WALL STREET JOURNAL - Since Jan '19, App Annie data show U.S. users have spent 7.4M hours on dating apps a month on Android phones alone. Match Group and Bumble collectively boast ~$50B in fully diluted market value, but plenty of businesses are trying. Coffee Meets Bagel, which hits users with algorithmically curated matches every day at noon, has made ~130M matches since its launch in 2012. Hily, which works to make it easier to start conversations, has 22M users. Snack, which is focused on video-first dating, was the 10th most-downloaded dating app in the U.S. last month, according to App Annie. Some just need a larger platform to help them take off. Hinge, in which Match took a majority stake in 2018 before acquiring it in 2019, saw ~100K U.S. downloads in Jan '18. By Mar '21, it was closer to 600K. Berlin-based Spark Networks did $233M in revenue last year. And then there is eHarmony owner ParshipMeet, which is preparing for a 2022 IPO. In the Q2 it had €139M ($164.2M) in revenue.
94 posts categorized "CoffeeMeetsBagel"
Investors See Big Potential in Smaller Online Dating Companies
| |
How Advances in Technology and Science Could Impact the Dating and Matchmaking Industry
FORBES - Aug 5 - The art and science of matchmaking is a billion-dollar industry. Yet, many pitfalls exist such as safety, security and ineffective matching methods. These issues aren't as prevalent with professional matchmakers, however, not every singleton can afford to pay $15K and $150K for a high-end matchmaking service. This exposes a huge opening in the industry for dating apps and professional matchmakers to merge. How realistic is this, and what kind of technology or science can help achieve this idealistic goal?
Blockchain Technology
Companies such as Hicky and Viola have both implemented blockchain to increase transparency by requiring users to validate their identity via face and voice recognition, which is then fully encrypted and stored into the blockchain.
Artificial Intelligence
AI can help gather in-app user behavior data for machine learning algorithms to curate more relevant matches based on its users' core values, beliefs and personality traits. Coffee Meets Bagel, Hinge, Tinder and Badoo all now use AI .
Augmented Reality
AR can be described as a visual or audio overlay of digital life on real life, distinct from the purely digital landscape of virtual reality (VR).
DNA Matchmaking
DNA Romance is a dating app that matches partners based on the information hidden in their DNA to forecast romantic chemistry. Dr. Tim Sexton built the app on the basis that partners with opposite immune system genes (MHC genes) have much higher romantic chemistry.
| |
Coffee Meets Bagel Prepares for Post-Pandemic Dating
YAHOO FINANCE - May 26 - CEO of Coffee Meets Bagel, Dawoon Kang, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss their new 'ready to meet' tool to make people comfortable dating post-pandemic and how the pandemic has changed dating. Ready to Meet makes it easy for users to indicate if they're ready to meet in person. 65% of said they are more likely to like somebody who is vaccinated. Watch the full interview here.
| |
Does Banning People With Felonies From Dating Apps Make Anyone Safer?
THE MARSHALL PROJECT - May 20 - Match Group plans to launch a feature allowing daters to run background checks on potential matches. The company says its efforts are aimed at keeping users safe. But civil rights advocates say the record checks extend an unfair practice of imposing "collateral consequences" long after people have finished their sentences. "Meeting strangers can be risky, and I worry that this approach will mislead people into thinking they're safe," said Sarah Lageson, a Rutgers University sociologist who studies the growing use of online criminal records. People with felonies - anything from a $10 drug conviction to capital murder - are banned for life from some dating apps including Match Group's apps, Coffee Meets Bagel, Zoosk. A representative for The Meet Group said that only two of the company's apps - Skout and GROWLr - have a ban, based on policies it inherited when it acquired those apps. The representative said The Meet Group would reconsider that part of the policy.
by Keri Blakinger
See full article at The Marshall Project
See the top news on Match Group See the top news on The Meet Group
See the top news on Coffee Meets Bagel See the top news on Zoosk
| |
Founder of Coffee Meets Bagel: "Being an Immigrant Had a Huge Impact on My Identity"
CNBC - May 4 - This story is part of the Behind the Desk series where CNBC gets personal with successful business executives to find out everything from how they got to where they are to what makes them get out of bed in the morning to their daily routines. For Dawoon Kang, co-founder of dating app Coffee Meets Bagel, entrepreneurship is in her blood. Both her parents started their own businesses in Korea. Kang emigrated from Korea to the U.S. when she was 12 with her sisters Arum and Soo. Arum had the idea to create Coffee Meets Bagel in 2011, and the following year Kang quit her job at JPMorgan to launch the app with Arum and Soo.
| |
Is It Worth Paying a Premium to Find Love?
THE GUARDIAN - Apr 25 - Tinder has three levels of subscription, Tinder Plus, Tinder Gold and Tinder Platinum, each with different prices. The monthly fee is also linked to age. Users aged ~30 are being charged £27.49 or £29.49, while those under 30 are being charged £13.99 or £14.49. Tinder Plus seemed more random. Some users over 30 are being charged £19.49, most are being asked to pay £4.99, £8.99 or £9.99. Bumble charges £14.99 a month for Bumble Boost, and £32.99 for Bumble Premium. Coffee Meets Bagel charges £34 a month for its Premium service. Grindr also offers a more expensive package - Unlimited, at £31.99 a month. While most apps allow users to pay for premium services for just a month at a time, Plenty of Fish has a minimum premium subscription of three months for £39.99. The minimum time period to subscribe to eharmony's premium subscription is six months for £99.99. The dating and relationships coach Kate Mansfield argues that the most dateable people will be snapped up before they sign up for a paid-for service. Quality, confident people don't need to pay for matchmaking services. Instead of a paid-for app, she advises working on yourself: "Invest in coaching or therapy to get yourself in the best place possible and then use apps' free version to find love."
