SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST - Aug 24 - In many Asian cities, where the cost of living is high and careers often come first, it's hard for people to find a partner. In Singapore, men and even some women are choosing to rent a date instead of looking for long-term love. Maybe.sg provides male and female dates, with its prices ranging from S$80 ($58) to S$380 ($274) for a minimum of two hours. SG VIP Escorts was set up in 2017. The company's rates range from S$600 ($430) to S$1,400 ($1000) for an hour, and can go up to S$10,000 ($7200) for "special events", such as public events lasting four hours.
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Singapore Rent-a-date Services
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Ashley Madison Has Signed 30 Million Cheating Spouses
FORBES - Aug 24 - More people have signed up to Ashley Madison since the 2015 hack than before. And that is extraordinary. As things stand today, Ashley Madison has amassed ~32M new users since the hack. Back in 2015, the company was active in some 50 countries, directly marketing in more than 20. Now the focus is only North America. Ashley Madison brought in Ernst and Young in 2018 to go through all the systems, inch by inch. They verified all the automated fembots were gone.
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OPW.news Loves You
OPW - Aug 25 - OPW has been serving up the news daily since June 2004. Subscribe here, to get the daily briefing.
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S'pore Dating App Paktor Launches 15-Sec Voice Bios
VULCAN POST - Aug 23 - With the newly launched 'Spoken' feature, users can record a 15-second voice memo to introduce themselves to people viewing their profile. Paktor says this is intended to enhance typical dating profiles by adding an auditory dimension, which can help people get to know each other better. About "80% of new Android users and 60% of new iOS users" have already recorded at least one voice memo.
by Alanna Tan
See full article at Vulcan Post
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Russian Web Activists Joust With Kremlin to Keep Internet Free
WALL STREET JOURNAL - Aug 22 - As Vladimir Putin's Russia increasingly cracks down on Internet freedoms, a band of self-styled pirates is fighting back. The group of fewer than a dozen lawyers and techies calling themselves Roskomsvoboda (Russian Communications Freedom) has unblocked banned websites, mounted legal cases and recently revealed that Moscow had ordered dating app Tinder to share user information with security services, setting off fresh debate over Moscow's tightening grip on the Internet. Roskomsvoboda's main objective now is to prevent Mr. Putin's government from advancing plans to install a "kill switch" that would allow Russia to firewall itself from the rest of the Internet, much as China does. Russia has banned ~200K sites, and bloggers are now required to register as media, which subjects them to greater government pressure. The new kill switch is scheduled to go live in November.
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Study: Dating After Divorce
PR NEWSWIRE - Aug 22 - Worthy, an online auction marketplace for pre-owned diamond jewelry, releases new Dating After Divorce study that focuses solely on women who have and who are going through the divorce. According to the study divorced women do not waste their time when it comes to dating again. 78% of the women are already thinking about dating before the divorce papers are signed. 65% of women are dating within the first year of being separated or divorced.
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Bumble to Host Singles Party
METRO.CO.UK - Aug 21 - Dating app Bumble is hosting a Miami Vice-themed singles party on Wednesday 28 August at a secret London location. Bumble will host a series of interactive games and ice-breaker challenges. Tickets are free, but singles will need to download the Bumble app and match with 'Bumble Pool Party' to apply for a ticket.
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Gleeden Survey: 77% Indian Women Cheat Due to Boredom
THE ECONOMIC TIMES - Aug 21 - According to a survey conducted by Gleeden, an extra-marital dating app for married people, 77% of Indian women cheat because they are bored by their monotonous married life. Since the Supreme Court of India abolished section 377 which criminalized same-sex extra-marital relationships, there was a +45% increase in same-sex encounters among married people. India's most unfaithful women live in the big metropolis: Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Kolkata are in the top 3.
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Dating Apps and Brand Collaborations Should Be Fun for Users
THE DRUM - Aug 20 - Over the past five years, the objective of dating apps has changed. It's no longer about finding the one, it's about having some fun. When Domino's Pizza showed up as the first brand to advertise on Tinder, it was a hugely successful partnership. Tinder users 'swiped right' for Domino's, which led to the brand matching with over 700 people, reaching 230K and providing the opportunity to talk directly to consumers in an engaging fun and social way. Companies such as Uber, and Spotify have embraced dating apps as a key channel to target a younger, digitally-driven demographic. Last year, TV network HBO and dating app Bumble collaborated to host a two-night event, 'stay home at the movies'. Winners were invited to spend the evening watching a movie at a $30M flat in New York City and they could choose to bring either a Bumble BFF or Bumble date as their plus-one. The most memorable campaigns are those that give the people what they want right now: fun.
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This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley Podcast: The League Founder & CEO Amanda Bradford
TECH CRUNCH - Aug 20 - In this week's edition of This is Your Life in Silicon Valley features Amanda Bradford, founder/CEO of The League. Amanda talks about modern dating, its limitations, its flaws, why 'The League' will win. She talks about her days at Salesforce and how it influenced her decision to build a dating tech product that focused on data, and funnels. She goes in on all of the popular dating sites, including Bumble and others, providing her take on what's wrong with them.
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Ireland's Biggest Singles Festival Is Returning Soon
JOE.IE - Aug 20 - The Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival starts on Aug 30th and will run for five weeks until 29 September. Thousands of singletons flock to the festival in the small western town of Lisdoonvarna, in the hope of finding love. The festival is jam packed with music and events in plenty of venues.
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Fake Dating Site Victims to Share €9M Compensation
DUTCHNEWS.NL - Aug 20 - Some 37K people who lost money on fake dating sites will share €9M in compensation agreed by the company behind the sites. The sites operated by The Right Link allowed users to exchange messages with potential dates, costing between 60c and €1 a time. But many of the people posing as dates worked for the company and had been told to keep people in conversation for as long as possible. Some users lost thousands of euros through the scam. The ACM raided the company's premises last year and a number of sites including flirten.nl were taken down.
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App Developers Tell Apple CEO That iOS 13 Location Tracking Changes Are Anti-competitive
PHONEDOG - Aug 20 - There are lots of changes coming with iOS 13, including some tweaks to location tracking. Some developers, including dating app Happn, aren't happy with the location tracking changes, and they've let Apple CEO Tim Cook know about it. They have written to him to complain that the "Always Allow" option is no longer available in iOS 13's location pop-up. In iOS 13, users' options for giving their location to an app include "Allow While Using App", "Allow Once", and "Don't Allow". In iOS 12 and earlier, there was an "Always Allow" option, but the update to iOS 13 moves that to the Privacy section of the Settings app. The devs also say that the change is anti-competitive because Apple's own apps don't need to get permission to access the user's location, pointing to the Find My device tracker app as an example. An Apple spokesperson said that the changes are meant to help protect the user and their privacy.
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Swoovy Sets Users up on Volunteer Dates
CULTUREMAP AUSTIN - Aug 20 - Dating app Swoovy, co-founded by Brooke Waupsh and Jeff McMahon in 2018, officially launched in Austin earlier this summer. Its mission is to turn dates into volunteer opportunities. Like Tinder or Bumble, Swoovy matches users who mutually swipe on each other. After matching, the couple can choose a volunteer event with a local nonprofit. Currently, Swoovy has more than a dozen Austin nonprofit partners, ranging from Mobile Loaves & Fishes and Art on the Streets to Meals on Wheels and Habitat for Humanity, and the company says its actively recruiting for more philanthropic organizations to join.
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