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

Gen Z Is Swiping Left on Romance

WASHINGTON EXAMINER - July 15 - Generation Z is a group comprised of individuals born between 1995 and 2015. They grew up in an age when boredom could be solved instantaneously by unlocking their smartphones. Instead of going on dates, Gen Zers swipe through Tinder, exchange Snapchats, and send direct messages on Instagram. In fact, the average American adult swipes through dating apps for ~77 minutes each day. Instead of building longer-term connections with romantic partners, Gen Zers build hundreds of surface-level connections with their followers, creating relationships that are empirically less fulfilling than the more serious relationships undertaken by older generations. They have become increasingly stressed and isolated.

by Elizabeth Nealon
See full article at Washington Examiner

Facebook Dating Is Testing New Onboarding Screens

TECH2 - July 13 - As per app researcher, Jane Manchun Wong, who often takes to Twitter to reveal her findings, Facebook Dating is now planning to introduce fresh onboarding screens to lure more people. Facebook advertises the fact that users activity remains "private". While that might be assuring, we all know by now that anything that happens on Facebook isn't really "private".

See full article at First Post

See all posts on Facebook Dating

OPW.news Loves You: Subscribe

OPW - July 14 - Dear reader. We hunger for more time with you. Subscribe here. We promise to be interesting.

Lumen, Dating App for People 50+ Has a Game-Changing Feature

YAHOO LIFESTYLE - July 12 - On Lumen, only those who are 50 or older are allowed to join. It also requires users to upload a selfie in order to verify their identity - a unique feature that reduces the risk of catfishing. Users have to upload at least three photos. There's also a minimum character length for the messages and a limit to how many matches users can contact, so people can't just spam hundreds of users without reading their profiles. They only have 72 hours to respond to someone's message.

by Diana Bruk
See full article at Yahoo Lifestyle

See all posts on Lumen

Celebs Are Using Dating Apps for Promotions and It's Confusing Users

LA MAGAZINE - July 12 - Erin Gallagher was swiping on Bumble when a picture of her longtime crush, Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker, popped up. It seemed too good to be true but she noticed the blue check verification next to his name, so it had to be him. Erin swiped right and, to her surprise, it was a match. Erin had fallen for an expertly executed promotion. So is it ethical of a celeb to dangle a dating carrot in front of women on Bumble Date without the intention of actually dating? Tinder has taken heat in the past for promotions using celebrities.

by Damona Hoffman
See full article at LA Magazine

See all posts on Tinder
See all posts on Bumble

Tinder CEO Says He's Not Worried About Facebook

CNBC - July 12 - Tinder's position as an influential brand among young adults can help it withstand competition from Facebook, said Elie Seidman, CEO of Tinder. "I like our position. We're going to stay very focused on what we're good at," he said.

by Saheli Roy Choudhury
See full article at Yahoo Finance

See all posts on Tinder

Internet Dating Jobs Listing Update - July 2019

OPW - July 12 - 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
  Head of Brand & Creative

eHarmony
  Director of Affiliates & Partnerships, Acquisition Marketing

Hinge
  Creative Director

Meetic
  Media Acquisition Director

Spark Networks
  Brand Director

The League
  Director or VP of Operations & Finance (COO fxn)

The Meet Group
  Sr. Vice President of Finance & Accounting

Tinder
  Vice President of Growth (Product)

To see more open positions go here.

Do you have an idating industry job offer which is not included? Please, send it to tips@onlinepersonalswatch.com and we will add it to the list.

CEO of BeehiveID: "Facebook Scandal Killed My Start-up"

BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK - July 11 - BeehiveID was a company that identified fake online dating accounts created for fraudulent use. "We were using all of the same data that Cambridge Analytica was using. Our timing was terrible!", says Mary Haskett, now CEO of identity tech company Blink Identity. "We had a million Facebook profiles with complete data. And that's wrong. In Facebook's defence, they figured that out and changed their access, which killed my company – but I wasn't bitter because it was the right thing to do", she added. Haskett and long-time collaborator Dr. Alex Kilpatrick then developed ID technology for the US military capable of identifying people at walking speed using a mixture of facial recognition, iris scanning and fingerprints. She and Dr. Kilpatrick co-founded privacy-first company Blink Identity, which is based in Austin, Texas, to use the tech to improve the experience at music gigs and sports events. The firm raised a seed round of $1.5M with participation from Live Nation, parent company of Ticketmaster. It has since begun to run pilot programmes at music venues.

by Jonathan Symcox
See full article at BusinessCloud.co.uk

The "Marriage Pact" - Dating Algorithm That Gives College Students One Match

VOX - July 11 - In 2000, psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper wrote a paper on the paradox of choice - the concept that having too many options can lead to decision paralysis. Seventeen years later, two Stanford classmates, Sophia Sterling-Angus and Liam McGregor, landed on a similar concept while taking an economics class on market design. "Tinder's huge innovation was that they eliminated rejection, but they introduced massive search costs," McGregor explained. "People increase their bar because there's this artificial belief of endless options." Sterling-Angus and McGregor had an idea: What if, rather than presenting people with a limitless array of attractive photos, they radically shrank the dating pool? What if they gave people one match based on core values (based on complex compatibility questions), rather than attraction? Their study called "Marriage Pact" focused on matching people with their perfect "backup plan" - the person they could marry later on if they didn't meet anyone else. It quickly became a viral phenomenon on campus. They've run the experiment two years in a row, and last year, 7,600 students participated: 4,600 at Stanford and 3,000 at Oxford. Next year the study will be in its third year, and McGregor and Sterling-Angus tentatively plan to launch it at a few more schools including Dartmouth, Princeton, and the University of Southern California. But it's unclear if the project can scale beyond the bubble of elite college campuses.

