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

When Dating Apps Fail, There Are Always Matchmakers

BOSTON GLOBE - Mar 20 - "If you've ever used dating apps, you know that it can be like a full-time job," says Hannah Orenstein, whose experience as a matchmaker in New York City serves as the inspiration for her upcoming novel, "Playing With Matches." What matchmakers offer is convenience - handling everything from identifying dates to vetting dates to scheduling where and when two people will meet. "I tell people I'm kind of like a headhunter for their love life," says Jill Vandor, a longtime matchmaker at Boston-based LunchDates who says that firm has seen an influx of clients looking for a more personal touch. Some matchmakers even hit the dating apps so their clients don't have to.

by Dugan Arnett
The full article was originally published at Boston Globe, but is no longer available.

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Bumble Responded To Match Lawsuit With An Ad

TECH CRUNCH - Mar 20 - Tinder's parent company Match Group is suing its competition Bumble, accusing the app of stealing trade secrets and patents. The complaint also says that Bumble has rolled out two new features that were "learned of and developed confidentially while at Tinder". Bumble is responding with a full-page ad in the New York Times, "We swipe left on your multiple attempts to buy us, copy us, and now, to intimidate us." The ad goes onto say that Bumble isn't afraid of aggressive corporate culture. "That's what we call bullying, and we swipe left on bullies," it says, noting the thousands of users the company has blocked for "bad behavior."

by Fitz Tepper
See full article at Tech Crunch

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The Inner Circle Has A Team Of Moms Who Give Out Advice On How To Meet People

MASHABLE - Mar 16 - At dating app The Inner Circle, users can get an answer from an impartial judge via the app's customer support team - which just happens to be a group of young mothers who work part time. By design, the six Amsterdam-based women who approve new users and handle support inquiries are all partnered women with children who offer their insights "from the perspective of people who conquered the dating game." The Inner Circle launched first in Europe back in 2013, before making its way to the U.S. last year. Users are accepted (or denied) based off their presence on at least three social accounts.

by Laura Vitto
See full article at Mashable

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Internet Acquaintance: In Egypt It Is Simple, In Ireland It Is Almost Impossible

CRYPTOSLATE - Mar 19 - Sociologists from Austria have made a rating of the countries where it is easy to start communicating with a woman through a dating service. The first place in the list of countries where it is easy to get acquainted via the Internet got Egypt: 70% of women respond to the first message, 74% of them continue to communicate. Indonesia, Nigeria, Ghana and the Philippines were also among the five leaders. Europe declares itself only on the eighth line of a rating – rather willingly go on contact with men women of Ukraine. Thus, 54% of them respond to the first message. The next European country ranks only 14th in the list – it is the Czech Republic with 48% of women ready to enter into correspondence with handsome middle-aged. Only 6% of Irish women respond. Slightly less unapproachable, but also severe are Swedes and Portuguese (26% of respondents).

See full article at CryptoSlate

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China To Ban Citizens With Poor 'Social Credit' From Public Transport, Credit Info Shared On Baihe

V3.CO.UK - Mar 19 - China's government, which has just voted to make President Xi Jinping president for life, is to implement the latest phase of its Social Credit System on 1 May, with citizens with a poor social-credit rating to be banned from planes and trains. China's Social Credit System is coordinated by the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms. It mashes together information from the country's social insurance database and the criminal records system, as well as information gleaned online. It is intended to penalise not just citizens who have failed to pay fines or taxes, for example, but also people the government deems guilty of 'spreading false information' and 'causing trouble'. The credit score is also shared with Baihe, one of China's biggest online dating services, which promotes subscribers with good social credit scores.

by Graeme Burton
See full article at V3.co.uk

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Badoo Acquires Dating App Huggle And All-female Team

BUSINESS CLOUD - Mar 16 - Dating app Badoo has acquired dating app Huggle along with its internal marketing team. Huggle is a dating and friendship app which matches users based on the places they have in common. It was launched in 2016 by co-founders Valerie Stark and Stina Sanders. The brand has since attracted 500k users, including celebrities such as Katie Price and Bella Thorne.

See full article at Business Cloud

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

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Grindr App Loophole Allows Users To See Who Blocked Them

PINKNEWS - Mar 19 - A massive loophole in Grindr's code is allowing guys to see exactly who has blocked them on the app according to developer Trever Faden. He says that the app currently attaches an invisible list of restricted profiles to each user's account, so the app knows not to display guys to someone that has blocked them. With a little effort it's possible to retrieve the list of user IDs from the code. Faden has since built a web tool called 'C**kblocked' that lets people sign into their Grindr accounts and see the list for themselves.

by Nick Duffy
See full article at PinkNews

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With "Apply To Date" Singles Can Now Play Their Own Game Of The Bachelor(ette)

MASHABLE - Mar 18 - Apply To Date lets singles build a shareable webpage that's a little bit like a dating resume. The webpage has its own shareable URL that daters can add to their tweets, Snapchat stories, and Instagram bios. At the top of the page, there's a button that allows people to ask them out. There's an introduction, followed by more background, a chance to list what they're looking for. At the top and bottom of the page photos from Facebook or Instagram will be shown, and links to social media accounts.

by Rachel Thompson
See full article at Mashable

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Spark Neworks SE To Terminate Loan Agreement Relating To Affinitas And Plans To Enter Into New Debt Financing

