GIZMODO - May 29 - A database containing records of tens of millions of users of various dating apps has been found publicly accessible, according to a security researcher Jeremiah Fowler. The 42.5M records, which appeared to belong to multiple apps, were stored on a U.S.-based server and contained the IP addresses and location data of American users. The apps to which the data belongs include Cougardating, Christiansfinder, Mingler, Fwbs (friends with benefits), and "TS," which Fowler speculates is likely short for "transsexual." The database also contained Chinese text, he said, leading him to believe its owner is also Chinese.
« April 2019 | Main | June 2019 »
42M Dating App Records Exposed Online
| |
Tinder Is Launching Its 'Festival Mode' in Australia
LADBIBLE - May 29 - Tinder's 'festival mode' will be available to people in Australia for the first time at this year's Splendour in the Grass festival near Bryon Bay. Users who are going to a festival can slap on a sticker to their profile and the app will start connecting them with singletons also attending.
| |
Momo's Momentum Returns as Censorship Fears Fade
THE MOTLEY FOOL - May 29 - Momo, the owner of two top dating apps in China, shed 30% of its value over the past 12 months as investors fled Chinese tech stocks amid the escalating trade war. It was also hit by a triple whammy of bad news over the past month - regulators ordered the removal of its Tantan app from Chinese app stores, Apple suspended in-app payments for Tantan, and the company voluntarily suspended news feed posts in both Momo and Tantan for an internal review. Momo's revenue rose 35% annually to $555M in the first quarter, beating estimates by $23M. Its monthly active users on Momo and Tantan increased 11% to 114.4M, while its paid users on both apps jumped 73% to 14M. Those growth rates look solid, but Momo's growth in revenue and MAUs decelerated significantly over the past year. Momo expects its revenue to rise 27% to 30% annually during the second quarter. That forecast is encouraging, since it indicates that Momo can still squeeze out revenue from its namesake app's existing users. It also suggests that Momo could easily beat its own guidance if its services are fully restored during the quarter.
| |
Marie Claire and Bumble Launch Glass Ceiling Awards to Celebrate Women's Achievements
MUMBRELLA - May 29 - The inaugural Marie Claire and Bumble Glass Ceiling Awards will be held next month, with support from Estée Lauder, to recognise "women smashing gender boundaries in the workplace". Awards for eight categories will be handed out on 19 June in Sydney to both women and companies ensuring gender equality in their workplaces.
- Majority Rules Award: a business in which women make up the majority of the board or leadership team
- Pay Equity Award Family
- Friendly Award
- The Future Shaper Award
- Social Conscience Award
- Mentor Award
- The Ceiling Smasher Award: an iconic woman who has paved the way for other women
- Bumble's Making Moves Award: a people's choice award recognising local women who are smashing the glass ceiling in their chosen industry or making positive change in their community
| |
Hinge Saw 30% Increase in Gay Profiles After Pete Buttigieg Revealed He Met Husband On It
TOWLEROAD - May 29 - Pete Buttigieg's revelation that he met his husband Chasten on the gay dating app Hinge spurred a sizable increase in profiles created by gay men. There's been a 30% increase in profiles created by gay, male individuals since April 1.
| |
BharatMatrimony Continues to Match Millions of Indians in the Times of Tinder
YOURSTORY - May 28 - With 3.72M active profiles as on date, every year, more than 100K success stories are reported by members on India's largest matrimonial site, Bharatmatrimony. Bharatmatrimony started in 1997, and is now a listed company with estimated revenue of Rs 350 crore in 2018 ($50M). The company is now eyeing the $56B wedding services market in India, with services like MatrimonyMandaps (makes wedding venue booking easy), MatrimonyPhotography, MatrimonyBazaar (wedding related products and services like honeymoon packages, jewellery, and catering), and MatrimonyDirectory (a wedding classifieds portal with ~50K vendors). The company's founder Murugavel Janakiraman got married through his own portal. He does not see the rise of online dating apps as posing much threat. He is playing the 'tradition' game. And for all practical purposes, tradition trumps everything else in India.
| |
Grindr's IntoMore Magazine Looses Millions of Visits
THEGAYUK - May 28 - After the effective disbanding of its editorial team, Grindr's online magazine, Into has lost millions of visitors. Into was the world's most read LGBT+ news site, topping ~7.5M hits per month according to SimilarWeb, however after it was announced that the site’s editorial team had been let go, the site has lost over 7M monthly visitors.
| |
Slow Dating App Once Acquires Pickable
PRESS RELEASE - May 28 - Once has acquired dating app Pickable in a non-disclosed deal. This move sees the formation of the Once Dating Group. Once was founded by Jean Meyer in 2015 and boasts ~10M users globally, with five local language versions across Europe and North America including; USA, UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland. Pickable was founded by Clémentine Lalande and launched in late 2018. Pickable has seen strong growth with 1M users globally.
