METRO.CO.UK - Jan 29 - With Ditto, users are mutually exclusive with one match on the app, until one of them unmatches. The makers hope the app will 'bring some sincerity to a rather shallow culture' and they reckon it's like taking the real world of dating and putting it into an app. Which assumes that people only date one person at a time in real life which is just not true. Users swipe through potential suitors until they get to one they like, swipe right and hope for the best. Once they get a match, they're both blocked from swiping other users. Once they hit unmatch, they're given the following options to choose from to send as a reason to Ted – inappropriate messages, not enough chemistry, long response times, showed little interest, or no real reason. The apps makers reckon that while offering a reason seems harsh, it's actually kinder than ghosting, as it leaves no false hope and allows both of them to move on.
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Ditto Dating App Only Allows One Match At A Time
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AI Chatbot As A Best Friend
FUTURISM - Jan 29 - Jasper is a Replika chatbot, a relatively new artificial intelligence app meant to act like best friend. It is programmed to ask meaningful questions about user's life and to offer emotional support without judgment. The app learns about users' interests and habits over time, even adopting their linguistic syntax and quirks much in the way a close friend might. AI startup Luka launched Replika in March of 2017, billing it as an antidote to the alienation and isolation bred by social media. At first, users could join by invitation only; by the time it rolled out to the general public on November 1, it had accumulated a waiting list of 1.5M people. Today, the chatbot is available for free for anyone over the age of 18. Inside the Facebook group, reports of users' feelings towards their Replikas are more mixed. Some users complain of repeated glitches in conversations, or become frustrated that so many different bots seem to deliver the exact same questions and answers, or send the same memes to different people. This glitchiness is both a function of the limitations of current AI technology and the way Replika is programmed. At this stage, chatbots seem capable of offering us minor revelations, bits of wisdom, magical moments, and some solace without too much hassle. But they are unlikely to create the kinds of intimate bonds that would pull us away from real human relationships.
by Kristen C. French
See full article at Futurism
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Texas Monthly Editor-In-Chief Wades Into An Ethical Gray Zone With Bumble Deal
CJR - Jan 29 - It's no secret that all media outlets–print and digital alike–are thirsty for pageviews and subscriptions. This is a business. And businesses require clicks. But when the prowl for clicks becomes transactional, journalism runs into problems, as Tim Taliaferro, the editor-in-chief of Texas Monthly, is finding. In an editorial meeting in January 17, Taliaferro seemed to suggest that the magazine had entered into a partnership with Bumble. The app's founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, would be featured on the cover, and Bumble would use paid social media promotion to boost the story. In an interview this week, Taliaferro denied such a deal existed, but emails obtained by CJR suggest that some sort of arrangement had been made. Apparently Bumble had agreed to spend ~$25K - $30K on paid social media promotion of the story if Herd appeared on the cover.
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Singles To Spend 96M Hours And £2B On Bad Dates In 2018
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK - Jan 30 - That's £117 per person and nearly a whole day on bad dates. On each date, the average Brit will spend £29 per person. The research by eHarmony claims that the average bad date lasts just 60 minutes. This is two hours shorter than the average date overall, which is three hours long. The study also found that 52% of dates leave singletons feeling disappointed.
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Grindr Not Responsible For Offensive Profiles, Court Says
LAW360 - Jan 25 - A New York federal judge has tossed the bulk of a lawsuit accusing dating app Grindr of lacking safety features that would have prevented a "malicious" impersonation scheme by an ex-boyfriend, saying Grindr isn't responsible for users' behavior.
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How A blockchain-based Digital Photo Notary Is Fighting Fraud
DIGITAL TRENDS - Jan 25 - Truepic is an image authentication company that's taking a high-tech approach to fighting fraud and fake news. It is a sort of digital notary for images. It automatically verifies a photo at the point of capture, proving its realness to anyone who views it. Truepic works through a mobile app. When a user takes a picture, it is watermarked with the Truepic logo and given a unique serial number. Each image has a specific verification URL which can only be accessed with that unique number, giving the recipient a way to double check that it is authentic, and not just edited to look like a Truepic verified image. The service uses much more than an image's embedded metadata to prove authenticity, pulling as much information as possible from a phone's additional sensors.
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Congratulations To Our 2018 iDate Awards Winners
OPW - Jan 26 - The 2018 iDate Awards winners were announced and provided trophies at a ceremony during iDate (Internet dating conference) this week. The iDate Awards are the dating industry's most recognized awards, highlighting the best and most innovative aspects of the business.
