Online Personals Watch: News on the Online Dating Industry and Business

Paktor Moves Into Live-streaming Via Merger Deal

TECH CRUNCH - Apr 26 - Dating app Paktor, 'The Tinder of Southeast Asia,' is moving into live-streaming and media content after it announced a merger deal with Taiwanese startup 17 Media. Paktor currently offers four dating apps - core service Paktor and acquired apps Down, Kickoff and Goodnight - while 17 Media's runs its 17 live-streaming app, photo social network Swag and video group chat service Lit. The new entity is expecting ~$100M in annual revenue and 50M users. The list of established companies moving into streaming is nearly endless. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, Momo, and fast-growing Kuaishou among others.

by Jon Russell
See full article at Tech Crunch

Update: M17 has raised an undisclosed amount in investment from Korean VC firm KTB Network as part of a larger round, which is due to close in a few weeks.

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Paktor Continues Spending Spree: Acquires Taiwan's Goodnight

SG NEWS - Feb 8 - Founded in 2015, Goodnight matches people with common interests, after which, they can engage in a voice chat of up to seven minutes. It claims a user base of ~500K. Paktor has formed a new division called Paktor Labs, which is a social apps accelerator headed by Colin Hodge, previously CEO and co-founder of Down and Sweet (two dating apps Paktor bought last month). Down and Sweet, Goodnight and Kickoff (acquired last May) will all be part of Paktor Labs. These newly acquired apps will increase Paktor's user base by ~7M, bringing the total number to 20M users.

by Yon Heong Tung
See full article at SGNews

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Paktor Acquires Casual Dating App Down

TECH CRUNCH - Jan 21 - The terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but the price was reportedly "several million". Colin Hodge, the founder and CEO of Down, will join the Paktor team and will run Down and Sweet apps. He will also be overseeing Paktor Labs and be responsible for acquiring other apps, amongst other things. Down started in 2013 (as Bang With Friends) and grew to 5M downloads, about 200k MAU and $1M annual revenue from in-app purchases.

by Katie Roof
See full article at Tech Crunch

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Down Is Introducing Anonymous Texting

NY MAGAZINE - Jan 30 - Down, formerly known as Bang With Friends, is planning to introduce anonymous texting as a new feature of its hookup-centric dating app. Down tested out anonymous texting on Sunday, with 1% of its total users. Straight females were slightly more likely to send messages compared to straight men. To rein in the potential for anonymous harassment, Down will permit each user to message a given number only once.

by Maggie Lange
See full article at NY Magazine

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Down And Tinder: A New Trend In Online Dating

SOFTONIC - Jan 15 - The recently re-branded Down app gives people the choice of 'getting down', or 'get a date' instead. The stats show British men chose to 'get down' 73% of the time, while women preferred to get down 84% of the time. With this app, users flip through Facebook friends and friends of friends. They chose who they'd be 'down' to get with, and wait for the match.

by Zuzanna Blaszkiewicz
The full article was originally published at Softonic, but is no longer available.

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Which Dating Sites Got The Best And Worst PR In 2013?

OPW - Jan 3 - Here are the Courtland Brooks rankings of the top 10 and the worst 4 performing idating sites for PR in 2013. We used Meltwater News and our qualitative analysis.

Best

1. Match
2. eHarmony
3. Tinder
4. OkCupid
5. AshleyMadison
6. Grindr
7. Down (BangWithFriends)
8. HowAboutWe
9. Spark Networks brands
10. Zoosk

Worst

1. TRUE
2. FriendFinder
3. Cupid
4. White Label Dating

See full article at the Courtland Brooks blog

Online Dating Is Popular In Argentina

CLARIN.COM - Dec 2 - According to ComScore Argentina, 6.6% of the ~18K people surveyed in Sep this year visited dating sites. 27% of women were 15-24 years, and 24 % of men 25 -34. "Online dating has become a more attractive alternative," says Mariela Stescobich, Match.com spokeswoman for Latin America. Match.com claims 2.1M members from Argentina and visits grew 185% last year. Popular mobile apps in Argentina are Tinder, Badoo, Down and Grindr.

by Mariana Israel
See full article at Clarín.com

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Dating Apps Are Getting Creepier

TECH HIVE - Nov 10 - Bang With Friends/Down is by far the most brazen “dating” app on the market, but others have similar features: letting people rate each other’s looks and trade messages to make plans to meet up. Pure app takes an approach like Uber’s to hooking up, where you create the request, and you get a car pretty soon. Shouldn’t finding a date have more human interaction? These apps suck all the fun out of meeting, flirting, and dating.

by Caitlin McGarry
See full article at Tech Hive

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BangWithFriends To Change Name After Trademark Settlement With Zynga

TECH CRUNCH - Sep 30 - Zynga has accused BangWithFriends app of infringing on its “With Friends” line-up. They are both saying they’ve reached a settlement. It seems like a clear win for Zynga. Bang With Friends is now changing its name to "The Next Bang".

by Kim-Mai Cutler
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Startup Club: Bang With Friends

SHALOM LIFE - Sep 26 - Colin Hodge is the CEO of Bang with Friends, an online dating app that came back on the market as "Down" after it got banned from iTunes.

