TRADE ARABIA - Dec 7 - Matrimony.com, a leader in online matrimony, has entered the UAE market through its flagship brand BharatMatrimony as part of its strategic expansion plans. The platform has inaugurated an office at Fortune Executive Tower, Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai, to serve Indians in the Middle East region. Matrimony.com, a publicly-listed company, is headquartered in Chennai, India.
See full article at Trade Arabia
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DAILYMAIL.CO.UK - Dec 7 - Online daters reach so-called 'dating capacity' once they have contacted seven potential matches within a week, according to the report from Oxford University. The study also found people who considered themselves attractive were less likely to initiate a conversation than those who did not. The research was conducted by scientists from Oxford University's Oxford Internet Institute (OII) in collaboration with eHarmony. The team analysed data generated by ~150K dating profiles set up over the last 10 years.
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COMPUTERWORLD UK - Dec 7 - Tinder is using image recognition technology from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to power its matching algorithm for premium users. Tom Jacques, VP of engineering at Tinder explains how it is using AWS to identify user's key traits by mining the 10B photos they upload daily. Jacques says that Tinder knows from its data that the primary driver for who you match is photos. "The more pictures you have, the higher likelihood of success to match." An increasing number of users are foregoing the bio altogether. Recognition allows Tinder to automatically tag billions of photos with personality markers, like a person with a guitar as a musician or 'creative', or someone in climbing gear as 'adventurous' or 'outdoorsy'. Tinder uses these tags to enrich their user profiles. "We take this information and feed into our tagging system to work out what we highlight for each profile," Jacques said.
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WASHINGTON POST - Dec 7 - 2018 should have been a record year for Grindr, the leading gay dating app, which touts ~27M users. Instead, the app has received backlash for one blunder after another. Early this year, the Kunlun Group's buyout of Grindr raised alarm among intelligence experts that the Chinese government might be able to gain access to the Grindr profiles of American users. Then in the spring, Grindr faced scrutiny after reports indicated the app had a security issue that could expose users' precise locations and that the company had shared sensitive data on its users' HIV status with external software vendors. Last week, news broke that Scott Chen, the app's straight-identified president, may not fully support marriage equality. In the past several years, Grindr users have widely reported that spambots and spoofed accounts run rampant. Earlier this year, a massive study by the Center for Humane Technology found that Grindr is the No. 1 app that leaves users feeling unhappy. Among its major competitors, Grindr has the lowest score on the Apple App store: a lowly two stars.
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NASDAQ - Dec 7 - It has been about a month since the last earnings report for Match Group. Shares have lost ~10.1% in that time frame, underperforming the S&P 500. Match Group's Q3 revenues of $443.9M surged 49.2% YOY and beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $437M. The YOY growth was primarily driven by 23% increase in average subscriber base and 6% rise in ARPU. North America subscriber base increased 18%, while International jumped 29%. Tinder average subscribers increased 61% YOY and came in at 4.1M. Match, Meetic, PlentyOfFish and OkCupid also registered growth. Match Group anticipates Q4 2018 revenues between $440M and $450M. Tinder remains the key catalyst. Unfavorable foreign exchange and negative impact of GDPR is expected to hurt top-line growth. Currently, Match Group has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). We expect an in-line return from the stock in the next few months.
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MOMO - Dec 6 - Q3 revenues increased 51% YOY to $536M. Net income increased to $85.2M from $79.1M in the same period last year. Monthly Active Users on Momo app were 110.5M in September 2018, compared to 94.4M in September 2017. Live video service revenues were $406.9M in Q3 2018, an increase of 34% from $302.6M in Q3 2017.Total paying users of live video service and value-added service, without double counting the overlap, including 3.6M paying users of Tantan, were 12.5M, compared to 7.3M for the third quarter of 2017.