by Zoe Schiffer
See full article at Vox

The Meet Group Updates Its Flagship App With Industry-First Safety Practices

BUSINESSWIRE - July 11 - "Today we unveiled a number of safety-related features on MeetMe," said CEO Geoff Cook, "including the Report Abuse button we have seen in any major livestreaming app. When a user taps this button, a screengrab will be sent to our 200+ person moderation team for rapid review of both the screengrab and the active livestream."

See full article at The Meet Group website

See all posts on The Meet Group
See all posts on MeetMe

Dating App Once Lets Users See Their Attractiveness Score

NEON - July 11 - Jean Meyer is the CEO and founder of a slow dating app Once that sends users only one match per day. The app has launched a new feature that lets users see their attractiveness score.

Q: Don't you think this score could destroy a person's self-esteem?
Jean Meyer: Every dating app has an attractiveness score. People with high scores are matched with other people with high scores. We wanted to be a little smarter and stay transparent. We believe it is important to be transparent about how we do things.

Q: You use this transparency to lure people back into the app. How does it work?
A: We do not email people with: "Hey, come back and use the app". We want to give them relevant information. It works because people are curious and want to know their score.

Q: What is your score?
A: Not very good - 2.58. The score just tells me that my pictures are not good enough. That's a good feedback.

Q: Don't you think it has something to do with being a man?
A: That as well.... the average score for women is 4, for men it is 2.

Q: Who decides who is matched with whom?
A: In the beginning we had human matchmakers. We asked them to just rely on their gut feeling. We did that for a year and a half, until we had enough data to write an algorithm.

Q: Are interests and hobbies also being considered?
A: The picture is 95%.

Q: So if I rate many blonde men well, will I be matched with blonde men?
A: It's not that easy. We are doing a cluster analysis based primarily on people whose opinions are very divided. Imagine two different women. They both have the average score of 2.5 out of five. But one of them got plenty of twos and threes and the other got a lot of ones and fives. Then one of them is the average and the other is polarized. The people we care about are the ones who split the opinion. Because they probably belong to a certain type. Either you love them or you hate them.

by Jule Schulte
See full article at Neon

See all posts on Once

Blued Launches LGTBQ Anti Cyber Bullying Campaign in India

MENAFN - July 11 - The campaign focuses on making people aware about being bullied or mocked online as well as the threats an individual faces when one encounters someone who isn't what they claim to be. Blued, has partnered with Queerythm and Ya.All, community based organizations that provides support groups for the LGBTQI community, and launched helpline numbers to report such incidents. These helplines will also work toward counselling people who have been a victim to cyber bullying or physical abuse. In a recent survey report, 42% of the LGBTQ members have been a victim of virtual harassment and the numbers of incident have swiftly been rising. Launched in 2012, Blued is the largest gay dating social media app with ~40M users globally.

See full article at MenaFN

See all posts on Blued

Tinder Lite to Launch in Vietnam

THE VERGE - July 10 - Tinder Lite app is 25 times smaller than the main app, and while it maintains the core functionality, like swiping, it nixes more data-heavy ones, like the Feed. The idea is that Tinder Lite is faster, requires less battery life, and reduces data usage. For now, Tinder Lite users can't upgrade to a Tinder Plus or Gold subscription within the app, but the company says it plans to do so over time. The app will be available through Google Play in Vietnam in the "coming weeks" and will subsequently come to other areas in Southeast Asia and South America.

by Ashley Carman
See full article at The Verge

See all posts on Tinder

Facebook Dating to Allow Users to See if Their Friends Have a Crush on Them

VOGUE INDIA - July 9 - Following the launch of Facebook Dating in Colombia, Thailand, Argentina and Mexico, the app is slowly expanding to more countries including: Singapore, Malaysia, Brazil, Vietnam and the Philippines. It is also set to debut in the US in late 2019, and Australia shouldn't be too far behind either. The inbuilt app has eliminated the Tinder-style swipe right, swipe left mechanism and has a unique algorithm that matches users with potential love interests instead. One important feature of this algorithm is called "Secret Crush", where users can find out whether or not their real life friends might have a crush on them. Users can add up to nine friends on the list and Facebook notifies these friends that they have a secret admirer. The admirer won't be revealed unless there is a mutual secret crash.

by Danielle Gay
See full article at Vogue India

See all posts on Facebook Dating

Scruff Acquires Jack'd for an Undisclosed Sum

SYS-CON - July 10 - Perry Street Software, a New York-based gay mobile software developer and the parent company of Scruff, has acquired gay dating app Jack'd. Jack'd will continue to operate as a stand-alone app. Since its launch in 2010, Jack'd has grown to ~5M members worldwide. Perry Street will invest significant resources to upgrade the technology and reliability of the Jack'd app. In the coming months, Jack'd members can expect to see the removal of all programmatic advertising, enhanced controls over privacy and security, and new features such as improved messaging, redesigned Match, richer search, and the ability to include video as part of member private albums or in chat.