Q: Does it work the same way?
A: Yes.

Q: Where did you get the initial idea for Bang with Friends? 
A: We started this project in a night of brutally honest conversations and programming. We focused on the key missing pieces in online dating for our generation: honesty and bite-sized consumption.

Q: What has the response been like since you've come back on the market as 'Down'?
A: Pretty positive. Now, you can have our app on your phone without any stigma.

Q: What are you trying to establish with Down? 
A: To uncover the hidden potential of some of our friendships since it's safer than meeting a total stranger. 

Q: Do you consider Down a dating site? 
A: We're not a dating site, but we are dating as it should be.

by Daniel Koren
The full article was originally published at Shalom Life, but is no longer available.

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Bang With Friends Back In The App Store

CNET NEWS - Aug 29 - The app, which connects Facebook friends interested in hooking up, is back in the Store under new name "Down." Even though Bang With Friends is essentially a matchmaking service, Apple had apparently removed the app from the store for its rather brazen approach to such hookups.

by Desiree Everts DeNunzio
See full article at CNet News

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Bang With Friends Adopts Neo4j Graph Database

PANDO DAILY - Aug 12 - A year ago, not many developers had heard about graph databases. But thanks to the release of Facebook’s “Graph Search”, this is no longer true. Neo Technology is one of the pioneers of graph database technology. The technology enables companies to better map relationships, mine connections, power user queries, and resolve connected data challenges. Neo’s customer roster includes companies like Accenture, Adobe, Autodesk, Cisco, Deutsche Telekom, HP, Intercontinental Exchange and T-Mobile. Neo’s most recent paying customer to implement Neo4j is Bang With Friends (BWF). It’s only five months post-launch, and the company has already crossed the 1M user mark with 200K successful matches made, and continues to see viral growth. BWF co-founder Colin Hodge used graph technology to map relationships at his prior dating startup HeardAboutYou and describes the database architecture as the obvious way to structure his company’s data. “It allows us to more effectively model the dating landscape and the connections between our users,” Hodge says.

by Michael Carney
See full article at Pando Daily

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Zynga Taking On Bang With Friends For Trademark Infringement

MEMEBURN - July 30 - Bang With Friends, the Facebook app that aids in casual sex hookups, was banned from the Apple App Store in May and now Zynga is taking it on for trademark infringement. Zynga has filed a complaint suggesting that Bang With Friends selected its name with “Zynga’s game trademarks fully in mind,” and that its name contravenes the company’s trademark, covering titles including “Words With Friends” and “Chess With Friends. Bang With Friends has yet to respond to the allegations, but we can’t imagine that it will back down quickly. Its fortunes, with upwards of 1.1M users, also appear to still be on the up, while Zynga’s are going very much the other way. In June, Zynga was forced to slash 18% of its staff as it continues to battle to adapt to mobile gaming.

by Stuart Thomas
See full article at Memeburn

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New Ways For Young Singles To Meet

ECONOMIST - July 26 - The way to find love is to send photos of your face. Tinder lets users scroll through dozens of photos in minutes. Users never know if someone rejects them. Bang With Friends (BWF) allows users to specify which of their Facebook friends they would like to bed. If both parties feel the same way, BWF notifies them. If not, no one is any the wiser. Colin Hodge, BWF’s founder, admits he came up with the concept while “a bit tipsy”.

See full article at Economist

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CEO Of Bang With Friends App Revealed

NY DAILY NEWS - May 26 - The mastermind behind the app, which helps pair Facebook friends seeking casual sex partners, is a 28-year-old Ivy League grad with a computer science degree. Colin Hodge's identity and that of co-founder Omri Mor were unveiled during Internet Week. They had remained anonymous as the popularity of their app increased. More than 1M people use the site, Hodge said, and it has put ~200,000 "couples" in touch.

by Victoria Taylor
See full article at NY Daily News

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