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

IDEA SUMMIT New York Fills in 72 Hours

OPW - Jan 23 - The IDEA SUMMIT in NYC is now full. It filled within 72 hours of invites being sent out and represents a diverse group of leaders that will convene to present ideas, and discuss key issues and opportunities for growth in the dating and online matchmaking industry. See IDEASUMMIT.org for the up to date group.

The Internet Dating Excellence Association (IDEA.gp) exists to help the dating industry learn and share, and grow. The SUMMIT is a small gathering for key leaders, held four times a year, in USA, Asia and Europe.

Immediately after IDEA SUMMIT + IDEA WOW there are two more events that we recommend you consider. See the Global Dating Insights Conference on 10th March, and the Global Love Conference on 11th March. iDate is also imminent, on Jan 30-31 in Florida.

Safety Tip for Online Dating Users

USA TODAY - Jan 21 - Grindr, OkCupid and Tinder were at the center of controversy last week when researchers accused the companies of disclosing highly personal information and breaking privacy laws. Each app denied many of the accusations. When users sign up for a dating app, "they're putting information out there that people can use against them. Whether it's hackers or predators," said Jo O'Reilly, a data privacy expert at ProPrivacy. And like many other tech sectors, dating apps are rife with data breaches.

Dating app tips from an Internet privacy expert:

• Be aware that free apps are more likely to sell your data.
• Use only your first name or a nickname.
• Don't give away your home address, work address, phone number or email address in private messages, or when signing up.
• Don't let other users persuade you to chat via another app like WhatsApp or Messenger.
• Turn off location settings, or use them sparingly.
• Use as little personal and identifiable information on your profile as possible.

by Dalwin Brown
See full article at USA Today

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OPW Podcast - The Top Dating Industry News for Jan 21st

OPW -Jan 21 - Microsoft Artemis, Norwegian Consumer Council, Tinder photo dump, Bye bye cookies.

For the top weekly dating industry news in ~2 minutes subscribe to OPW's Two Minute Tuesdays (TMT) podcast on Breaker , Google Podcasts , Spotify , Anchor , Stitcher , Overcast , Radio Public or Apple Podcasts .

Modamily App Bridges Dating and Fertility Industries

TOTAL CROATIA NEWS - Jan 21 - Modamily app is for those who wish to start a family. The app also educate users about freezing their eggs, testing their genes, helping them find a surrogate mother, a sperm donor or an egg donor. And they may also opt for so-called co-parenting, an option where they find a friend to have a child with. The app has so far attracted ~25K users, and one hundred babies were born. 67% of the members are women, one-third of whom are under 35 and the rest older.

by Lauren Simmonds
See full article at Total Croatia News

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Tinder Drops Valentine's Day Related Tweet

HUNDUSTAN TIMES - Valentine's Day is on its way and Tinder India tweeted about it to remind people. Many people, however, grabbed the opportunity to drop memes and show how singles may react on Valentine's Day. While some took at dig at Tinder, others wrote about how they plan to avoid the day. Many people, however, grabbed the opportunity to drop memes and show how singles may react on Valentine's Day. It's not uncommon for brands to dish out tweets which end up attracting hilarious reactions from people.

by Trisha Semgupta
See full article at Hindustan Times

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Mark Brooks to Speak at GDI New York

GLOBAL DATING INSIGHTS - Jan 20 - The online dating industry expert Mark Brooks will be talking at the GDI New York Conference on March 10th. He is the founder of worldwide agency-consultancy Courtland Brooks and the Internet Dating Excellence Association (IDEA). Courtland Brooks is the only agency-consultancy in the world to focus totally on Internet dating and online matchmaking businesses. He also hosts the IDEA Summit + World Officers Weekend (WOW) at various locations all around the world. The events bring together C Level executives to personally discuss how the industry can grow together as a whole. The next IDEA event is in New York on 5th March.

by Dominic Whitlock
See full article at Global Dating Insights

70k Tinder Photos of Women Just Got Dumped on a Cyber-Crime Forum

GIZMODO - Jan 17 - Aaron DeVera, a member of New York City's task force on cyber sexual assault, said they discovered the images on a website known for trading in malicious software. The reason the photos were collected remains unclear, but their availability to cybercriminals has raised serious concerns that it may be used to commit illegal acts. Tinder said it would take whatever steps it could to have the data removed offline. Tinder noted that all of the photos are public and can be viewed by others through regular use of the app; although, obviously, the app is not designed to help a single person amass such a massive quantity of images. The app can also only be used to view the profiles of other users within 100 miles.

by Dell Cameron & Shoshana Wodinsky
See full article at Gizmondo

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Whitney Wolfe Herd Set out to Build a Safer Dating App for Women, But It's Not Clear That She's Made a Measurable Difference

