VULCAN POST - Aug 23 - With the newly launched 'Spoken' feature, users can record a 15-second voice memo to introduce themselves to people viewing their profile. Paktor says this is intended to enhance typical dating profiles by adding an auditory dimension, which can help people get to know each other better. About "80% of new Android users and 60% of new iOS users" have already recorded at least one voice memo.
by Alanna Tan
See full article at Vulcan Post
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WALL STREET JOURNAL - Aug 22 - As Vladimir Putin's Russia increasingly cracks down on Internet freedoms, a band of self-styled pirates is fighting back. The group of fewer than a dozen lawyers and techies calling themselves Roskomsvoboda (Russian Communications Freedom) has unblocked banned websites, mounted legal cases and recently revealed that Moscow had ordered dating app Tinder to share user information with security services, setting off fresh debate over Moscow's tightening grip on the Internet. Roskomsvoboda's main objective now is to prevent Mr. Putin's government from advancing plans to install a "kill switch" that would allow Russia to firewall itself from the rest of the Internet, much as China does. Russia has banned ~200K sites, and bloggers are now required to register as media, which subjects them to greater government pressure. The new kill switch is scheduled to go live in November.
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PR NEWSWIRE - Aug 22 - Worthy, an online auction marketplace for pre-owned diamond jewelry, releases new Dating After Divorce study that focuses solely on women who have and who are going through the divorce. According to the study divorced women do not waste their time when it comes to dating again. 78% of the women are already thinking about dating before the divorce papers are signed. 65% of women are dating within the first year of being separated or divorced.
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METRO.CO.UK - Aug 21 - Dating app Bumble is hosting a Miami Vice-themed singles party on Wednesday 28 August at a secret London location. Bumble will host a series of interactive games and ice-breaker challenges. Tickets are free, but singles will need to download the Bumble app and match with 'Bumble Pool Party' to apply for a ticket.
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THE ECONOMIC TIMES - Aug 21 - According to a survey conducted by Gleeden, an extra-marital dating app for married people, 77% of Indian women cheat because they are bored by their monotonous married life. Since the Supreme Court of India abolished section 377 which criminalized same-sex extra-marital relationships, there was a +45% increase in same-sex encounters among married people. India's most unfaithful women live in the big metropolis: Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Kolkata are in the top 3.
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THE DRUM - Aug 20 - Over the past five years, the objective of dating apps has changed. It's no longer about finding the one, it's about having some fun. When Domino's Pizza showed up as the first brand to advertise on Tinder, it was a hugely successful partnership. Tinder users 'swiped right' for Domino's, which led to the brand matching with over 700 people, reaching 230K and providing the opportunity to talk directly to consumers in an engaging fun and social way. Companies such as Uber, and Spotify have embraced dating apps as a key channel to target a younger, digitally-driven demographic. Last year, TV network HBO and dating app Bumble collaborated to host a two-night event, 'stay home at the movies'. Winners were invited to spend the evening watching a movie at a $30M flat in New York City and they could choose to bring either a Bumble BFF or Bumble date as their plus-one. The most memorable campaigns are those that give the people what they want right now: fun.
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TECH CRUNCH - Aug 20 - In this week's edition of This is Your Life in Silicon Valley features Amanda Bradford, founder/CEO of The League. Amanda talks about modern dating, its limitations, its flaws, why 'The League' will win. She talks about her days at Salesforce and how it influenced her decision to build a dating tech product that focused on data, and funnels. She goes in on all of the popular dating sites, including Bumble and others, providing her take on what's wrong with them.
by Sunil Rajamaran
See full article at Tech Crunch
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JOE.IE - Aug 20 - The Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival starts on Aug 30th and will run for five weeks until 29 September. Thousands of singletons flock to the festival in the small western town of Lisdoonvarna, in the hope of finding love. The festival is jam packed with music and events in plenty of venues.
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DUTCHNEWS.NL - Aug 20 - Some 37K people who lost money on fake dating sites will share €9M in compensation agreed by the company behind the sites. The sites operated by The Right Link allowed users to exchange messages with potential dates, costing between 60c and €1 a time. But many of the people posing as dates worked for the company and had been told to keep people in conversation for as long as possible. Some users lost thousands of euros through the scam. The ACM raided the company's premises last year and a number of sites including flirten.nl were taken down.
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PHONEDOG - Aug 20 - There are lots of changes coming with iOS 13, including some tweaks to location tracking. Some developers, including dating app Happn, aren't happy with the location tracking changes, and they've let Apple CEO Tim Cook know about it. They have written to him to complain that the "Always Allow" option is no longer available in iOS 13's location pop-up. In iOS 13, users' options for giving their location to an app include "Allow While Using App", "Allow Once", and "Don't Allow". In iOS 12 and earlier, there was an "Always Allow" option, but the update to iOS 13 moves that to the Privacy section of the Settings app. The devs also say that the change is anti-competitive because Apple's own apps don't need to get permission to access the user's location, pointing to the Find My device tracker app as an example. An Apple spokesperson said that the changes are meant to help protect the user and their privacy.
