COURTLAND BROOKS - June 20 - Is there a place in the word for an A.I. matchmaker? We think so at Courtland Brooks. This new book (out since May 28th) will give you some insight into the rise of A.I. virtual chatbot technology. Get it at Smile.Amazon.com here.
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The Age of Intent - Courtland Brooks New-Book-of-the-Month
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Spark Nearing Zoosk Close, Sets EBITDA Target
SEEKING ALPHA - June 19 - Spark Networks targets adjusted EBITDA of $50M in 2020. The company says the California Department of Business Oversight granted a permit allowing Spark to issue securities in exchange for the outstanding Zoosk securities. The permit followed a hearing that was the last major milestone in the Zoosk purchase. The acquisition is expected to close on July 1. Spark shares are up 2% to $10.80.
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Bumble Unveils Second Campaign for 'Find Them on Bumble Bizz' Series
EXCHANGE4MEDIA - June 18 - The campaign features Bumble Global Advisor Priyanka Chopra Jonas along with 25 others Indian women with inspiring stories of personal and professional success. The goal of the campaign is to not only underline success stories, but also generate awareness about the Bumble Bizz community where 'making the first move' could potentially introduce a user to a mentor, a new client or a job opportunity.
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Two-thirds of Korean Singles Have Negative Opinion of Online Dating
KOREA BIZWIRE - June 19 - A recent survey by Duo matchmaking agency has revealed that 6 out of 10 unmarried men and women think negatively about dating online. 83% of women thought online meetings were a poor way of starting a relationship, compared to 47% for men.
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Badoo Nears 500M Users, Launches New Campaign
SOCIAL SONGBIRD - June 18 - Badoo, the world's largest dating app and part of the group of dating and social networking companies owned by Andrey Andreev, has launched a new global brand campaign. Badoo's new tagline of 'Date Honestly', replaces 'Bigger than Dating'. Created entirely by Badoo's in-house creatives 'Date Honestly' features real users, with real handwritten bios. Badoo has pledged it will no longer use models or actors in future promotional material.
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Peruvian Dating App Mi Media Manzana Ceases Operations
CONTXTO.COM - June 19 - Mi Media Manzana, the Peruvian online dating startup turned the lights off and exited countries where it was operating including Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Peru. After six years of operations, the company will be formally over on June 20. Although Mi Media Manzana was the first Peruvian startup to raise venture capital funds ($2M in four different funding rounds), money still ran out. Liquidity issues, in addition to very low user-retention rates, were the main causes for the demise. "We ran out of cash before reaching our break-even point," said CEO Pedro Neira. In total, Mi Media Manzana managed to acquire 2.5M users during its six years of operation. At one point it was also Latin America's most downloaded Google Play dating app. The startup's main mission was to help singles find a true, meaningful relationship.
by Victor Cortés
See full article at Contxto
Mark Brooks: You can contact the CEO at pedroneiraf@datinglatam.com to discuss buying this company.
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This Pride Month, Tinder, Bumble, and OkCupid Are Swiping Right on Inclusion
YOUR STORY - June 18 - In India, 76% of women are ready to participate in a public demonstration to demand and fight for LGBTQIA+ rights, while 66% of men said they would do the same, according to the latest survey by OkCupid. The app surveyed ~200K users. When it comes to the next step – legalising same-sex marriage in India – the survey yielded similar results. While 82% of women suggested it's time to make the move, only 55% of men agreed. Melissa Hobley, CMO of OkCupid, attributes this empathy factor to cultural shifts and the rise of a strong feminist voice. Tinder recently rolled out an update, introducing sexual orientations with options like straight, gay, queer, asexual, bisexual, and demisexual. In a bid to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, an uprising that served as the catalyst for the LGBTQIA+ movement across the world, Bumble has been fuelling conversations online with their #BumblePride.
by Sutrishna Ghosh
See full article at Your Story
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Man's $10K Quest to Find Mom a Mate Gets an Online Dating Boost
NY POST - June 18 - Marc Guss has recently offered a $10K reward to whoever can find his mother a match. He is now teaming up with David Yarus, the founder of Jewish dating app JSwipe to help her find the perfect mate. David Yarus plans to blast out the bid to over a million JSwipe and JDate users through pop-up notifications, banners and emails about Guss' proposal. "The goal is for users to help surface either family members, colleagues and friends for ideas for dates," says Yarus.
by Melkorka Licea & Dana Schuster
See full article at NY Post
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Happy 15th Birthday to Online Personals Watch!
OPW - June 19 - We are now 15 years into running Online Personals Watch. It was started this month in 2004, no less. For the last 15 years we've watched the news, selected what we think are the most strategically important news items for decision makers at dating companies, and summarized them. I started OPW when I was at FriendFinder. I realized there was some great intell in the news, but noone really had time to read it. Certainly not my CEO Andrew Conru. I figured, it would be awesome if someone could condense 3 hours of reading down into 3 minutes of essential news each day. Noone was doing this, so I created OPW, which you can now reference at OPW.news. We love the dating business, and are looking forward to an amazing future with you. You can subscribe via email and social media from the right hand side bar. ;-) - Mark Brooks, CEO Courtland Brooks, Host of IDEA.
