YAHOO FINANCE – Nov 9 – eHarmony is hoping to launch a chatbot to stop people from ghosting, or cutting off communication with potential matches. The would-be feature, which eharmony has yet to start development on, would pop up in the user interface after an online conversation with another user drops off after several days or weeks. The dating bot feature could be introduced within the next 18 months.
Category: Reporters – JP Mangalindan
Tinder CEO: I’m Not Worried About Facebook’s Dating App
YAHOO FINANCE – Sep 20 – Tinder CEO Elie Seidman is not worried about Facebook competing with Tinder. He thinks the social network will serve a different audience than Tinder.
Tinder CEO: Online Dating Now Is Like Going From A Soviet-era Supermarket To Amazon
YAHOO FINANCE – Sep 20 – Tinder CEO Elie Seidman explains the benefits of online dating, both for millennial’s who are just starting their romantic lives and for users over 40 who are leaving old relationships and starting new ones.
Hinge Releases “Most Compatible” Feature
YAHOO LIFESTYLE – July 11 – This new feature recommends one highly compatible match every day. The app selects the matches based on algorithms that suss out users previous actions on the app and their interests. Hinge's latest feature comes on the heels of Match Group's purchase of a 51% controlling stake in the app in June. It also comes over a year after the company moved away from swiping.
How Match Got Away With Buying 25 Dating Sites
YAHOO FINANCE – June 25 – Last week, Match Group announced it had purchased a 51% controlling stake in the dating app Hinge. Match Group has the right to acquire the remaining shares of Hinge within the next 12 months. Match Group's dominance in the online dating market and aggressive acquisition strategy raises the question: Why hasn't the company raised antitrust concerns? The company already owns ~45 dating businesses, with over 25 of those businesses acquired since 2009. "We're highly acquisitive, and we're always talking to companies," said Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg. "If you want to sell, you should be talking to us." Last year, Match Group generated ~$1.3B in revenues, accounting for roughly one-third of the dating market's $4B in global revenues in 2017, according to Aegis Capital Managing Director Victor Anthony. It's possible the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has deemed Match Group's spate of acquisitions over the years insufficient to warrant an antitrust case. Amazon, for example, accounted for ~44% of e-commerce sales in 2017 and has yet to face a lawsuit from federal antitrust regulators. Monopolization is just hard to prove.
Match Group CEO On Tinder: Why It’s More Than A Hookup App
FINANCE YAHOO – June 7 – If anyone understands the nuances of the competitive online dating market, it's certainly Mandy Ginsberg, who became CEO of Match Group in January after running Match Group North America for two and a half years. Match Group controls 45 businesses, including Match.com, Tinder, OkCupid, and POF. Tinder remains the portfolio's breakout property. But despite Tinder's success, Ginsberg suggests the app still has some growing up to do. Tinder began rolling out new features like Tinder Places, which lets users find potential connections based on the places they go to, and Tinder Loops which is another way for users to express themselves. "Tinder can be more one-dimensional. It is a swiping machine and the experience is a little bit superficial. So we're trying to create a much more robust experience. In two years, Tinder is not going to be just about matching – it's going to also be about how we give people a better sense of who that person is. So when you go out on a date with someone, there's going to be a higher chance of chemistry", said Mandy.
by JP Mangalindan
See full article at Yahoo Finance
Tinder CEO On Data Privacy: ‘We Don’t Sell Data’
YAHOO FINANCE – May 4 – Data privacy remains a hot-button topic for the tech industry, but Tinder CEO Elie Seidman wants to assure users that the data used in their profiles is safe. The one key difference Seidman emphasized between Facebook and his company: Tinder does not rely on advertising and the personal data that comes with that revenue stream. "We don't sell data". As Tinder competes with Facebook's dating service, data privacy may well be one way for the app distinguish itself.
Tinder CEO On Facebook’s Dating Service: “Facebook Is In A Very Competitive Space”
YAHOO NEWS – May 4 – Some pundits say Facebook is positioned to do well in dating, in part because of its massive user base of 2.2B MAU. Indeed, since Facebook announced on Tuesday it was getting into the dating space, Tinder's parent company Match Group has seen its stock drop ~21% to $36 per share. However, despite that, Tinder CEO Elie Seidman says he's not particularly concerned, because Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made it clear that Facebook's dating service is aimed at singles seeking long-term, "meaningful" relationships and not just hook-ups, or "casual dating" – an area Tinder users also flock to the app for.
by JP Mangalindan
See full article at Yahoo News
No Dating App Has More Engagement Than Grindr
YAHOO! FINANCE – Feb 14 – According to a new study from research firm 7Park Data, Grindr users spend an average of 165 minutes, or 2.75 hours, a week inside the app, far surpassing Badoo and Tinder, with users on average spending 68 minutes and 55 minutes a week using those apps, respectively. Still, Tinder remains the overall winner when it comes to user base. Tinder had 50M users when the company last reported user base statistics back in 2014.
See full article at Yahoo! Finance
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Threesome App CEO: ‘Swiping Is Dead’
YAHOO! FINANCE – Jan 14 – According to Dimo Trifonov, CEO of the threesome app Feeld, swiping is merely a "temporary solution to a problem of digital overconsumption and messy, unstructured databases of things." The 26-year-old entrepreneur launched Feeld in 2014 for people to explore the possibilities of threesomes. The app gained some notoriety for Tinder's attempt to sue the startup over its former name 3nder. 3nder changed its name to Feeld in August, a move Trifonov argues hasn't significantly affected its user base of 2M people. Feeld is abandoning the swiping model and "we are also getting rid of the 'judgment user interface' of liking and disliking people", he says. Feeld also plans on launching an entirely new, unnamed app in the spring focused on bringing people together for events.
by JP Mangalindan
See full article at Yahoo! Finance