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

PeerStream Is Selling Its Dating Assets to Focus on LiveStreaming and Blockchain Initiatives

GLOBE NEWSWIRE - Feb 4 - PeerStream has completed a sale of its non-core dating assets to The Dating Company LLC, a private U.S.-based company. The dating assets consist principally of the FirstMet dating service, which was founded in 2007. Alex Harrington, CEO of PeerStream, commented: "as we shifted our corporate strategy it became clear that the dating assets were non-core and suffered from lack of management attention, resulting in underperformance in 2018, including a significant revenue decline and negative cash flow."

See full article at Globe Newswire

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Tinder Is The Darling Of The Press

OPW - Feb 23 - The press just loves Tinder. In our "Best And Worst Press Coverage" overview, Tinder was the absolute winner in 2015. The mobile dating app appeared in the news on a daily basis with mainly positive press hits (except when CEO Sean Rad was interviewed;).

Here is the list of dating sites/app with best press coverage:

1. Tinder
2. Match.com
3. eHarmony
4. Grindr
5. POF
6. OKCupid
7. Happn
8. Bumble
9. The Grade
10. Hinge

The worst press coverage:
On the other site, for AshleyMadison 2015 was an exceptionally horrendous year. The site was hacked, members data was leaked online, and lawsuits followed; without a doubt AshleyMadison was the company with the worst press coverage of all. 

Post by Courtland Brooks team

The Grade Dating App Releases New Apple Watch App

ACCESSWIRE - Jan 13 - The Grade's Apple Watch app enables users to have quick access to their matches and messages right from the wrist, including robust browsing and messaging functionality. The app also includes the use of the dictation feature, which enables speech to text functionality.

See full article at Baystreet.ca

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

84% Of Women Feel Safer Using The Grade Dating App's 'Peer Review' Feature

ACCESSWIRE - Jan 5 - The Grade, a mobile dating app released by Snap Interactive, surveyed its users and found out that 84% of women feel safer about meeting a potential match when they can see 'Peer Reviews' before meeting the potential match. The newly launched 'Peer Review' feature allows users to provide feedback on other singles. Since 'Peer Review' launched on Oct 8th, ~15K reviews have been given.

See full article at Baystreet.ca

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

The Grade's Brand Ambassador, Lauren Urasek, Signed TV Deal

ACCESSWIRE - Dec 22 - Lauren Urasek, The Grade's ambassador, has signed a deal to develop a series with ABC Signature based on her book, Popular: The Ups and Downs of Online Dating From the Most Popular Girl in New York City. The book chronicles Urasek's online dating experiences. The Grade, owned by Snap Interactive, is a female-friendly mobile dating app that holds users accountable for their behavior by assigning letter grades to users ranging from "A+" to "F" based on profile quality, responsiveness, and peer-reviews.

See full article at Baystreet.ca

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Snap Reports Positive Net Income On Lower Revenue In Q3 2015

MARKETWIRED - Nov 10 - Total revenue decreased 16% YOY to $2.9M. Net income totaled ~$0.5M, the highest net income ever recorded by the company. Snap Interactive operates dating apps - AYI and The Grade.

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Dating App, The Grade, Signs Lauren Urasek As Brand Ambassador

ACCESSWIRE - Oct 22 - Lauren will also serve as the inaugural member of The Grade's advisory board. After being named the most sought-after woman in NYC by New York Magazine, Lauren has become the face of online dating. She is also the author of the book "Popular".

See full article at Baystreet.ca

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Dating Sites Tackle Singletons Who Lie About Their Age

MARKETWATCH - Oct 14 - Location-based dating apps like The Grade and Tinder are forcing their members to connect through Facebook to create more transparency about age. The Grade asks people to rank other users on a scale from A+ to F based on the quality of messages, profile photos and description and peer review.

by Quentin Fottrell
See full article at Marketwatch

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Snap Interactive Appoints Alex Harrington As CEO

ACCESSWIRE - Oct 14 - Founder and former CEO Clifford Lerner steps down to head mobile dating app, 'The Grade'. As President of The Grade, Mr. Lerner's primary responsibilities will be to scale The Grade's user base, oversee its growth and drive market penetration. Alex Harrington joined SNAP in 2014 as COO and CFO. Previously, Mr. Harrington served as CEO of MeetMoi, a pioneer in the mobile dating industry, which was sold to Match.com.

See full article at Baystreet.ca

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The Grade Dating App Wants To Be Yelp For Online Dating

BUSINESS INSIDER - Oct 12 - The Grade is a dating app that lets users submit reviews of people they've dated. The app launched last year, and in its first iteration, it relied on an algorithm to weed out the worst people. But feedback from women led The Grade's team to the idea of letting people dictate the rating. The ratings won't allow any text, only "yes/no" to given questions. The Grade then takes the sum of all these "yes/no" answers to generate a grade (A-F).

by Nathan McAlone
See full article at Business Insider

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Dating App The Grade Launches Peer Review Feature

BUSTLE.COM - Oct 8 - The Grade's Peer Review Feauture will allow users to leave feedback about other users. Based on the feedback, users are assigned a Peer Review grade, which will then be factored into the overall grade that they get via the app.

by Laken Howard
See full article at Bustle

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Proper Grammar Is Really Hot On Dating Sites

WSJ - Oct 1 - Match.com asked ~5K singles what criteria they used most in assessing dates. Beyond personal hygiene, it was grammar. 88% of women and 75% of men care about grammar most, putting it ahead of a person’s confidence and teeth. The Grade, a new dating app, checks messages for typos and grammar errors and assigns each user a letter grade from A+ to F. One reason people judge grammar and spelling snafus so harshly is that they can reflect the level of effort, or lack thereof, that folks put into their bio. Certain types of typos are also associated with fraud.

by Georgia Wells
See full article at WSJ

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Snap Interactive Q2 Results: Revenue Down 7.6% YOY

MARKETWIRED - Aug 13 - Q2 revenues decreased 7.6% YOY to $3.2M and subscription revenue decreased 2.4% YOY to $3.1M. The operating loss was $0.2M, reflecting an improvement as compared to a loss of $0.3M in Q2 '14. Active subscriber count was flat (98K). The Grade app saw an increased user activity with ~8M swipes. (81% increase from Q1 '15)

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Bumble And The Grade Are Leaving The Online Creeps Behind

IBTIMES - Aug 14 - In 2014, Cliff Lerner created an app called Mutually that would connect people by the act of mutual swiping but it also recommended date spots, powered by Yelp reviews. The app didn’t take off, but he learned from it. "The real opportunity was to build a product that catered to women," Lerner said. "Our users asked for something that would help them handle men who were hostile and offensive." So he started The Grade -- an app that grades users based on their behavior. Another app, Bumble, announced its own verification system. The app will soon grant checkmarks to users who maintain a quick response time and message ratio, and have never been reported for inappropriate behavior. This type of vetting is not new. OkCupid has a red-yellow-green light system based on response time, but Bumble and The Grade are digging more into user data as a way to increase transparency.

by Kerry Flynn
See full article at IBTimes

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The Grade Dating App Surpasses 15 Million Swipes

ACCESSWIRE - June 23 - The Grade, an iPhone dating app released by Snap Interactive, has seen a 220% increase in swipes and a 311% increase in matches when comparing May 2015 to Jan 2015.

See full article at Accesswire

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