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

Revolutionary Scent Sensor Could Help Sniff Out Soulmates

ISRAEL21C - July 19 - Thanks to Israeli startup NanoScent, smartphones could identify, recognize and analyze scent as easily as taking a photo. Retailing for under $100, the NanoScent sensor is expected to hit store shelves next year as an adjunct to three health and wellness apps in the fields of nutrition, air pollution and illness detection in humans and agriculture. Company cofounders Oren Gavriely and Eran Rom joined forces with a team of engineering experts at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to leverage 10 years of innovation. Initial trials have been successful in matching couples based on pheromone recognition.

by Leoni Jesner
See full article at Israel21c

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In 'Sugar Dating', Sex Is Optional, Says Sugarbook Creator

MALAY MAIL - July 19 - Darren Chan, the Malaysian creator and CEO of Sugarbook, wants to make it clear that his dating app is not a platform for prostitution. "Sugar dating is about saying what you want in life and not being afraid to say it," Chan told Malay Mail in a recent interview. Chan claims Sugarbook has 200k members across Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, the US and Thailand to date. He elaborated that 70% of members are what he called "sugar babies". The start-up is looking to expand into China and Japan next and is seeking funding. In February, Sugarbook attracted the attention of Singapore's Minister for Social and Family Development Desmond Lee, who said the police will keep a close watch of the dating platform and its users.

by Melanie Chalil
See full article at Malay Mail

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"Me Too" Founder Is Joining Match Group's New Sexual Assault Advisory Board

FAST COMPANY - July 20 - Back in 2011, Match.com settled a lawsuit with a woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted by a member of the site. While Match posts safety tips for online dating, critics say dating services can do more to keep their users safe. Now, Match Group is forming a new board with a mission of preventing sexual assault. They have conscripted six members, including Tarana Burke, who founded the #MeToo movement and serves as the senior director of Girls for Gender Equity. The council, which will convene four times a year, will advise Match Group on how to improve safety on its platforms.

by Melissa Locker
See full article at Fast Company

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OkCupid 'DTF' Campaign Boosted Buzz 50%

ADWEEK - July 21 - Created by Wieden + Kennedy New York under the brand's first CMO, Melissa Hobley, the ads recast DTF (typically meant as a derogatory term for women who are "down to f$%k") into new interpretations that represent what single people might really be looking for in a relationship - "Down to Farmer's Market" or "Down to Feel Fabulous." The campaign has boosted social mentions of OkCupid by 50%. But not all the ads have been welcome everywhere, and in fact the entire campaign was rejected outright by the Chicago Transit Authority. "We certainly knew we would not be able to run every execution in every market. What surprised us was that certain huge vendors, outlets and agencies rejected the campaign completely," Hobley says. "We ran this campaign in a number of cities in Q1 of 2018, and the response was phenomenal. We saw the needle move, we saw people talking about it - young women especially."

by David Griner
See full article at AdWeek

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Artificial Intelligence Is Progressively Entering Online Dating

WORLDCRUNCH - July 20 - Back in 2014, Justin Long started working on Bernie.ai, a robot that used facial recognition to select profiles on behalf of the user. If there was a match, it started the conversation with an opening line. The start-up LoveFlutter relies on Twitter and Facebook posts to match users. By teaming up with Receptiviti.ai, a company that specializes in the automated analysis of people's psychological states based on language use, the dating app promises to connect compatible personalities. Xavier de Baillenx heads innovation at Meetic. He developed the personal assistant Lara while co-running the start-up Pretty Fun Therapy, which has since been bought by Meetic. Today, Lara has ~50 distinct pieces of advice to give, suggesting locations for a date, what to wear, or how to overcome shyness.

by Basile Dekonink
See full article at Worldcrunch

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Online Daters Consume More Alcohol, Zoosk Study Finds

ASKMEN - July 19 - Zoosk surveyed 9k of its members and analyzed 133k dating messages to figure out the relationship between alcohol and dating. It found that 72% of the daters on its site consume alcohol compared to 64.8% of the general adult U.S. population, indicating that singles really do drink more than everybody else. It could be due to how common going out for a drink is when you're dating someone. Nearly three in four daters said going out for a drink is a good dating idea. And according to 32% of non-drinkers, dating is tougher when you're sober.

by Joel Balsam
See full article at AskMen

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Match Group CEO: Facebook Is No Threat To Us

FORTUNE - July 19 - Mandy Ginsberg has had an interesting first year as CEO of Match Group. She recalled the moment she learned that Facebook had entered the dating arena. She had just finished preparing remarks for an earnings call, when her phone began blowing up with the news. "The stock started dropping a dollar a minute," she recalled. "I just threw all my prepared remarks away and started over." Ginsberg feels confident that the mostly young love-seekers don't want to be dating on the same platform where their parents hang out.

