OPW - Jan 27 - Each year we review press hits to see who got the most and the best and worst coverage. Here's the Online Personals Watch press rankings for 2016.
1. TINDER - 122 posts on OPW (in 2016)
And Tinder is the winner again, it's safe to say, not just on OPW but in general when it comes to press coverage. Again, some negative news were covered during the year, i.e. they were sued over the "Super Like" feature, experienced a global outage in November, also the lawsuit against 3nder got some quite negative mentions. But overall, Tinder did well in the press. A few more examples: they bought contact management startup Humin in March, launched Tinder Social, first in Australia in April, than worldwide in July, invested in Hey! Vina app in September, launched "Tinder Boost" feature first in Australia in September and a month later worldwide, and Tinder was recognized as the strongest part of Match Group. Tinder also lost Sean Rad as CEO again last year, but on the other hand made some interesting hires - see the news here and here.
2. MATCH GROUP: 46 posts on OPW (last year, we didn't have separate categories for Match Group and Match.com yet, and Match got 70 press hits that made OPW. Match.com got just 26 in 2016!).
Also Match Group got good and bad press coverage during last year. Financial results got a lot of coverage last year, and were analyzed by multiple experts, along with predictions for Match Group's future. Mandy Ginsberg returned to Match as CEO of Match US, and safety concerns were discussed on multiple occasions, Match Group got sued by their investors, and launched their Fresh app in June. Some major stock sales and changes in company management were also covered, i.e. the company got new CEOs for OkCupid and Twoo, but also lost some people, i.e. their CFO of Dating.
3. eHARMONY - 32 posts on OPW
eHarmony's news coverage was positive overall during last year. The company finally launched Elevated Careers. eHarmony's founder Dr. Warren stepped down and Grant Langston became new CEO and this change got a a lot of mentions in the press, along with numerous interviews with the new CEO talking about what's next for eHarmony. On the other hand eHarmony lost it's COO, Armen Avedissian in August. Eventually, in December, big changes were announced.