See full article at Sys-con

See all posts on Jack'd
See all posts on Scruff

This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com

Bumble Owner Launches Independent Investigation Into Its Workplace Culture

BUSINESS INSIDER - July 10 - Badoo founder, Andrey Andreev, is launching an independent investigation into his workplace culture after an explosive report by Forbes. Forbes spoke to 13 former employees who described naked cocaine-fueled parties, software updates named after porn stars, and inappropriate remarks made by Andreev. Andreev said he has was "shocked and saddened" by the allegations and has brought in HR firm Peninsula Group to conduct an investigation.

by Isobel Asher Hamilton
See full article at Business Insider

See all posts on Badoo     
See all posts on Bumble

Bumble CEO Responds to Reports of Misconduct at Parent Company

TECH CRUNCH - July 10 - Following an extensive report in Forbes about Bumble's parent company and its billionaire founder Andrey Andreev, the female-first dating app's founder Whitney Wolfe Herd has issued a statement. She says she was "mortified by the allegations" and "saddened and sickened to hear that anyone, of any gender, would ever be made to feel marginalized or mistreated in any capacity at their workplace." The allegations went beyond portraying a sexist work environment and detailed racist attitudes of the Badoo founder.

by Lucas Matney
See full article at Tech Crunch

See all posts on Badoo     
See all posts on Bumble

Over 1,300 Android Apps Scrape Personal Data Regardless of Permissions

TECHRADAR - July 8 - Researchers at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) created a controlled environment to test 88K apps downloaded from the US Google Play Store. They peeked at what data the apps were sending back, compared it to what users were permitting and 1,325 apps were forking over specific user data they shouldn't have. They used a variety of angles to circumvent permissions and get access to user data, including geolocation, emails, phone numbers, and device-identifying IMEI numbers.

by David Lumb
See full article at Techradar

Q&A With Vivek Jain, Founder of the New Dating App LOKO

FASHION WEEK DAILY - July 8 - Dating app LOKO lets users communicate with each other exclusively by video before meeting in person.

Q: Where does LOKO's name come from?
A: It's Hawaiian, and it means character and disposition. It's also an anagram of "look."

Q: What was your experience with dating apps?
A: I tried all the apps that everyone's heard of, and it was a disaster.

Q: What made it so frustrating?
A: You don't get a real sense of who a person is based on text messaging.

Q: Do you see any benefit in online dating?
A: For people who are really busy, it allows you to meet people you wouldn't normally. But that's where technology should stop - just allowing you to connect with somebody. After that some old-fashioned human interaction needs to play a more important part.

Q: What makes LOKO different from other dating apps?
A: As far as I know, we are the first video-only dating app. There is no texting and no static photos.

Q: How does it work?
A: You set up a profile with two videos: an eight-second "hello," and an optional 30s "about me." Once you set up your profile, it goes to a human moderator for approval. Once your profile is approved, you can look at other videos and match like you would in any other dating app.

Q: How do you meet people?
A: If you connect with someone, a calendar pops up so you can schedule a 15-minute video date or chat. We call it the "elimidate."

by Aria Darcella
See full article at Fashion Week Daily

See all posts on Loko

Forbes Investigation Into Badoo's Corporate Culture

FORBES - July 7 - Andrey Andreev's biggest asset is Badoo, a European- and Latin American-focused dating app that, with 60M users, stands as one of the world's largest. His buzziest, however, is Bumble, the dating app focused on empowering women. Andrey launched his first dating company - Mamba - in 2004. It was a bare-bones desktop dating site for Russian users. Finam Holdings invested $20M in Mamba for a 90% stake; Andreev sold the rest to Finam in 2006 for an undisclosed amount. Building off the success of Mamba, Andreev launched Badoo in 2006. In 2010, Badoo launched its iPhone mobile app. The company went from 20M user sign-ups to 100M in four months, mostly in Europe and Latin America, and notched $200M in revenue. (Forbes estimates that last year Badoo had a bit over $300M in revenue.) Simultaneous with this growth, Badoo began earning a reputation for wild parties. More concerning, several former employees say office behavior was hostile and discriminatory toward women. Andreev maintains that he is a collaborator and unifier, not racist or sexist as others allege. Wolfe Herd, who spent Bumble's formative period walking around London with Andreev for days, says she has never witnessed toxic behavior in the Badoo headquarters. And she stands firmly behind Andreev. "What I've seen firsthand from Andrey is creative and motivating behavior. Andrey has never been anything but kind and respectful to me."

by Angel Au-Yeung
See full article at Forbes

See all posts on Badoo     
See all posts on Bumble   
See all posts on Mamba