SPARK.NET - Mar 15 - Spark Networks Services (f/k/a Affinitas), wholly-owned subsidiary of Spark Networks SE, entered into a termination agreement to its Loan Agreement. The loan agreement was dated Sep 2016 and was made between Affinitas and certain persons and entities with an interest rate of 8% (Loan type A) and 9% per annum (Loan Type B) in an amount of €5.85M (€1.85M of which is under the Type A Loans and €4M of which is under the Type B Loans). The parties agreed to an early termination fee of €0.3M. In addition, the parties agreed that interest on the loans of ~€40K will be paid in full for the month of March 2018. In connection with the termination of the Loan Agreement, the Company executed a non-binding term sheet with a third-party lender for a new €25M credit facility consisting of a €15M term loan and €10M revolver

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White Label Dating Partners With Geordie Shore's Holly Hagan To Launch HollysHookups.com

PRESS RELEASE - Mar 19 - White Label Dating have just launched www.hollyshookups.com, a casual dating site for fans of reality TV star, Holly Hagan. Holly Hagan has 3.6M Instagram followers. Within the past week, White Label Dating have launched two dating sites for UK famous reality TV stars. Las week, The Only Way Is Essex couple, James Lock and Yazmin Oukhellou launched their first mainstream dating site www.thisisluv.com with the hope to help like-minded singles find love.

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Running Remote, In Bali In June :: Conference Discount

OPW - Mar 18 - Occasionally we spot new conferences that look exceptional. This one looks amazing. It's in Bali in June, after iDate L.A. Those of you who have remote teams, or are looking to use remote teams are encouraged to check this out. And you can use the following feel-good discounts.

20% discount expiring March 31st: markbrooks20
10% discount unlimited: markbrooks10

IDEA is a remote team. We couldn't possibly afford to bring together our world-class team in one location. We're all over the map at this stage, with 22 people (remote contractors only) and growing. I think people need more freedom to be at their best these days. Having freedom of location and freedom of time-of-work is bliss. It's also very challenging to work and coordinate at times. But by-and-large we've cracked it. The solution :: the right incentives + paying people weekly + a great project management system. Anyway, if working with remote teams is your thing, check out Running Remote.

Post by Mark Brooks, CEO IDEA

Match Group Is Suing Bumble For Patent Infringement

RECODE.NET - Mar 16 - Match Group is suing Bumble for infringing on two of its patents, including a design patent for Tinder's now-famous swipe-to-connect feature, according to the suit. Match also claims that early Bumble executives Chris Gulczynski and Sarah Mick, who both previously worked at Tinder, stole "confidential information related to proposed Tinder features," including the idea for a feature that lets users go back if they accidentally skip someone, according to the suit. Tinder and Bumble have a long and interesting history. Most recently, Match made an offer to buy Bumble last summer for $450M, according to TechCrunch. One source tells Recode that Match is still interested in acquiring Bumble, which means this lawsuit may very well be a bargaining chip - albeit an unfriendly one. Badoo is Bumble's majority owner, with a 79% stake.

by Kurt Wagner
See full article at ReCode

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These Redditors Made Graphics To Visualize Their Dating Lives

WASHINGTON POST - Mar 12 - Melissa McEwen is a tracker. She wears a Fitbit. She keeps a spreadsheet of hair products. When she wanted to make room in her closet, she tracked what she wore every day for more than a year, figuring out what to ditch and what to spare. And since 2015, McEwan has tracked her dating life, recording which online app she uses for each interaction and how far along the messages go. Earlier this year McEwen posted an infographic on Reddit titled "How I met my boyfriend - 6 months of dating in 2016," joining a trend of redditors sharing their personal experiences via data visualization. Other entries include "My 180 days of lesbian online dating," whose creator seemed to have better results starting with a GIF than a message, and "My last 90 days of gay social apps," which included 471 interactions, 41 photos of genitalia and sex with 27 different men. The graphics are sometimes imperfect and difficult to grasp at first glance, but they all tell a story.

by Keith Plocek
See full article at Washington Post

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Russian Biggest Social Network "VKontakte" Launched Tinder Clone

LIFE.RU - Mar 16 - VKontakte added an inside app called "Znakomstva" ("dating" in Russian) into its social network platform. The app is similar to Tinder. Users swipe of profiles and if there is a mutual interest, the system will connect them and offer a chat.

by Andrey Stavitskiy
See full article at Life.ru

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Lawsuit Against Grindr Dismissed

LEXOLOGY - Mar 16 - The lawsuit was dismissed under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which continues to act as one of the strongest legal protections for social media companies. The case involved a dispute between Grindr and an individual who was maliciously targeted through the platform by his former lover. Plaintiff Herrick alleged that his ex-boyfriend set up several fake profiles on Grindr that claimed to be him. Over a thousand users responded to the impersonating profiles. Herrick's ex‑boyfriend, pretending to be Herrick, would then direct the men to Herrick's work-place and home and telling them that he had certain rape fantasies. The impersonating profiles were reported to Grindr (the app's operator), but Herrick claimed that Grindr did not respond, other than to send an automated message. When Congress enacted Section 230 of the CDA in 1996, it sought to provide protections that would permit online services to thrive without the threat of crippling civil liability for the bad acts of its users. Over 20 years since its passage, the Act has indisputably served that purpose.

See full article at Lexology

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