by Robert Beck
See full article at The Guardian
See the top news on Tinder See the top news on Bumble
See the top news on POF See the top news on Coffee Meets Bagel
See the top news on Grindr See the top news on eHarmony
| |
Coffee Meets Bagel Now Lets Singles Declare Vaccination Status
NEW YORK POST - Mar 12 - Coffee Meets Bagel is adding a person's COVID-19 vaccine status to their profiles. This new feature comes as some 19% of the US population has received at least one dose. On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines for those who have been fully vaccinated. People who have been vaccinated can gather indoors - and without masks - with others who have done the same.
| |
How Female Entrepreneurs Are Changing the Online Dating Landscape
FORBES - Mar 8 - Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd recently became the world's youngest self-made billionaire after her dating app's wildly successful IPO. Bumble's success serves as a wake-up call for an industry that has traditionally been dominated by male leadership. Kim Kaplan, who was also part of the founding team of Plenty of Fish, launched Snack, a dating app that blends video with communication features popularized by Tinder and Bumble. Wolfe Herd and Kaplan are not the only women founders and executives changing the dating app game for the better. Based in San Francisco, the three Kang sisters - Arum, Dawoon and Soo - cofounded the dating app Coffee Meets Bagel. Another female founder, Amanda Bradford saw the need for ambitious, working professionals. She launched The League, a dating app that draws member information from LinkedIn.
by Serenity Gibbons
See full article at Forbes
See the top news on Bumble See the top news on The League
See the top news on Coffee Meets Bagel See the top news on Snack
| |
New Niche - A Dating App Only for the Vaccinated?
THE STAR - Feb 16 - Samantha Yammine, a scientist who often talks on Twitter about health issues, says she's received messages about "dudes on dating apps claiming they're 'totally safe for close contact' because they have received the vaccine. "Basically, getting the vaccine is the hottest thing you could be doing on a dating app right now," said Michael Kaye, global communications manager for OkCupid. 43% of ~1,500 members of another site, Coffee Meets Bagel, said they were right now more attracted to someone who had been vaccinated. For university student Brittany Biggerstaff, people who say they are vaccinated are not more attractive because of the shot - but it does mean they have put their faith in science. "It gives insight on a potential partner's political views and knowledge about science and medicine," she said. Dawoon Kang, the co-founder of Coffee Meets Bagel, agrees.
See the top news on OkCupid
See the top news on Coffee Meets Bagel
| |
CMB's First "Save the Date" Podcast With Author Jess McCann
OPW - Oct 4 - "Save the Date" is Coffee Meets Bagel's new podcast. Each episode, CMB's Chief Dating Officer Dawoon Kang invites an expert to explore what it takes to go on great dates. Jess McCann is a dating/relationship coach and the author of the books, "Cursed?", "You Lost Him at Hello" and "Was It Something I Said?". She has coached men and women on how to get the relationship they have always wanted.
| |
Coffee Meets Bagel's New "Save the Date" Podcast
CMB - Sep 24 - Each episode, CMB's Chief Dating Officer invites an expert to explore what it takes to go on great dates.
| |
More Swiping, Less Meeting: How Online Dating Has Gone More Virtual
SCMP - Aug 26 - Online dating apps are more popular than before, but users are becoming more selective about meeting up in person amid social distancing measures. Instead, daters are chatting on apps longer, and getting creative with virtual options such as video calls, online games and Netflix Party. In a survey of ~1,200 Hong Kong-based users in late July, Coffee Meets Bagel found that 95% said it was "at least somewhat important" that their date took Covid-19 precautions seriously, with 8 in 10 considering it a deal-breaker if their date did not wear a mask, and 7 out of 10 feeling the same if their date did not adhere to social distancing guidelines.
| |
Dating Apps Pivot to Video
WALL STREET JOURNAL - July 1 - With social distancing recommendations and laws in effect across the country, meeting people online and developing relationships virtually has never been more popular. Georgia Wells, WSJ's technology reporter and Mark Brooks, CEO of the Courtland Brooks consultancy-agency explore what this shift means for the future of online dating.
| |
Online Dating in the Coronavirus Era
WALL STREET JOURNAL - June 10 - "It's giving us a chance to rethink the way we date and meet people," said Dani Fankhauser, who co-founded XO, a new app that aims to facilitate meaningful and more playful relationships. XO uses in-app icebreakers games like "Kiss, Marry, Fight" (choose which of three celebrities/cartoons/brand mascots you want to Kiss, Marry or Fight). This week Coffee Meets Bagel is rolling out a "Virtual Date Nudge" to facilitate socially distanced relationships. Once two people have swiped and started chatting, the app prompts each one to select a digital-date idea from a list of six, including a game night, a virtual museum tour or the swapping of recipes to cook together over video. When one person selects one, signaling "I'm open to it," the other is alerted.
| |
Dating Apps Adapt and Engage to Combat Isolation
MARKETING MAGAZINE - Mar 27 - Singapore-based dating agency Paktor Group has seen a 28% increase in its installation rates in Singapore as compared to the previous year. There was also a 17% increase in app engagement during this period, with users logging into the app more frequently throughout the day. Meanwhile, Tinder has also seen an increase in its app engagement since mid-March. Its in-app conversation length saw an increase of 10% to 30% in Southeast Asia and Europe markets, as compared to February. Globally it has also seen daily messages increase by 10% to 15% in the United States, and an increase of up to 25% in daily conversation in Italy and Spain. On the other hand, Coffee Meets Bagel's founder and CEO, Dawoon Kang, said it saw an initial dip in its new user signups from mid to end February in Singapore, which recovered in March.
by Grace Ong
See full article at Marketing Magazine
See the top news on Tinder
See the top news on Coffee Meets Bagel
See the top news on Paktor
| |