BLOOMBERG - Jan 17 - Wolfe Herd founded and runs Bumble, the dating and networking app that says it offers women a safe way to meet people online. Bumble had already banned users from posting nude pictures and was working on software that could detect them when sent in a message. Yet about a third of Bumble women had received lewd photos from men, whether through text or other social media. "This is bullshit, ” Wolfe Herd said. "There should be a law against flashing people online." Wolfe Herd didn't have many political connections, but her husband did. Michael Herd is a family friend of Gaylord Hughey, an oil and gas attorney who's one of Texas' top Republican fundraisers. Hughey called a lobbyist, the lobbyist got Democrats and Republicans to sponsor a bill, and in August, Governor Greg Abbott signed it into law. Now, anyone sending photos of "intimate parts" to someone in Texas without consent could be fined $500. This kind of attitude has distinguished Bumble from its rivals. It's also part of the company's focus on women. Today, Bumble is the second-most popular dating app in the U.S., behind Tinder. It has 81M users in 150 countries. Bumble doesn't share its financial information, but the company has been profitable since 2017, and was reportedly pulling in ~$10M a month in revenue. Based on interviews with people who've worked for Bumble or its parent company, it seems to have no system in place to verify that its app is safer. The only internal research on safety that Bumble could provide was Carbino's 2018 SurveyMonkey poll. In Carbino's poll, she surveyed 4,500 people. She found that 80% of women said Bumble users were more "respectful," and 77% said they felt safer meeting someone on Bumble than on another app. "While this does not directly establish that Bumble is safer than other dating apps, it does go directly to the user's perception of Bumble as being safer, which is what I tested for," Carbino said. Bumble didn't provide any specific information about how its individual policies had affected user behavior.

by Claire Suddath
See full article at Bloomberg

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The End Is Nigh for Cookies, and Larger Dating Companies Will Benefit

OPW - Jan 18 - Since 1994 Internet dating companies have been able to cookie users and more recently very effectively chase them around the web. But the Cookie Apocalypse us upon us. Google announced they are phasing out the use of 'invasive net trackers,' according to an article in Financial Times last Wednesday. After 25 years of use, Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla have already banned them, and Google is laying the cookie to rest.

Of course, who is going to benefit from this the most? Google, Facebook and Amazon have already amassed a treasure trove of personalized data. They are effectively, 'sitting pretty.' Also, larger dating apps will become more entrenched as a consequence of this ban. Smaller apps and startups will be mired for a diminished ability to gather data and track, and a reduced ability to personalize their ad approaches and treatments.

Google will phase out cookies over the next two years. They, and others, are working on what might become the successor of the {beloved/maligned} cookie. - Mark Brooks, Host - IDEA.gp, CEO - Courtland Brooks

Chinese Soul App Focuses on Shared Values Rather Than Appearances

TECHNODE - Jan 16 - Shanghai-based Renyimen Technology launched Soul App in late 2016. While most dating apps let users browse a feed of profile pictures to find matches, Soul App employs a mix of personality and interest tests to sort users. It then uses machine learning to generate pools of members with similar values and interests for users to choose from. Users cannot see any personal information of others, besides their test match score and their public posts. Soul App closed a $60M Series C led by GGV Capital in Dec 2018. In January 2018, the company raised tens of million dollars in a Series B from DST Global, Genesis Capital, and Morningside Venture Capital. Soul App has ~10M monthly active users.

by Tony Xu
See full article at Technode

This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com

Twitter Suspends Grindr From Its Ad Platform

ADAGE - Jan 15 - Twitter says it suspended Grindr, the gay dating app, from its ad network after a report revealed privacy concerns with how the app shared personal data with marketing partners. The new report, commissioned by the Norwegian Consumer Council, alleged that Grindr transmitted personal information on its ~3M daily users worldwide to ad tech partners, including Twitter's MoPub, which is a mobile ad network that helps apps make money by filling their ad inventory. The report also names other advertising platforms OpenX and AppNexus, which help brands bid on ads through platforms like MoPub to appear on apps like Grindr. The report calls for a fines of Twitter, OpenX, AppNexus and Grindr. Under the GDPR, the maximum fine for a violation is up to 4% of annual revenue. In Twitter's case, that would amount to $120M, based on $3B revenue from 2018.

by Garett Sloane
See full article at AdAge

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Social and Communication Apps Continue to Hold Their Ground

MEDIAPOST - Jan 15 - That's according to App Annie's latest State of Mobile report, which found that social and communication apps maintained a dominant 50% share of time spent among the world's mobile users in 2019. Relative to time spent with other app categories, that was only down by 6% since 2016. Social and communication apps also remain a hot commodity. In 2019, consumers downloaded 9.5B such apps, and spent 25% more time using them than they did in 2017. Worldwide app downloads totaled 204B in 2019, which was up by 45% since 2016, the app analytics firm found.

by Gavin O'Malley
See full article at Media Post

College Students Pay Tuition by Hooking up With Sugar Daddies and Mommas

FOX BUSINESS - Jan 15 - ~4M students are looking for generous partners through dating site Seeking Arrangement to help pay for some or part of their school bills. Of that, 62%, or 2.48M, are students in the U.S, according to the company. The site recently released its list of schools nationwide with the largest growth in new profiles. The annual list has been published as millions of Americans owe $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. Students are the top profession of "sugar babies" and 30% of sugar babies use gifts from sugar daddies and mommies to pay for tuition and other school-related expenses. Georgia State University, University of Central Florida and the University of Alabama claimed the top three spots on SeekingArrangment Sugar University.