See full article at News Anyway
See all posts on Once
See all posts on Pickable
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com
| |
Lebanon Blocks Grindr in Latest Attack on LGBT+ Community
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK - May 28 - Grindr has been blocked for most users in Lebanon, sparking concern over a widening crackdown on the LGBT+ community in the country. Lebanon has traditionally been seen as more forward-thinking with regards to LGBT+ rights in comparison to the rest of the Middle East. But despite some gains in recent years, the community still faces widespread discrimination.
| |
Momo Q1 Results - Revenue Up 35%
PR NEWSWIRE - May 28 - Net revenues increased 35% YOY to RMB3,722.9M ($554.7M) in the Q1 of 2019. Net income attributable to Momo decreased to RMB289.3M ($43.1M) from RMB825.2M in the same period of 2018. Monthly Active Users on Momo app were 114.4M in March 2019, compared to 103M in March 2018. Total paying users of live video service and value-added service, including 5M paying users of Tantan, were 14M, up from 8.1M in Q1 2018. Live video service revenues were RMB2,689.4M ($400M), up 14% YOY. The growth in live video revenues was contributed by the increase in quarterly paying users, as well as the increase in average revenues per paying user per quarter.
| |
Are We Moving Towards Polyamorous or Open Relationships?
METRO.CO.UK - May 28 - For a society where monogamy is the most common type of relationship, having more than one partner may seem 'wrong' but Janet Hardy, author of The Ethical Slut, argues that having one sexual partner is not necessarily natural. 'I don't think humans are biologically inclined toward monogamy,' she said. 'No other primate is monogamous and monogamy is very rare in nature. Only 17% of human cultures are strictly monogamous,' Bernard Chapais, of the University of Montreal, wrote in Evolutionary Anthropology. A study in 2016 showed that one in five people in the US reported being involved in consensual non-monogamy at some point in their lifetime. ~20 - 25% of men admit cheating on their wives and 10-15% of women admit cheating on their husbands. ~40% of marriages in England and Wales end in divorce. Is it because we don't want to admit that 'the one' is actually 'the few'? For some, polyamory means a stable relationship, just with an extra person. Technology and science is allowing us to move beyond the idea of a two-parent family. The first three-parent babies have been born, where DNA from three people is mixed. It's only being used to prevent inherited diseases now.
| |
The Future Is Robots, and They're Teaching People How to Flirt
NEW YORK TIMES - May 27 - "People think sex and dating is supposed to be easy and innate," said Brianna Rader, the founder and CEO of Juicebox, a sex-education app. "But it's not. It's a life skill just like all other life skills, but unfortunately we're never formally taught these things." Hence the need for Slutbot. The chatbot-based texting service, offered through the Juicebox app, is meant to coach users 18+ in sexting. After confirming that a user is of age, Slutbot starts a conversation, which can be "Slow & Gentle" or "Hot & Sexy." Other apps are less explicitly about sex and romance, but can still be used to cultivate communication in those arenas. Mei, for example, is marketed as a way to improve a user's texting relationship with anyone. Ghostbot, another app, is used to ghost, or quietly dump, aggressive dates on a user's behalf. It is a collaboration between Burner, a temporary phone number app, and Voxable, a company that develops conversational A.I.
| |
Gay Dating App Taimi Launches in Singapore
GAYSTAR NEWS - May 25 - Singapore is the first country in Southeast Asian Taimi has launched in. Male homosexual sex remains criminalized in Singapore under British colonial-era law, Section 377A. While the law is rarely enforced, LGBT rights supporters in Singapore have made numerous calls for Section 377A's repeal. The company says they will not share personal information with the authorities of countries where same-sex sexual activity may be illegal or be met with persecution.
| |
This Dating App Exposes the Monstrous Bias of Algorithms
WIRED - May 25 - Ben Berman thinks there's a problem with the way people date online. The online dating algorithms seem to be trapping users in a cage of their own preferences. So Berman, a game designer in San Fran, decided to build his own dating app - Monster Match. People create a profile, swipe to match with other monsters, and chat to set up dates. As they swipe, the game reveals some of the more insidious consequences of dating app algorithms. The field of choice becomes narrow, and they wind up seeing the same monsters again and again. Monster Match is not really a dating app, but rather a game to show the problem with dating apps. Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble use "collaborative filtering," which generates recommendations based on majority opinion. It's similar to the way Netflix recommends what to watch: partly based on users' personal preferences, and partly based on what's popular with a wide user base. When people first log in, their recommendations are almost entirely dependent on what other users think. Over time, those algorithms reduce human choice and marginalize certain types of profiles. In Berman's creation, if they swipe right on a zombie and left on a vampire, then a new user who also swipes yes on a zombie won't see the vampire in their queue. The monsters demonstrate a harsh reality: dating app users get boxed into narrow assumptions and certain profiles are routinely excluded. While Monster Match is just a game, Berman has a few ideas of how to improve the online and app-based dating experience. "A reset button that erases history with the app would go a long way," he says.
| |
Tinder Is Giving Its Users With the Best Profiles a Yacht Trip in Italy
SCOOPWHOOP - May 23 - Tinder just announced #AmalfiYachtWeek. It is going to send users with the best profiles to Italy this summer on an all-expenses-paid yacht sailing along the Amalfi coast.
| |