by Ellen McGirt
See full article at Fortune

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The App Inclov Changing The Dating Scene For India's Disabled People

BBC - July 18 - In India, people with disabilities are often invisible in day-to-day life, despite numbering tens of millions. The country is notoriously disability-unfriendly, in terms of infrastructure, attitudes and policy. Many families who have children with disabilities rarely take them out in public, as it is seen as a source of stigma and shame. Dating app Inclov gives people with disabilities more opportunities to socialise. The idea for Inclov was born after Shankar Srinivasan and Kalyani Khona decided they wanted to "do something in the matchmaking space" and realised very quickly that no-one was thinking about people with disabilities. They began with an "offline" agency called Wanted Umbrella which evolved into a static site and then a mobile app. They raised money through a crowdfunding campaign where they were able to raise 615k rupees (£6,976; $8,998) to hire an app developer. They have carried out ~50 other events in cities across India, including Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Jaipur. The last event had ~50 people in attendance.

See full article at BBC

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Grindr Sets Up Office In Taiwan

E27 - July 18 - "Taiwan is the first nation in Asia to legalize gay marriage," said the Grindr's CTO Scott Chen Jun-yang, who will head Grindr's office in Taiwan. The company, which has 40M registered users worldwide, has just opened an office in the Xinyi Breeze Center. Chen is currently recruiting software engineers.

See full article at E27

See all posts on Grindr

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You Can Now Use Bitmoji To Flirt On Tinder

MASHABLE - July 17 - Tinder is beginning to roll out Bitmoji integration to users in the US and Canada. With the change, Tinder users who are also on Snapchat can connect the two apps in order to bring their Bitmoji stickers to Tinder's in-app chat.

by Karissa Bell
See full article at Mashable

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Ashley Madison Leader Ruben Buell Explains The Positive Side Of Adultery

DALLAS OBSERVER - July 17 - Ruben Buell, president of Ashley Madison, says the site isn't as bad as some in the media have portrayed it. It's not breaking up marriages and families, he says; divorce does that. While Buell says he endorses his company's product, he and his wife don't use ashleymadison.com. But he says they "try to be really, really open about it." Although he believes the site can help a marriage, he doesn't think it would have helped his first marriage. ~54M members have joined Ashley Madison since 2002, and in 2016, 1,707,169 people signed up. In 2017, 1,932,000 users signed up, and so far for 2018, 1,243,633 have logged in.

by Paige Skinner
See full article at Dallas Observer

See all posts on AshleyMadison

Summarized by the IDEA team

Global App Revenue Surpasses $34B During H1 2018

PHONE ARENA - July 17 - During the first six months of 2018, global app revenues saw a YOY increase of 27.8%, reaching a total of $34.4B. 65% of it came from the App Store, with its total sales reaching $22.6B during the period. For comparison, over the same period in 2017, Apple generated $17.8B in revenue through App purchases, that's up 26.8% so far this year. Google Play Store saw YOY growth of 30% during the period to $11.8B.

by Joshua Swingle
See full articl at Phone Arena

Summarized by the IDEA team

Discovery Partners With Tinder To Help Promote Shark Week 2018

ADWEEK - July 17 - Discovery has lined up several new and returning partnerships for its biggest Shark Week yet, as the franchise celebrates its 30th anniversary. One of the new partners is Tinder. The dating app joins Equinox and Lyft as the new brands partnering for Shark Week 2018, which runs from July 22-29, along with several returning marketers, including Southwest, Great Clips, Georgetown Cupcake, Oceana, MLB Network and Live Love Polish. Discovery worked with Tinder to create five Shark Week-branded profile cards that will be live in the dating app from July 10-29. Those cards will feature different sharks, who will give advice on finding Shark Week dates and how to help save sharks around the world.

by Jason Lynch
See full article at Adweek

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The Meet Group Rolls Out Live Video In Germany On LOVOO

PRESS RELEASE - July 18 - "With LOVOO Live now rolling out in Germany, we have completed the rollout of live video on all of our major apps," said Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group. The Meet Group's annualized video revenue run rate now exceeds $35M based on June's results, up 20% in two months.

See full article at The Meet Group website

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Paktor Parent M17 Entertainment Officially Withdraws US IPO

DEAL STREET ASIA - July 1 - Taiwan-based M17 Entertainment, the parent company of Singapore-based dating and networking app Paktor, has officially withdrawn its IPO in the US, a month after suspending its debut on the New York Stock Exchange. The press statement did not mention the reasons for M17's decision to cancel its IPO, which had initially aimed to raise a total of $115M.

by Mars Woo
See full article at Deal Street Asia

See all posts on Paktor

This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the IDEA team