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CULTUREMAP AUSTIN - Aug 20 - Dating app Swoovy, co-founded by Brooke Waupsh and Jeff McMahon in 2018, officially launched in Austin earlier this summer. Its mission is to turn dates into volunteer opportunities. Like Tinder or Bumble, Swoovy matches users who mutually swipe on each other. After matching, the couple can choose a volunteer event with a local nonprofit. Currently, Swoovy has more than a dozen Austin nonprofit partners, ranging from Mobile Loaves & Fishes and Art on the Streets to Meals on Wheels and Habitat for Humanity, and the company says its actively recruiting for more philanthropic organizations to join.
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BANGKOKPOST - Aug 19 - In Thailand, Badoo was once the most downloaded dating app, but has been overtaken by Tinder. To Tinder, this is a surprising achievement because Asia was not their target market when the app was introduced in 2012. Seeing the high demand in Asia, Tinder is now working on building a new version of the app called "Tinder Lite". Tinder Lite will be 25% faster while consuming 20% less battery on devices and it will take up 25-times less storage space on Android device. Match Group believes Asia will comprise 25% of Tinder's total revenue by 2023.
by Sopheavuthtey Borin
See full article at Bangkok Post
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PRESS RELEASE - Aug 19 - SC Holdings is in active negotiations to increase its shareholding to a controlling stake in Now Dating, a dating app pushing toward integration of AI and voice recognition powered by Alexa, Siri, or Google assist. Now Dating encourages people to move into offline dating as soon as possible.
See full article at Globe Newswire
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com
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BLOOMBERG - Aug 18 - Helsinki-based HCP Focus, which has a slim portfolio of only 12 "high-conviction" stocks, has 16% of its funds invested in Match Group. HCP Focus manages ~70M euros and was the top long-only equity fund over the three years through the first quarter, according to BarclayHedge. It returned an average 22% a year in the past five years through July. Match is its biggest holding, followed by Amazon.com, which has been one of the main holdings since the start of the fund.
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BARRON'S - Aug 16 - Match is among IAC's greatest hits. The stock has nearly doubled this year alone, thanks largely to Tinder. IAC sold a portion of Match in a 2015 IPO at $12. The stock is now $85, and IAC's Match stake is worth close to $19B. It accounts for ~90% of IAC's current $21B market value. But Match is obscuring IAC's overall value. "Match has gotten so big and successful and is such a significant part of IAC, that one became a proxy for the other," IAC CEO Joey Levin says. So IAC is considering distributing Match shares to its shareholders in a tax-free transaction. And IAC is thinking about a similar handoff of its 84% stake in ANGI Homeservices. IAC's stakes in Match and ANGI are now worth more than IAC itself, so distributing those shares should unlock value. Without Match and ANGI, IAC would effectively be an incubator again, with a handful of promising businesses already generating considerable revenue. The best known is Vimeo which generated Q2 revenue of $45.7M, up 16% YOY.
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BBC - Aug 16 - Gay dating app Hornet has accused Google of discrimination after its app was removed from Google's Play store several times without warning. Hornet said Google often employed moderators in Malaysia, where same-sex relationships are illegal, to vet apps. In January, gay dating app Scruff introduced stricter profile image guidelines, banning photos of men in underwear or swimwear. The app had also been suspended from Google Play several times prior to the change.
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KRASIA - Aug 16 - Momo ranked first in the recently published Fortune's 2019 edition of 100 fastest-growing companies worldwide, which takes account of earnings per share (EPS) growth rate, revenue growth rate and three-year annualized return. Momo, founded in March 2011, started as a dating app but has diversified to offer a more comprehensive social experience that integrates live streaming and gaming. Momo registered 114.4M monthly active users in March 2019, compared to 103.3M in March 2018. The revenue increased by 141% yearly on average in the past three years. Its EPS in the three years that ended on June 28 raised 193% each year on average, ranking second. Total stock return for three years grew 53% each year on average, ranking 14th.
by Song Jingli
See full article at KrAsia
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LAW360.COM - Aug 15 - Matthew Herrick, who claims Grindr was negligent in failing to stop his ex-boyfriend from using the dating app to stalk and harass him, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Second Circuit ruling dismissing his lawsuit, claiming Grindr should not be protected as a publisher under the Communications Decency Act. He has filed a petition seeking to revive the case, in which he accuses the app of failing to prevent the harassment despite nearly 50 reports with the company.
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ENGADGET - Aug 15 - The Match Group and Betches Media have now released an Android version of Ship, which lets users swipe for their friends and discuss profiles in group messages. The iOS version, which debuted back in January, is now the fastest-growing dating app in the Match Group family. With Ship, users can invite their friends (as well as parents and siblings) to join a "crew". Members of the user's crew can swipe on dating profiles on their behalf. A "crew chat" group messaging feature can be used for members to discuss the merits of a potential match.
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