Beware: It Is Now Illegal to Charge Users in Germany Full "Compensation for Value" When They Cancel Contract
DIE PRESSE - Dec 14 - Dating site Parship charges ~600Eur per year for their premium membership. Anyone who subscribes can cancel the contract within two weeks. But often dating platforms such as Parship and ElitePartner keep a large part of the money as "compensation for value". This is no longer allowed. The Chamber of Labor had filed a lawsuit against this practice - and got it before the Supreme Court. The (German) Supreme Court confirmed that this business practice was unlawful and would be prohibited. The dating sites are now only allowed to make only a time-dependent prorated assessment of value, in relation to the total term. For example for Parship: The company may, in a contract withdrawal after ten days with a total transaction of 600Eur for annual membership, only keep ~16Eur as "compensation for value". Prior to the new law, they had been keeping up to 450 euros.
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Tinder's New Ad Campaign Doesn't Want Users to Find Someone
WASHINGTON POST - Dec 13 - In the most recent Tinder and OkCupid ads, there's little mention of love or partnership. The apps are touting the joy of meeting new people yet remaining unattached. A decade ago, commercials for Match.com, eHarmony and others focused on reducing the stigma of online dating. They featured smiling, happy couples gushing about how lucky they are to have found each other. "We are pro-couples; we want people to meet people," says Jenny Campbell, Tinder's CMO. But, she adds, "We also want to be there when you're out there exploring."
by Lisa Bonos
See full article at Washington Post
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Special Match Stock Dividend Could Fuel IAC's Acquisition
INVESTORS - Dec 12 - Owners of Match Group stock may have wondered why the company announced a special dividend in October. IAC could be stockpiling cash for a major acquisition, says Brent Thill, analyst at Jefferies. IAC, which owns 80% of Match, took in $440M of the $560M special dividend, analysts say. "With an ~$3B in cash by year-end 2019 and a history of utilizing cash and stock in past deals, IAC has the capacity for larger-scale M&A.," Thill said in a report published on Wednesday. "CEO Joey Levin recently stated in an interview that he believes IAC can digest close to a $5B deal."
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Q&A With David Vermeulen, Founder & CEO of The Inner Circle
BUSINESS MATTERS - Dec 12 - David Vermeulen talks about his ambition to challenge the way we date in an ever-increasing digital era.
Q: What is The Inner Circle's founding story?
A: The concept started when, at the age of 35, I had just got out of a long-term relationship. I was looking around on online dating sites and found they were too concerned with quantity rather than quality. I believed online dating was going to be the future but that it should be focused around the quality of matches. This sparked the idea and led me to launch The Inner Circle in 2012.
Q: Who do you admire?
A: I believe Donald Glover is the entertainment industry's most multi-talented creative individual of our generation.
Q: Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?
A: When we originally launched, we hosted our first event in London and it turned into a massive party. We decided to have an open bar which didn't end up being the best idea. The combination of free drinks and English singletons made for some interesting scenes. Lesson learned!
Q: What defines your way of doing business?
A: Move fast, always improve, make mistakes and learn.
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The Founding Story of Paktor
ENTREPRENEUR - Dec 11 - Paktor, best-known as a Tinder rival in Asia, was launched in June 2013. Since then, the app has launched in 12 countries, including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Hong Kong. It secured funding from investors like Yahoo Japan-affiliate YJ Capital and Singapore's Vertex Ventures. The founders of Paktor are primary school classmates - Joseph Phua and Ng Jing Shen. After completing his MBA from University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, Joseph returned to Asia to start Paktor. The app, however, couldn't handle the high volume of users and crashed. He then reached out to Jing Shen, a University of Michigan graduate, for help, who at that time was working with Amazon as a software engineer and was a part of the team that re-architected one of the world’s first cloud computing services, S3. Today, Paktor has 15M users. In 2014, the founders launched its offline dating counterpart, GaiGai which specializes in matchmaking via its in-house matching system and personalization.
