TECH CRUNCH - Mar 21 - Launched in 2018, the Bumble Fund backs early-stage businesses founded and led by women. The fund's commitments range between $5K and $250K with an average check size of $25K. Williams has been investing in women and minority-owned businesses through Serena Ventures since 2014. She also serves on the boards of the tech companies Poshmark and SurveyMonkey. She began her relationship with Bumble in January, culminating with a starring role in the company's most recent Super Bowl commercial earlier this year and will be leading the Bumble Fund pitch competition next month, along with Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd. Through Serena Ventures, Williams already has invested in over thirty companies while the Bumble Fund has made nine investments to date.
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Serena Williams Joins Bumble's Investment Fund as an Investor
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Mobile Growth Summit: Catherine Cook Connelly, Co-Founder & VP Brand Strategy, The Meet Group
OPW - Mar 21 - The Meet Group grew its live-streaming product - Live - to a $48M business in less than a year. Live, which monetizes through in-app purchases, is one of the most engaging features the company ever launched. Users spend ~25M minutes in Live each day. In her presentation, Catherine Cook Connelly talks about how they built Live, why it monetizes so well, and how it enables meaningful connections for their users on MeetMe, Skout, Tagged, and LOVOO.
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The Apps That Aim to Keep the Spark Alive in Relationships
GQ - Mar 21 - Co-founder and CMO of Happy Couple, Arnaud Le Mérour, says the app has 800K registered users. The focus of his app, he says, is on improving communication in relationship. "It wasn't built to exploit user engagement, and it wasn't designed to replace real life interactions," said Le Mérour, who explained that many users play the game while unable to have face-to-face communication because of distance or alternating schedules. "We wanted to create a tool that helps people to learn more about their partners and facilitate conversations around both tough and important topics in fun ways," continues Le Mérour. Desire, which has~1M downloads and users ranging in age between 25-44, according to co-founder Marta Plaza, lets couples select from a variety of dares, from relatively tame to relatively spicy. Each dare is assigned a point value. The more points you rack up, the closer you come to unlocking the "hottest" challenges. Kindu, a similar app, is intended to increase physical intimacy using suggestions like, "surprise your partner in the shower one day." The goal of apps like Kindu is removing shame and shyness from conversations about physical intimacy.
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Dallas-Founded Dating App, Vouch, Brings on a New Female CEO
DALLAS INNOVATES - Mar 18 - Last year, Bachelor alum Sean Lowe announced he was launching a dating app where friends could swipe for their single friends. Now, Lowe and his team have brought on a local female voice to grow the platform: Christiana Yebra. Yebra is well-versed in the startup space, having helped launch and sell Texas' first on-demand urgent care app. She led a med-tech startup in territory sales until its acquisition in 2018, and founded Dallas Millennial Club. Singles can download the Vouch app and then invite their friends to be 'Vouchers' that build their profile, endorse their qualities, and approve potential candidates.
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Singles Are Open to Discuss Politics on a First Date
BUSTLE - Mar 20 - Elite dating app The Inner Circle conducted some research into how open members of their site were to talking about politics on a first date. And it turns out people are more than prepared to do so, as 62% of singles would be happy to talk politics on a first date. 13% of their members said that they would be really happy to share their political views with their partner. However, the first date was off limits for them. In addition, 25% said they would never discuss politics on a date at all.
by Alice Broster
See full article at Bustle
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The Frenchwoman Who Took on Tinder Wrote a Book About Her Experience
THE TIMES - Mar 20 - When Judith Duportail split from her boyfriend, she joined Tinder. This week she will publish L'Amour sous algorithme (Love under algorithm), a book that recounts her experiences on Tinder - her initial excitement at the flood of men contacting her, but also the sexually offensive comments, the disappointment that came with meeting her suitors for real, and the occasional unsatisfactory relationship. In her book, Duportail says users are given desirability scores that decide whether they are winners or losers in love. Tinder admitted that it used to use an "Elo score", borrowed from the world of chess, where a player goes up the rankings by beating a rival with a higher score or falling in the opposite situation. The company said it had dropped the Elo score, but added that "our current system adjusts the potential matches you see each and every time your profile is liked or noped", which seems to suggest that some kind of desirability ranking may still be operating. Duportail's book reveals that Tinder implemented parts of "Matching process system and method" patent (patent application US9733811B2). The system can classify users according to their wealth, ethnicity, religious preferences, intelligence and attractiveness, and to encourage dates between those of similar backgrounds. Tinder has dismissed Duportail's claims, saying that it does not implement those parts of the patent, which are "irrelevant" to its platform. "We don't believe in stereotypes," the company said.
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Civic App Can Give Online Daters Control Over Their Data & Verify New Users
DATING ADVICE - Mar 19 - Civic has designed a new mobile authentication tools for consumers and businesses using blockchain technology. Online dating apps can look to Civic to make the online dating experience more trustworthy and secure. Civic provides users with a digital identity that uses biometrics to protect an individual's identity, and it empowers the consumers to keep private information, including credit card numbers and passwords, safe. Instead of logging in through Facebook and sharing data with a dating app, users could log in through Civic and only share relevant info, such as name, date of birth, and phone number. Users will have more control of their personal data and dating apps can build trust by verifying that every user is who they say they are.
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Rockstar CEO, Grant Langston, on Success and eharmony
THRIVE GLOBAL - Mar 19 -
Q: Tell us about your career trajectory?
A: I moved to LA to play music at 21. While law was a recommended career path for me, studying political science at Auburn University, I ultimately spent most of my time writing music and playing in bands. As I started to look for real work there was a person I knew from music who ran an advertising agency, Sandy Kaye. I told her what I was doing and she said, "I think you would be a good copywriter." I began creating TV and radio advertising, which was fun and difficult. After a few years, I got a call from a friend who asked me to work for eharmony. Over the next 15 years I did every non-technical job in the company. And, in July of 2016, the board asked me to be the CEO.
