FORBES - Apr 22 - According to Pew Research, 31% of U.S. adults have used an online dating site or app. Among these users, 18% are currently active on one or more platforms. But close to 50% of Americans view online dating as unsafe. Jigsaw, a U.K.-based dating app company that launched in the U.S. in 2020, worked with the survey research company OnePoll to understand people's frustrations. 7 in 10 users said they find the experience shallow and superficial. Two-thirds of them were sick of being judged only on looks. On Jigsaw, the faces are initially covered with a digital jigsaw puzzle. Swapping messages with matches makes the jigsaw pieces fall away to reveal the face underneath. "We are not saying looks don't matter - just that they're only part of the picture", says Alex Durrant, CEO and co-founder of Jigsaw. "We think the shift from 'hot-or-not' swiping to more personality-focused dating apps will continue.
Jigsaw CEO - How to Build the Perfect Dating App
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Algorithms Can Sway People When Making Online Dating Decisions
NEW SCIENTIST - Apr 22 - AI-based algorithms can influence people to prefer a would-be partner over another, according to researchers. "Everyone is using recommendation algorithms all the time," says Helena Matute at the University of Deusto in Spain, "but there was no information on how effective those recommendation algorithms are." The researchers carried out a series of four experiments in which participants interacted with algorithms that presented them with photos of potential partners. Individuals were asked about their preference for the people whose photographs they had seen. They were more likely to want to date those who were implicitly selected.
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BlueCity CEO to Speak at Leading Global Tech Conference Collision
PR NEWSWIRE - Apr 22 - Today (Apr 22), BlueCity Founder, Chairman and CEO Baoli Ma will appear at leading global tech conference Collision 2021, speaking about his inspiring mission to unite the LGBTQ community in China and overseas. Known as the fastest growing technology conference in North America, the Collision Conference is also one of the largest and most influential technology events in the world. Paying subscribers to Collision Conference 2021 can tune in to Ma's interview on April 22, 13:20 - 13:30 (ET).
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Trust & Safety Connect
OPW - Apr 21 - IDEA is running an event tomorrow, Trust & Safety Connect. It is by invitation only. See this overview to see the panel and format. Please respond to the email we sent you by today if you'd like to join us, or email mark@courtlandbrooks.com if you are in IDEA and didn't see the invite. ;-)
We're planning on running this event quarterly. Another free offering from IDEA.gp to serve the dating and online social communities industries.
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Momo Could Buy Back Itself in Under 6 Years
SEEKINGALPHA - Apr 20 - Momo's fair market value could be ~250% above the current market price. The company's dating business is poised for growth post-Covid. A reduction in ad costs should allow Momo to grow without sacrificing profit margins. Dating, a significant part of momo's business fell as people quarantined until the pandemic started to come under control in May of 2020. Momo paid ~$800M for TanTan in 2018. Beyond TanTan, Momo's business segments consist of live streaming, value-added services (virtual gift giving & paid subscriptions), marketing, and gaming. The combined valuation estimate for dating, live-streaming, and VAS is $4.6B.
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Tinder and Beyond Meat Are Sending 500 Singles on Plant-Based Dates on Earth Day
VEGNEWS - Apr 20 - To celebrate Earth Day, Tinder is introducing a new Plant-Based "Passion," a stated interest in the app that helps singles connect around issues they feel passionate about. To promote the new Passion, Tinder is partnering with vegan brand Beyond Meat to offer a special gift to the first 500 members in the US who match with the Plant-Based Passion card and add it to their profile. Winning singles will receive a Plant-Based Picnic Pack for two, complete with date night swag and a free voucher for Beyond Meat's vegan meat products.
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Dating App "Thursday" Wants Singles to Spend Less Time Online
GLAMOUR MAGAZINE - Apr 20 - Billed as the highly-anticipated 'dating app that doesn't work 85.7% of the time', Thursday launches on 6th May across London and New York, and according to the app, ~110,000 users have already signed up. The app comes to life at 00.01am every Thursday morning, with all matches and conversations disappearing at midnight. All users are verified before joining by uploading either their passport or driving license. The app will roll out to Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Dublin later in May. Thursday will be available to download from the App Store and Google Play on Sunday 2nd May.
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TrulyMadly Raises $2.1M (₹16 crore) in pre-Series A
THE HINDU BUSINESSLINE - Apr 20 - The app will be deploying the fresh capital to build new product offerings and expanding to new geographies. The round saw participation from Venture Catalysts, 9 Unicorns, early stage investor advisor Jana K Balan, Neil Bahal from Negen Capital, angel investor Ruchi Sihare and existing investors Inflection Point Ventures, The Chennai Angels and AngelList. The platform has ~850K users. The start-up raised ₹8.1 crore ($1.1M) from Inflection Point Ventures, The Chennai Angels and AngelList last year along with some angels and start-up founders.