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The Meet Group Announces New $30M Share Repurchase Authorization
BUSINESS WIRE - June 14 - The Meet Group, a leading provider of interactive livestreaming solutions, today announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program that enables the company to purchase up to $30M of its shares of common stock from time to time in the open market or through negotiated transactions through 2021. The Company expects to fund purchases with cash from operations.
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Q&A With Tinder's CMO Jenny Campbell About Gen Z
FORBES - June 17 - Jenny Campbell is current CMO of Tinder, and marketing veteran whose wide range of experience spans iconic brands like Nike and revolutionary ad agency 72 + Sunny.
Q: What made you most excited about joining Tinder as CMO?
A: It's hard to imagine the dating world without Tinder in it. It's just amazing to me how it flipped the entire dating category on its head. The scale of Tinder is massive, and as a marketer you get a courtside seat into what it is like to be young, social, single and dating in today's world.
Q: What is your vision for Tinder?
A: My goal is to make Tinder the most iconic, innovative brand for Gen Z. Our mission at Tinder is to make being single more fun by helping our members meet new people IRL.
Q: Can you give me an example of IRL experiences tied to the Tinder platform?
A: We are focusing on things like Spring Break Mode and Festival Mode. It allows users to badge their Tinder profile to show which music festivals they are going to, and then they can meet with other Tinder users who are also attending those festivals in advance.
Q: Brands are struggling with how to achieve greater levels of trust. What's your POV?
A: Trust is a tricky thing. Once you break it with the consumer, it's hard to get it back. You see this now with Facebook. I think Gen Z saw a lot of the traps that Millennials fell into around this and are doing things differently. What we're doing in terms of building trust is leaning into those smaller groups situations. For example, features like Tinder U. Tinder U is a college product and you have to have a verified college email address to be on it.
Q: What do you think the most compelling insights are about Gen Z?
A: I would say Gen Z is incredibly social. We know they are dating in groups. They are looking for experiences. Their media behaviors are different. Gen Z has five screens up at a time. We see different behaviors on Tinder as well. They fill out their profiles more completely than previous generations.
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Pregnancy Is Making Bumble CEO Rethink Parental Work Policies
FAST COMPANY - June 14 - Whitney Wolfe Herd has recently announced her pregnancy. She now wants to think about work-life balance for parents beyond just maternity or paternity leave. "I've always wanted parents to prioritize their children's well-being alongside their job. So I never wanted them to feel like they have to choose one or the other. I don't think that's a fair position to be in," she said. Her employees are encouraged to work as flexibly as they need to. Employees expecting children are given a four-month, paid leave, and new parents receive a $1K bonus to offset childcare costs. Bumble also provides reimbursements for breast milk home delivery service for breastfeeding mothers who are traveling, and covers any costs incurred by Maven, an app that provides video calls, counseling, nutrition services, and other services for parents and parents-to-be. Bumble's headquarters also has a mothers' room stocked with snacks and tea. She is planning on building a childcare space where employees can reserve to have a caretaker watch their child while they work.
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The Meet Group Reaffirms Its Commitment to Industry Leading User Safety
BUSINESS WIRE - June 14 - The Meet Group makes user safety a top priority, devoting ~45% of its entire workforce to regulating the content of its apps. The Company employs a variety of human and technological filters to monitor all visual content. It has also developed a proprietary textual-monitoring threat detection system that programmatically detects possible safety issues and alerts its safety team of potential abuses. The company screens new daily registrants against databases of known sex offenders in the US and regularly screens all active users against these same lists, blocking registrations and activity from known sex offenders.
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Tinder Co-founder's Lawsuit Against Tinder Parent Company Moves Closer to a Trial
THE VERGE - June 14 - The judge rejects IAC / Match Group's motion to dismiss Sean Rad's case, allowing Rad and his co-plaintiffs to pursue their allegations that Match Group and IAC purposely undervalued Tinder in an effort to avoid paying out billions of dollars in stock options to the original dating app team. It's still unclear whether former plaintiffs like Rosette Pambakian, who alleged sexual misconduct on the part of IAC executives, will be able to participate in the lawsuit. She and three other plaintiffs withdrew from the lawsuit over an arbitration clause, but "without prejudice," which means that they could theoretically rejoin.
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Bumble Owner, Facing off With Tinder, Boosts Spending
WALL STREET JOURNAL - June 14 - "We're looking for the big, big monsters who can partner with me", said Andrey Andreev, the Russian billionaire behind Bumble. He plans to spend $100M creating an array of new dating apps, part of an expansion and revamp of the privately held holding company that also owns Lumen, a dating app for over 50s, and gay-dating app Chappy. Last year, Match offered to acquire Mr. Andreev's group of companies, but Mr. Andreev declined, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal talks valued the umbrella group at ~$1B.
by Parmy Olson
See full article at Wall Street Journal
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