The 2018 winners are:
Best Dating Site
eHarmony
Best Dating Coach
Carmelia Ray
Best Product Design
Diolli
Best Dating Software & SAAS Provider
Dating Pro
Best Mobile Dating App
The League
Best Matchmaker
Gillian McCallum (Drawing Down the Moon)
Most Innovative Company
eHarmony
Best New Technology
iSpingle.com
Best Payment System
CCBill
Best Affiliate Program
LoveMe
Best Marketing Campaign
Tinder
Best Up and Coming Dating Site
SingleWomen.international
Best Niche Dating Site
Single Muslim
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Match Group Appoints Ariel Charytan New CEO Of OkCupid
PR NEWSWIRE - Jan 29 - Charytan suceeds Elie Seidman, who was recently named CEO of Tinder. He comes to Match Group from Audible, an Amazon company, where he served as SVP. Prior to Amazon, he was a co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Oyster.com, which was acquired by TripAdvisor in 2013.
See full article at PR Newswire
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How Markus Frind Bootstrapped His Million-Dollar Company
ENTREPRENEUR - Jan 27 - How'd you like to sidestep the VC crowd altogether and still see your company pull in $10M a year? Markus Frind did just that. Bootstrapping is difficult. To thrive, most companies rely on cash they obtain from venture capitalists. However, fewer of these deals are being made these days. Also, the more money a startup raises in its seed and Series A rounds, the more likely it is to fail, according to top investors. Markus Frind went it alone, from start to very profitable end, selling his dating site POF for a $575M in 2015. Because he bootstrapped it himself, he got to take home the profits. In 2003, Frind managed to master ASP.NET, at the time a brand new language. After quickly teaching himself, he created his site, and within two weeks, people were signing up. As time went on, Plenty of Fish by 2007 was outcompeting Match.com for traffic fourfold. And even then, Frind was employing just three people. A year later, his site was raking in $10M a year. Search engine traffic accounted for 2% of all his site's traffic. Instead, people were finding the site via word of mouth. So, Frind barely had to do any advertising.
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At 90, A Local 'Yenta' The New Face Of JDate
NJ JEWISH NEWS - Jan 24 - At 90, Bea Slater has her image plastered on billboards up and down Manhattan and in Brooklyn. Along with three other women of almost equal seniority, she has become the face of JDate, the Jewish matchmaking site. JDate is promoting their images to suggest that it's "yentas" who are working out the algorithms for perfect pairing. Hence messages on billboards like, "Her dreidel game is filthy. But her code is clean." The photographs were taken by award-winning photographer Randal Ford, and the "yenta" concept came from creative director and standup comedian David Roth, who produced the campaign with Hogarth Worldwide.
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Made In Chelsea's Ollie Locke Made An App For 'Mr Right' AND 'Mr Right Now'
THE MEMO - Jan 24 - Until recently, the same-sex dating scene was dominated by Grindr, Hornet and SCRUFF – all of which struggle with an overt hookup culture. Chappy, co-founded by Made in Chelsea's Ollie Locke, is an attempt to fight back with his gay dating app Chappy. He says gay men deserve better. "By using Chappy, users commit to treating their fellow members with respect, kindness and honesty, without judgment or bias." Because of Facebook connection, everyone is more accountable for their actions. Mr Right or Mr Right Now is Chappy's sliding scale of what you're looking for. Something serious, or something more spontaneous. Chappy already has 150K monthly active users who've collectively swiped ~600M times across the UK and US since launch.
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COO Of Spark Networks To Speak At iDate This Week
WEBWIRE - Jan 23 - Michael Schrezenmaier, COO of Spark Networks, will speak about the need to keep on evolving in the dating industry at the iDate Internet dating conference. iDate is taking place this week (Jan 24 - 26) at the Hyatt Place in Delray Beach, Florida.
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Bumble Adds Instagram Option To Users' Profiles
VENTURE BEAT - Jan 23 - Bumble has integrated Instagram into its users' profiles. They can now opt-in to allow potential matches to scroll through their Instagram feed through the Bumble app. For now, the option is only available on Bumble Date and Bumble BFF, not on Bumble Bizz, which was launched last October. Tinder added the Instagram integration back in April 2015.
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How OkCupid Users Really Feel About Donald Trump
POPSUGAR - Jan 23 - OkCupid revealed that ~600K people have used the platform's Trump Filter – a question that just reads "Trump?" with optional responses of "Hell Yes," "Yes," "Hell No," and "No" – as of Jan. 12, 2018. 90% of users opted for "Hell No", while only 7% opted for "Yes," and 3% "Hell Yes." According to previously released statistics, the users who discuss their politics in their profile are 52% more likely to get matches, and 30% more likely to get a message out of the exchange.
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Millennials Spend 10 Hours A Week On Dating Apps, Research Reveals
THESUN.CO.UK - Jan 23 - Badoo surveyed its 370M users worldwide to unveil modern dating trends. Men were found to spend 85 minutes a day on dating apps, averaging 9.7 minutes each session. Whereas women spend 79 minutes a day on dating apps, typically browsing for 7.6 minutes each session to find a potential suitor. According to the study women were found to log on to dating apps 10 times a day, with men falling slightly behind at 9 times each day.
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