See full article at The Hindu BusinessLine
See the top news on TrulyMadly
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments
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Mark Brooks - The Big 3 Innovation Areas of Internet Dating
OPW - Apr 20 - The online dating market has focused on search, communications, and compatibility in its efforts to meet the relationship needs of users. Mark Brooks, CEO of Courtland Brooks, believes that compatibility has seen the greatest investment of resources and research over the years, but there is still significant opportunity for improvement. Academia is thirsty for data and will deliver incredible insight in exchange. SensorTower has released its analysis of the top 25 dating apps, indicating a 4% increase in downloads and 24% increase in revenues from Q4 2019 to Q4 2020. This growth occurred despite, or perhaps because of the COVID-19 lockdowns. The average age of users has also trended downward with an influx of people in their early 20's joining dating apps. Mark Brooks discusses innovations, key metrics, and other market insights in the latest video in the LTR Conference series.
LTR stands for Love, Technology, Relationships and the online conference covers the Internet dating and Online Social Communities space. It is for members of IDEA and OSCA.
The February LTR was kindly sponsored by RealMe, vPaaS by The Meet Group, Utopia Analytics, Tawkify, Real Gifts & Courtland Brooks.
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BlueCity's He Health Obtains Internet Hospital License
PR NEWSWIRE - Apr 20 - He Health, the BlueCity's health service platform for men, has officially obtained an Internet hospital license in China, presenting great prospects for the brand's nascent, yet fast-growing health business. BlueCity can now offer a complete set of health services from men's health consultations. Since its launch in March 2019, He Health has promoted awareness of men's health and HIV prevention, and its services have gradually expanded from sexually transmitted diseases to the field of men's everyday wellbeing. BlueCity's mobile app Blued enables users to conveniently and safely connect with each other, express themselves and access professional health-related services. BlueCity's portfolio of brands of apps also includes Finka, a leading gay social networking app for a younger generation in China, and LESDO, a leading lesbian social networking app in China.
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Senate to Call Spotify, Tile and Match at Apple, Google Antitrust Hearing
BLOOMBERG - Apr 20 - Google will send a top policy executive to testify at Wednesday's Senate app store antitrust hearing, while legal executives from Spotify, Tile and Match Group will serve as witnesses. Spotify, Tile and Match have all been embroiled in antitrust fights with Apple recently, with Spotify and Match filing complaints about Apple's App Store rules and fees. The Senate subcommittee is investigating Apple and Google over competition issues and concerns from app developers. Apple's Andeer previously testified on several matters for Apple before the House of Representatives and other U.S. lawmakers. Google often argues that it differs from Apple since Android device owners are free to download alternative app stores. But Google does require device manufacturers to install its app store and other mobile services, giving its properties a competitive advantage. That arrangement was the centerpiece of a European Union antitrust case against Google. The company disputed the EU charges.
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Intro - a New Up-And-Coming Video Dating Platform
BUSTLE - Apr 20 - Intro is a Bachelor-style matchmaking service and live blind-dating show hosted by Chloe Burdette, a millennial matchmaker. Intro began as a joke. She posted a TikTok video of her single friend that quickly went viral. Within a week, her friend had thousands of confident women introducing themselves in his DMs. She started receiving more messages from people asking where they could submit their application, and Intro was born. With 20K Intro submissions, Chloe is working on an actual dating app.
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In 2021, Everyone Is a Kind-of Catfish
BBC - Apr 20 - It was back in 2010 when the word "catfish" took on a new meaning - someone who uses a fake identity online to target specific victims. The phrase came from documentary maker Nev Schulman, who fell in love with a 19-year-old girl online, only to find out she was actually a housewife using fake photos and a false story to chat to others online. Nev turned his story into an incredibly successful documentary and reality TV show, which after eight seasons in the US, is now getting a UK version. It's hosted by radio presenter Julie Adenuga and journalist Oobah Butler - and they say catfishing is now a completely different beast in 2021. Everyone is kind of a catfish as photo editing is so common that people often don't look like their Instagram profile in real life.
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Why to Consider React Native When Building an App From Scratch
FORBES - Apr 20 - Aleksandr Pasykov is the founder of Hily Dating App and Taimi, the biggest LGBTQ+ platform featuring a social network and dating app. He started working on Taimi in 2017. "We realized there's a demand for a safe online space where LGBTQ+ people could build relationships. We needed a framework that would allow us to create the app from scratch in a short time, and our developer built the app in less than two months using React Native." React Native is an open-source app framework that was released by Facebook in 2015. It allows developers to combine native code with React, making it perfect for updating existing applications. React Native offer unprecedented speed and efficiency, and you can create and update apps on Android and iOS simultaneously. One issue is the framework’s performance. For example, if you want to add a newsfeed to your app, React Native may not have high enough speed and performance levels, so such changes will have to be made in native code. Another challenge companies may face is the lack of React Native experts.
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Indian Dating App Sees Spike in Female Users
TNN - Apr 19 - Dating app QuackQuack witnessed a 12% spike in female users in 2020, signifying that more women are comfortable using dating apps now. Female users login to the app 48x times a day whereas male users login 24x. Also, chat statistics are higher for women daters as compared to men. Women chat with 25 users while men chat with 10 users. More women (52%) are also keen to meet people from other cities while 48% of them are fine with dating from their location. Initially, 90.8% women prefer longer text conversations over video calls as they feel uncomfortable to start a conversation directly on a video call.
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