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BUSINESS TIMES - Dec 6 - M17 Entertainment, the parent company of dating and networking app Paktor, has raised $25M. The cash will go towards technical upgrades and new features for M17's live content-streaming platform, said the company. It also plans to invest in recruiting, training and promoting its content producers or "streamers", and in expanding its content and services. Terry Tsang, CEO of Hong Kong game developer Madhead, led M17 Entertainment's funding this time round. Other investors included Stonebridge Ventures and existing shareholders. M17 Entertainment was formed from the 2017 merger of Singapore mobile dating app Paktor and live-streaming platform 17 Media, founded by veteran Taiwanese rapper Jeffrey Huang Li-Tchen. Paktor co-founder Joseph Phua Jiexian became the group CEO of M17. It had planned an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in June 2018, but trading was delayed and then shelved. M17 later said that it instead turn to private fundraising for $35M.
by Annabeth Leow
See full article at Business Times
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com
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ECONOMIC TIMES - Dec 6 - India is the first country in Asia to get Bumble, which was founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd. "It was Priyanka Chopra's idea to get Bumble to India," said Herd. US is the largest market for Bumble, but its high-growth markets include Australia, Canada, UK, Germany and Netherlands. For the Indian market, language and cultural localisation has been done. Available in Hindi and 'Hinglish' on iOS and Android, Bumble has incorporated a religion filter, apart from letting users mention astrological signs, whether the person drinks or smokes, has pets or not, and the option for women to only mention the initial of their first names. Bumble started in India in October 2018, and it's doing well so far. The actress will be the brand's face in the country, but her "celebrity status is only the icing," Herd said. "What's special about Priyanka is that she is not just the face of the brand here, but also very invested in this. She cares about it."
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ARS TECHNICA - Dec 6 - UK MP releases 250 pages of materials obtained as part of Six4Three debacle. The documents from Facebook show that the company allowed even more companies including dating apps Badoo, HotorNot and Bumble to access the v1.0 Graph API back in 2015. The documents, known as the "Six4Three files," were published by Damian Collins, a member of the UK Parliament. Collins is the chair of the Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) Committee in Parliament, which has been overseeing inquiries into Facebook's practices. "The files show evidence of Facebook taking aggressive positions against apps, with the consequence that denying them access to data led to the failure of that business," Collins concluded. Six4Three is a long-forgotten company that has for years pursued a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that it was shut out from being allowed to access the Graph API, as it was too small. Six4Three made a short-lived app called "Pikinis," which sought bikini photos on Facebook. It was only downloaded ~5,000 times. Lawyers for Six4Three have long argued what Collins concluded: once small apps were shut off, they were driven out of busines.
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GLOBAL TIMES - Dec 6 - In a recently released report on Shanghai women's development over the past 40 years, the federation said that the "two-child" policy has intensified the invisible discrimination against women because companies consider more issues when hiring them. Both men and women in Shanghai get married later than the national average. By 2015, the average age of getting married for men and women in Shanghai was 30.3 and 28.4 respectively, growing 5 and 5.4 years compared with 2005. A survey carried out in 2010 by the Journalism School at Fudan University said among ~900 female university graduates from 17 Chinese universities, ~70% said their greatest fear is becoming a 3S lady - meaning single, born in the 70s and stuck. Previously, these single women were stigmatized and called "leftover women." These women are mostly independent and educated, around the expected age of marriage, and still single. The number of married women between 25 and 29 years of age dropped by 11.5% from 2005 to 2015. The decrease was 7.6% for women 30 - 34. For men, there is no significant change, according to the report.
by Zhang Dan
See full article at Global Times
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INSIDER - Dec 6 - The Inner Circle is a selective dating app with 1.3M users, but they only approve half the number of people who apply. Anyone who posts a "duck face" mirror selfie will not be allowed to join elite dating app The Inner Circle, the company's co-founder David Vermeulen said. The selection process is not only down to photos, though - the team of seven dedicated screeners also look at age, profession, and education. The average Inner Circle user is 31, but most are between the ages of 25 and 45. Celebrities or models, however, may get approved even if they're in their early 20s.
by Rachel Hosie
See full article at Insider
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PRESS RELEASE - Dec 6 - A analysis by PositiveSingles shows that the average age of gay men and lesbian women daters living with HIV has been continuously dropping since 2011. The % of new HIV-Positive gay members age 18 - 30 has risen from 27 % to 37% in seven years. The overall number of these members represents 29% of the site's total member base. "Dating with HIV is more popular in young people than ever. Love does not know bounds, disease or sexuality," said Alex, the PR staff of PositiveSingles.com.