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RealBlackLove Fills the Void for Relationship Minded African-Americans
NORTH CAROLINA BUSINESS NEWS WIRE - Dec 11 - Joseph Dixon decided to fill the void for people who are relationship-minded African-Americans. In 2013, with his background in web development, Dixon launched Charlotte-based RealBlackLove, an online dating site for African-American singles. RBL is currently at 200K members nationwide, but with its updated version, Dixon thinks it will hit the 1M mark within a year. In 2015, Dixon started professional matchmaking.
by Myah Ward
See full article at WralTechWire
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The Meet Group: Live Streaming Can Ease Loneliness
DOWNLOAD - Dec 11 - In a recent study, Cigna, the health insurance provider, concluded that loneliness is an epidemic afflicting most Americans, but that Generation Z (18-22) and Millennials (23-37) suffer from feelings of disconnection the most. The study also found that those who engaged in frequent meaningful interactions were less lonely and those who did it daily felt even less isolated. The Meet Group, which owns social dating apps MeetMe, Skout, Tagged and LOVOO, was curious to see if the Live video chat component of its MeetMe app could make its users feel more connected. The company sent out a survey to MeetMe users, and of the 6K respondents, 70% reported that using the Live video feature very often made them feel less lonely. On average, as of Q3 2018, the platform had 117K broadcasters each day with an average of ~25M minutes spent in video daily in October.
by Joshua Rotter
See full article at Download
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Coffee Meets Bagel Goes Anti-Tinder With a Redesign Focused on Profiles & Conversations
TECH CRUNCH - Dec 12 - Coffee Meets Bagel is announcing a significant makeover, which includes a change to the way the app works. The app has ditched the big "Pass" or "Connect" buttons. Instead, Coffee Meets Bagel's new interface puts more emphasis on user profiles - showcasing more of the text, and giving users the option to "heart" the profile or comment. Before a match takes place, users can tap a new commenting button that allows them to respond to the user's profile directly, before making a connection. Coffee Meets Bagel says that during its beta testing, members who sent comments to their matches had a 25% higher chance of getting liked back. And when comments led to conversations, there was a 60% increase in total messages exchanged. Coffee Meets Bagel has raised ~$20M since launching back in 2012, and has 7M installs to date, according to data from Sensor Tower, and ~$25M in gross revenue. Users spent ~$900K in the app last month, up 30% from Nov 2017.
by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch
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Grindr's Director Of Communications Quit Over President's Gay Marriage Comment
INSTINCT MAGAZINE - Dec 10 - Last week, Grindr was trending after its President and CTO Scott Chen posted to Facebook that he thinks "marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman." Now in reaction to that, Grindr's communications director Landen Rafe Zumwalt, who is openly gay, has quit his job. "As an out and proud gay man madly in love with a man I don't deserve, I refused to compromise my own values or professional integrity to defend a statement that goes against everything I am and everything I believe," Zumwalt wrote through medium.com. Scott Chen explained his Facebook post: "The reason I said marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman is based on my own personal experience. I am a straight man married to a woman I love and I have two beautiful daughters I love from the marriage. This is how I feel about my marriage. Different people have their different feelings about their marriages. You can't deny my feelings about my marriage."
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Bumble Faces Huge Backlash Because of an Abusive Ad Campaign
GIRLFRIEND - Dec 10 - Bumble has recently launched in India, and celebrated with a big party. However, Instagram posts and stories have captured worldwide attention, with the company being accused of an abusive ad campaign with elephants being painted and ridden throughout the night. The CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd is facing backlash as it is considered animal abuse to ride elephants.
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Surprising Facts About Mail Order Brides
INTERNATIONAL LOVE SCOUT - Dec 10 - Dr. Julia Meszaros traveled to Ukraine, Colombia, and the Philippines and talked to local women and the Western men who were there to meet them. She went along on romance tours and got a behind the scenes look at matchmaking in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. She has tracked the couples for her dissertation for the last seven years and written a slew of academic articles. One of the things that surprised her was that she expected the men to be anti-social misfits. This is one of the most pervasive myths about international dating. The men were older, but also generally well educated, successful, funny, and self-aware. She has seen three divorces out of a total of 12 couples (75% success rate). The most common form of scam in this industry is going to be online. For years' men are spending thousands of dollars sending money & gifts to women and paying for translated letters. But what a lot of them are starting to realize is that it's not really a relationship until you actually meet that individual in person. People are concerned about scam marriages for green cards. They occur very-very rarely. It takes two years of marriage typically to get a green card. Most women are not gold diggers however they just want some sort of basic financial stability.
