to do online dating.

Q: How did you approach creating a book from an Instagram account?
A: I got the idea for the book pretty shortly after the Instagram took off. It took me two years to finish the proposal, and then another year to write and publish it.

Q: What did you want your big takeaway for women to be when they finished reading?
A: Don't take online dating too seriously. Have fun, and let it go.

See full article at Magneta Magazine

Summarized by the IDEA team

Tinder to Roll Out Expanded Set of Gender Options in India

TECH CRUNCH - Nov 13 - These same options have been live in the U.S. since November 2016, when Tinder added options for transgender and gender non-conforming people. Tinder says it's expanding its support team and educating its staff about the issues that these communities face in India. Additionally, Tinder is inviting back users who were banned after being unfairly reported by others due to their gender. They will be able to email the company with a link to their Facebook profile in order to have their request reviewed by Tinder's team, in order to be let back in.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Interview with DateAha! Founder Stan Bradbury, Yelp for Online Dating

OPW INTERVIEW - Nov 12 - DateAha! wants to be Yelp for online dating. The tool launched last week. Its a free browser extension that syncs with user's profiles on dating sites so they can leave anonymous comments regarding someone's profile, based on dates or interactions. Comments can be then viewed by other DateAha! users.

What was the motivation behind creating DateAha!? What problem are you trying to solve in the online dating world?
The biggest problem in the dating world is the toxic behavior of (primarily) men due to the lack of accountability for their actions. This prevents women from trying online dating because they’ve heard horror stories from friends or they try and quit within days or weeks because of the obnoxious behavior they encounter – leading to a gender disparity on most sites. The industry would be larger and healthier if there was gender balance on platforms and this is only going to be achieved by rooting out the toxic behavior of the bad actors in the system.

How would a typical user use DateAha! to learn more about their date?
As they browse online dating profiles they may notice our extension icon pop with a number. This means that other users have already left that many comments about that profile/URL. They have the option to click on our icon and review the previous comments, reply to one or more of those comments or add their own comment about that profile. These user generated comments are a form of validation by the community and will help daters know that the person in the profile is real and genuine. This includes validating that the information provided is accurate and help weed out misleading photos, age, marital status and other biographical information.

How does DateAha! operate within the permissions and privacy restrictions of the dating apps it services?
We don't have an app solution yet. Our first generation release is for online dating websites. DateAha! only works for people who already have online dating profiles and access to the dating websites. We don't share any content from the dating site or reuse it in any way. For instance, if you are not a OKCupid member you can't view the profile and glean the additional user generated content from other registered OKCupid users. We are like the extension Honey for online dating websites – our users have access to additional information as they browse. The failure of earlier services like Lulu and Peeple is they needed users to create profiles on a third-party platform including taking images or profile data from the dating website and then enable commenting on that third-party platform. We don't do that, we don't touch the underlying content and only registered users of that service can see the comments about those pages.

Apart from DateAha!, how do you think dating services can better protect their users?
I think the dating services have a stronger incentive to increase paid users than protect them. DateAha! works with every online dating site (and every app in the future) so there is nowhere for the toxic users to hide – if they don't change their behavior they will be driven out of the system. Part of the dating sites problem is they only have a binary choice – keep the user or delete their account. They error on the side of keeping the user, especially a paid user. DateAha! allows them to keep the user but give people feedback about the user so they can make better decisions and so the offending users might also improve the way they interact with other people.

How will DateAha! function differently when it is released on iOS and Android vs web?
The biggest difference is it will be more of a pull method on apps instead of a push method where we can see the URL as you browse and be proactively viewing our database for comments associated with that URL and pop the icon to show you if there are matching comments.

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Post by the IDEA team

Chappy Partners With Glaad to Raise Funds for LGBTQ Community

THE DRUM - Nov 12 - Gay dating app Chappy is partnering with LGBTQ advocacy group Glaad. The partnership, called 'Chats for Charity', is designed to raise money for the organization with each chat session initiated on the app. This feature will become a fixture of the app in 2019, but Chappy will begin donating immediately. Chappy has also appointed Adam Cohen-Aslatei as its new managing director to be based in the company's New York City headquarters.

by Kyle O'Brien
See full article at The Drum

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Summarized by the IDEA team

The Oldie Magazine Has Launched Greydar, a 50+ Dating Service

DAILYMAIL.CO.UK - Nov 12 - When The Oldie was founded by Private Eye co-founder Richard Ingrams in 1992, the idea was to give a funny, ironic, well-informed voice to the old. It's just launched Greydar, a free service, where older people can date, share tips and buy or sell anything. Already 2K members have signed up, and there are ~1K postings.

by Harry Mount
See full article at DailyMail.co.uk

Summarized by the IDEA team

Bumble Launches BumbleSpot, Verified Locations Where Users Can Meet Matches in Real Life

BUSTLE - Nov 8 - The first BumbleSpot partnership is with Moxy Hotels, Marriott International's experiential brand, where official Spots will be at eight of their locations: two in New York (Times Square and the Financial District), and one apiece in Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, Seattle, Tempe, and Minneapolis. Bumble will be rolling out more Spots throughout the year at various restaurants, bars, and coffee shops across the U.S. and Canada, and in some international locations in 2019. Some of the BumbleSpot locations will have Bumble benefits and promotions, too. For instance, with the Moxy partnership, Bumble users will receive complimentary access to Moxy's workspace for entrepreneurs on the go, food discounts, two-for-one cocktail specials.

by Natalia Lusinski
See full article at Bustle

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Founder of Trump Dating App Says Politics Should 'Be an Icebreaker'

FOXNEWS - Nov 12 - Emily Moreno founded "Donald Daters," which helps singles connect with others who are like-minded in their support for President Trump. "People that go on Tinder and Bumble are told that if you're a Trump supporter, swipe left," Moreno said. Moreno said that there is a risk of "unhinged" liberals seeking to infiltrate the app and shame users for their Trump support. "You can have politics and love if you choose to, but with 'Donald Daters' ... you don't have to just talk politics. It should be an icebreaker," Moreno said.

See full article at Fox News

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Summarized by the IDEA team