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NDTV - Dec 6 - In her first interview since her wedding with American singer Nick Jonas, Priyanka Chopra spoke about her investment in dating app Bumble. Calling herself a "tech fan" and someone who loves doing things "out of the box", Priyanka said that she thought that the app would be an "incredible platform" for women.
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BUSINESS INSIDER - Dec 4 - When Mandy Ginsberg took over as CEO of Match Group she vowed to make sure the company was welcoming to women. And one step she made was to audit the salaries of her own workforce, which is now 1,500 people, to see if she was paying women and men equally for equal work. She was shocked to discover that her female employees were 100% equally paid, according to the findings by a third-party auditor.
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NYDAILY NEWS - Dec 4 - Grindr president Scott Chen wrote on his Facebook page, "Some think marriage is between a man and a woman. I think so, too, but it's a personal matter." He added, "Some people think the purpose of marriage is to have your own biological children. It's a personal matter, too." The L.A.-based LGBTQ friendly social media page Into quickly seized on Chen's comments, posting that "Into has learned that President of Grindr does not support same-sex marriage, according to deleted social post." Chen acknowledged the post, but claimed his intention was to argue against those who oppose same-sex marriage in Taiwan, where he was educated and served in the military.
by Brian Niemietz
See full article at NY Daily News
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THE HILL - Dec 4 - Christy Edwards Lawton, founder of the app Righter, said that her legal team is prepared to file lawsuits against leftists who try to infiltrate the platform after it launches later this month. Lawton, a former banker from Wyoming, said she was inspired to create Righter after hearing stories of conservative women being rejected on mainstream platforms because of their political beliefs. Righter is not the only dating app geared toward conservatives. DonaldDaters launched in October for Trump supporters but faced backlash after it leaked its entire database of users on its first day. The site is marketed toward Trump backers but said everyone was welcome.
by Morgan Gstalter
See full article at The Hill
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OPW INTERVIEW - Dec 6 - Waplog sees 7-9 million visits a month on its website and is in the top 100 social apps on both Android and iPhone in various countries around the world. Waplog has been around since 2008! It started out as a social network and moved into dating. Here's our first interview with the CEO Volkan Yazicioglu. - Mark Brooks
What inspired you to create Waplog?
The idea of Waplog came to us in 2008. At the time Facebook was very popular but it was not heavily used on mobile devices. We wanted to be a social network site too but for mobile users. Later, as our users were excited about meeting new people, we slid into the dating industry.
What does Waplog mean, is there a story behind the name?
The 'Waplog' name comes from the word WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) meaning the Internet for old generation phones. We thought about changing our name after the rise of smartphones. However, the users who were switching to smartphones were finding us on Play Store and the App Store by searching Waplog. When we published our Android app back in 2011, we got 1 million installs in one month. For this wide brand awareness, we decided not to change our name.
How had Waplog's video stories feature helped users connect?
Users may not upload videos right from their phones. The stories have to be taken at that moment by the phone's camera, for a duration of 5-20 seconds. Thus, they prove they are not a fake profile. Making it an automatic, easy, and fun way to verify yourself. With this feature, we believe we are making both our male and female users happy.
What can user do with coins in the app?
By purchasing coins you can send gifts to people you want to be friends with and get ahead of everyone else. If the other person does not accept your gift, your coins are added back to your account. So our users can always be sure their gifts are not ever lost in the void. Another use of coins is that users can use to unlock locked stories. Not all stories are created equal so users have the option to lock their stories if they want to.