by Matthew McGrath
See full article at Yahoo Finance

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Credit Suisse Halts Work on Chinese Gay Dating App Blued's IPO

BLOOMBERG - Jan 13 - Credit Suisse Group AG has stopped working on the upcoming U.S. IPO of Chinese gay dating app Blued. Credit Suisse joins other investment firms, including Citigroup and Bank of America that in recent months have dropped off the U.S. debuts of high-profile Chinese companies. It wasn't clear why Credit Suisse dropped off Blued's IPO, but it did so before the company filed publicly. Founded in 2012 by former policeman Geng, Blued has become an icon for the Chinese LGBTQ community and attracted ~$130M in venture capital as of March last year. Besides providing dating services to 40M users, the app also offers live streaming and connects men who want to become parents with overseas surrogates. Blued has said it's eyeing an IPO ideally in the U.S., which offers a simpler process and deeper capital markets.

by Julia Fioretti & Lulu Yilun Chen
See full article at Bloomberg

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Grindr and OkCupid Spread Personal Details, Study Says

NEW YORK TIMES - Jan 13 - Popular dating services like Grindr, OkCupid and Tinder are spreading user information like dating choices and precise location to advertising and marketing companies in ways that may violate privacy laws, according to a new report released by the Norwegian Consumer Council, a government-funded nonprofit organization in Oslo. Grindr also sent a user's location to multiple companies, which may then share that data with many other businesses, the report said. OkCupid app sent a user's ethnicity and answers to personal profile questions to a firm that helps companies tailor marketing messages to users. OkCupid has recently posted a list of ~300 advertising and analytics "partners" with which it may share users' information. Tinder sent a user's gender and the gender the user was looking to date to two marketing firms. The Norwegian group said it filed complaints asking regulators in Oslo to investigate Grindr and five ad tech companies for possible violations of the European data protection law.

by Natasha Singer & Aaron Krolik
See full article at New York Times

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Microsoft Partners With The Meet Group on 'Grooming Detection Technique' for Messaging Apps

TECHNICAL.LY - Jan 13 - Microsoft has announced a new initiative called Project Artemis, a grooming detection technique it developed along with a handful of companies, including The Meet Group. The technique works with text-based conversations, and will scan, evaluate and "rate" conversation characteristics to determine if the language being used could be predatory. The rating will be sent to human moderators at participating companies for review, who can then identify threats and inform law enforcement. Project Artemis came out of a 2018 Microsoft hackathon which was sponsored by the WePROTECT Global Alliance and the Child Dignity Alliance. This new technology is the result of 14 months of cross-industry work from Microsoft, along with gaming and messaging app makers The Meet Group, Roblox, Kik and others to help identify potential instances of child online grooming for sexual purposes and to operationalize an effective response.

by Paige Gross
See full article at Technical.ly

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Two Bumble Users Are Getting Paid to Go on Dates Around the World

USA TODAY - Jan 13 - Brigette Muller and Juliana Broste will be Bumble's first "global connector bees." In addition to going on dates around the world, they'll be in search of friendship and business connections – all the while documenting the experiences for Bumble through videos, blog posts and social media. In addition to free travel, they will also receive a salary. The positions opened to Bumble users in summer 2019, and thousands of people applied before the June 14 deadline. Muller, 32, of New York was most recently a social media specialist at Etsy. Broste, 36, is a video journalist who's worked with the Travel Channel, Lonely Planet and more, and has 4K followers on Instagram.

by David Oliver
See full article at USA Today

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Facebook Rolls out Major New Redesign to Small Number of Users

DAILYMAIL.CO.UK - Jan 13 - A small group of Facebook users have been offered the option to switch to FB5. The major new redesign features a brand new layout and improved privacy. The overhaul was originally announced last April at Facebook's annual developer's conference in San Francisco, where the company explained some of the changes it that would be coming. The new update will also see the widespread release of Facebook Dating. The Dating feature will let users create a list of 'Secret Crushes,' and when two people match they'll be prompted to message each other, similar to any other dating app.

by Michael Thomsen
See full article at DailyMail.co.uk

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The Inner Circle Appoints Scott Harvey as Digital Communications Manager

EMERCE - Jan 12 - The Inner Circle expands the Dutch team by appointing Scott Harvey as Digital Communications Manager. Scott was previously Managing Editor at Global Dating Insights. Thanks to his knowledge of the dating industry, Harvey will manage all digital communication of the Dutch dating app.

See full article at Emerce

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OPW Podcast - The Top Dating Industry News for Jan 14th

OPW - Jan 14 - Hinge's online merch shop, UK online dating survey, Momo's video social app Duiyan.

For the top weekly dating industry news in ~2 minutes subscribe to OPW's Two Minute Tuesdays (TMT) podcast on Breaker , Google Podcasts , Spotify , Anchor , Stitcher , Overcast , Radio Public or Apple Podcasts .