Q: What got you interested in the industry?
A: During the first TV shoot we did, I got to speak with the couples we were matching, and I was sold.
Q: What projects can we expect to see next under the Parship acquisition?
A: Right now, we're just putting the two companies together. It is a major undertaking to involve teams working between Hamburg and Los Angeles. We're looking at about a year of work to complete these changes.
Q: What in your opinion is the future of dating?
A: As long as consumers feel safe, artificial intelligence and other kinds of technology can make online dating more accurate and effective in specific ways. While I've seen presentations on the integration of DNA matching into an online dating, for example, I'm skeptical of people's willingness to provide samples.
Q: What would you tell your younger self?
A: I would urge my younger self to worry less and continue to make wise choices.
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Facebook Prepares Roll Out of Dating App in Europe
LETSGODIGITAL - Mar 18 - Facebook Dating was announced last year. It was launched in Colombia in November and tests were also carried out in Canada and Thailand. Today the first official screenshots with Dutch and French language surface, showing the dating app in detail. Users can access the dating section from their Facebook account. The app will become part of the regular Facebook app.
by Ilse Jurrien
See full article at LetsGoDigital
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Ashley Madison Reaches 60 Million Members
PR NEWSWIRE - Mar 18 - Ashley Madison has released its Report on Customer Statistics for the year of 2018, claiming ~14,500 new member accounts were added on average each day. The report has further revealed that for every active paid male account there was 1.11 active female accounts created in 2018. The site surpassed the 60M member mark in February.
See full article at PR Newswire
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FSU Researcher Developing an Online Polygraph
PHYS.ORG - Mar 18 - Florida State University researcher Shuyuan Ho is working on a revolutionary online polygraph that could be used for online dating. Her latest study, published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, detailed the findings of an online game that she created to measure truthful and deceptive communications between two people. The experiments revealed a person could spot lies ~50% of the time, while a machine could identify lies 85%-100% of the time. The game randomly assigned players to play the roles of "The Saint" and "The Sinner." As sinners and saints interacted via computers, researchers in the iSensor Lab captured those conversations and used machine-learning technology to scrutinize patterns of words and writing. The lying sinners were less expressive, but they used more decorative words. They displayed more negative emotions and appeared more anxious when they communicated with truthtellers. Deceivers also took less time to respond and used more words of insight, such as "think" and "know". Researchers also calculated time lags between every sentence, and even parts of a sentence. Those pauses might have been so slight that they would not necessarily be noticeable to a person, but machine-learning technology could spot it.
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Dating App Grindr Turns 10
GLOBAL NEWS - Mar 17 - Grindr was launched in March of 2009 and now has millions of daily users. The app's rise in popularity is no big surprise, as it turns out online dating in general has become the most popular way to meet people, especially within the LGBTQ community. New research from Stanford University and the University of New Mexico says ~70% of American same-sex couples who met recently did so online.
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Q&A With CEO of Lunch Actually Violet Lim on Class95 Radio
RADIOSINGAPORE - Mar 18 - The presenters on "People In Our Neighbourhood" radio show chatted with Violet Lim, dating expert and CEO of Lunch Actually, about what's it like playing cupid in an age where the dating scene has changed so much due to technology.
Q: Why did you decide to set up a dating company?
A: At my first job at a bank I came across a lot of different people. I was surprised that a lot of my colleagues were single. I noticed that most of my friends who were getting married met their other half at the university. So I realized that if you miss that window, it is very hard to meet somebody later on. I had this idea of "lunch dating" and I could see how it would fit into the busy lifestyle of my colleagues.
Q: How do you help people?
A: Our focus now is on how to help people maximize their chances of meeting someone. Because just sending them on multiple dates might not help.
Q: How has Tinder and other dating apps affected your business?
A: They have actually helped our business. Before, people were not as open to using dating companies as they are now.
Q: How gratifying is to see people getting married?
A: It is very gratifying. One of the reasons I left the bank was that I could not see how my work translates to results.
Q: Do you have a secret book where you write down your successes?
A: 8 years ago, I published a book called Lessons from 15000 first dates. I have a new book coming up – What Dating Apps And Algorithms Do Not Tell You.
Q: What advice would you give to someone who is interested in working in the dating business?
A: Be very sure why you are joining this industry. It is very personal. Make sure this is your passion and you really want help singles find love. Understand it's not always an easy path, be a good listener, and don't be judgmental.
See full article at People In Our Neighbourhood
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TechTO: Malgosia Green, CEO of POF, Presents Portrait of a POF Dater
STARTUP HERE TORONTO - Mar 18 - In her presentation, Malgosia shares some of the learnings she's had since joining Plenty of Fish. Who is the POF dater and what makes the app compelling? "POF is the most diverse dating app in terms of education and location", she said. "If we were to describe POF as a party, most of our users would say BBQ - open, inviting, nurturing and pressure-free. On POF we have more conversations than on any other dating apps.
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Tinder Users Have Low Sexual Disgust Sensitivity, Study Finds
INQUISITR - Mar 17 - A new study by Barış Sevi of West Virginia University sheds light on the link between sexual disgust and Tinder use. Published in Evolutionary Psychological Science, the study builds on Sevi's past research, which has shown that, although Tinder users have different motivations for using the app, casual sex is the most common one. For the study, he surveyed 271 American adults. Study participants were asked to rate, for instance, "hearing two strangers having sex" and similar sexual situations as more or less disgusting. Results showed that Tinder users have lower sexual disgust sensitivity compared to non-users, and that Tinder users generally engage in risky behaviors unrelated to sex, such as driving without a seat belt, or drinking heavily.
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