What are the benefits of a premium membership?
Users who become a VIP member on Waplog can shut off ads, send unlimited messages, be the first to message the new and/or most popular users and be seen on top of the discover and suggestion screens.
Where in the world is Waplog gaining popularity?
We have users all over the world. The top countries we are most popular are; Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey, USA, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Germany and Italy.
What does success look like for a Waplog user?
We receive lots of feedback from our users. Even on Apple Store and Play Store, we receive comments as "We got married thanks to Waplog" or "I finally have a girlfriend, thank you". These types of comments and feedbacks make us extremely happy and excited. Reading such comments, we know we are doing something good. We publish such success stories on our blog. And of course, we take complaints and user suggestions very seriously and use them to guide us make Waplog a better place to find love and friendship.
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BUSINESS INSIDER - Dec 4 - Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg was interviewed at Business Insider's IGNITION 2018, where she discussed the changing scene of online dating and the tech industry's "bro culture." Ginsberg said that the online dating industry is "fiercely competitive". Ginsberg has taken steps within her own company to ensure she's treating women equally to men in the male-dominated tech industry. Tinder has grown to 300 employees working solely on the app. Match Group as a whole has ~1k employees, a large workforce in which Ginsberg has advocated gender equality and representation. She has recently ordered an audit of Match Group to ensure male and female employees were being paid equally for the same work. The auditors found her employees were paid equally.
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GQ - Dec 3 - Last year, a billboard advertising dating app for Asian-Americans called East Meet East went up in LA. "Asian4Asian," the billboard read, in an oversized font: "That's not Racist." When asked EastMeetEast's CEO Mariko Tokioka and co-founder Kenji Yamazaki about the "That's not Racist" billboard, they explained that it was meant to be a response to their online critics, whom they described as non-Asians who call the app racist, for catering exclusively to Asians. The feedback was especially aggressive when Asian women were featured in their advertisements. "Like we have to share Asian women as if they are property," Yamazaki said.
by Wei Tchou
See full article at GQ
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OUT.COM - Dec 3 - President of Grindr, Scott Chen created a Facebook post where he defined marriage as a "holy matrimony between a man and a woman." Here is an interview with Scruff CEO Eric Silverberg.
Q: How you felt when the news surfaced about the President of Grindr's remarks on gay marriage?
A: It's very disappointing. As a private citizen, you certainly have your right to your private beliefs, but when a leader in the gay community says these things, they're disrespecting the decades-long work of marriage equality activists.
Q: What do you know about the owners of Grindr?
A: I know that today, Grindr is entirely owned by a Chinese company. I think what this whole incident shines a light on is just how important the identity and personal beliefs of the tech company leaders really are in 2018. That's why I'm proud that Scruff is a gay-owned business.
Q: Tell me more about how Scruff pursues a business model.
A: Some tech executives don't use the products that they're building. We here at Scruff absolutely do. That manifested in the decision we made this year to get rid of all programmatic advertising, and to forgo any kind of data integration with Facebook.
Q: Can you explain what programmatic advertising is?
A: Any time you see a banner ad in an app, your data — be it your location, your sexuality, or the app you're on — is shuttled out of the app and into something that resembles a stock exchange. In that instant, you have advertisers who are bidding on that impression. The issue now is that data doesn't just stop with the advertisers anymore.
Q: Do you believe the claims that Grindr won't allow advertisers to receive access to users' HIV statuses?
A: I think we should look at their history of decision-making. People have very good reason to be deeply skeptical.
Q: Why is Grindr so big?
A: They were simply first to market.
Q: What are your hopes for Scruff, especially in the wake of these revelations about Grindr's president?
A: My hopes for the gay community are that people become more aware of the apps that they use, and really hold their companies and their leaders to the standards that they always should've been held to.
by Phillip Picardi
See full article at Out.com
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