by Charlie Morton
See full article at International Love Scout
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Some Tips From a Dating Coach
WALL STREET JOURNAL - Dec 10 - Dating coaches differ from therapists by focusing on the present - helping people modify the behaviors and beliefs that prevent them from finding a romantic partner. They work with clients for short periods to assist them in meeting specific goals. But unlike most therapists, dating coaches don't have to be licensed. "The world of dating coaching is like the Wild West," says David Steele, founder of the Relationship Coaching Institute, an organization that offers training for coaches. So singles should watch out for coaches who come across as too slick or who use fear to motivate them. Why look to a stranger for help with something so personal? Coaches are more objective than friends or family members. The best coaches don't tell people what to do. They help them figure out themselves. Here are some recommendations from Diana Kirschner, founder of Love Mentor Coaching, to her clients:
- Be clear about what you're looking for.
- Casually date three people at first. Don't have sex right away.
- Optimize your profile if you're online dating. Lead with your qualities and don't be afraid to talk about what you want.
- Be open to meeting someone anywhere.
- Practice talking to attractive strangers.
- Be open about your intentions.
- If you like someone, ask the person out.
- Don't take rejection personally.
by Elizabeth Bernstein
See full article at Wall Street Journal
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Bumble Will Never Break Values to Make Money, Says Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd
CNBCTV18 - Dec 10 - "We have turned down so many opportunities over the years that could have been great revenue markers but negative ones for our mission," said Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of Bumble.
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Dating Apps and Advertising on Snapchat
VERDICT.CO.UK - Dec 8 - With dating apps accounting for £11.7B of the economy last year, and 30% of 18-30 year olds in the US signed up to at least on service, the online dating market is extremely lucrative. Dating apps are looking to reach a young, tech-savvy audience, and many have found a match with Snapchat. Spending by dating services in the UK on the Snapchat platform has increased 13x from Q1 to Q3 this year. Since partnering with Snapchat more than a year ago, AI-driven dating startup Hily has seen a significant increase in the number of registrations. To coincide with Meghan and Harry's Royal Wedding, Meetic ran a campaign on Snapchat in an attempt to increase the number installations. Through this, Meetic reportedly reached ~3.5M unique users driving a 28% increase in app downloads on the day. Meetville ran an advertising campaign using Snap Ads to coincide with Valentine's Day, and 90% of the new UK iOS users who installed the Meetville app in February did so having come through the Snapchat app.
by Ellen Daniel
See full article at Verdict.co.uk
See all posts on Hily
See all posts on Meetic
See all posts on Meetville
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Bumble Opened a BumbleSpot in Denver
303 MAGAZINE - Dec 10 - The spot is a social hangout spot sponsored by Bumble, that allows app users to play games, score drink deals and more while they mingle. Bumble has received thousands of requests from restaurants, bars and other hangouts to become an approved BumbleSpot, but they only select those they feel understand the app's values of respect. They also train hotel staff to help buffer awkwardness and place signs in bathrooms with tips on how to leave or handle an uncomfortable situation.
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Internet Dating Jobs Listing Update - December 2018
OPW - Dec 11 - The new Internet dating jobs listing is live on the Internet Dating Jobs blog.
Below see a couple of this month's most interesting offers:
Badoo
Chief Marketing Officer
Chappy
Performance Marketing Lead
Hinge
Head of Finance
Lovoo
Managing Director
Match Group
VP, Product
Meetic
Brand Acquisition Director
Online Buddies
Chief Operating Officer
POF
VP of Marketing
To see more open positions go here.
Do you have an idating industry job offer which is not included? Please, send it to petra@courtlandbrooks.com and we will add it to the list.
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Matrimony.com Launches Dubai Office
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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Oxford University and eHarmony Analysed Online Dating Habits of Brits
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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