HEARST - Tawkify is a matchmaking service, not a traditional dating app, that pairs users with a personal matchmaker. Unlike app-based platforms, Tawkify provides human touch by having matchmakers get to know users, find compatible matches, and even plan dates. The service focuses on long-term relationships, vetting users through background checks and identity verification, ensuring a serious dating pool. Tawkify claims an 80% success rate within 12 matches, with membership starting at $4,900. It's designed for those tired of swiping and seeking a more curated, personalized approach to dating.
32 posts categorized "Outlets - San Francisco Chronicle"
Tawkify Offers a Personalized Matchmaking Service for App-Weary Single
| |
Court: Dating Services Can't Charge Older Folks More On Belief They Are Wealthier
SF GATE - Jan 29 - Tinder Plus costs $19.99 a month to customers over 30 and $9.99 or $14.99 for younger customers. The company said its research showed that younger customers had less money and were unlikely to enroll without discounts. Some age-based price differentials may be justified by social policies or economic realities, like movie discounts for children or seniors, said the Second District Court of Appeal in LA. But the court said a pricing system based entirely on a customer's age amounts to "prohibited arbitrary discrimination" under California law. The 3-0 ruling was written by Brian Currey, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge temporarily assigned to the appeals court.
| |
Matchmakers In San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Sep 15 - A luxury matchmaking service, The Bevy, has launched in San Francisco. The Bevy, started in New York in 2014, compares its services to an executive search. It pre-screens and interviews potential candidates before setting up its male clients with a handful of curated contenders. The membership begins at $25k for a one-year. The company reports a 95% success rate. Three Day Rule has 8k members. Services for paying clients start at $4.5k, but the service also has a free database. 60% of it's clients are female. Both companies report that clients are seeking relief from dating apps. Still, free dating apps can be an equalizer. The newest such offering to San Francisco is The Inner Circle, an app founded in Amsterdam in 2012, whose founder, David Vermeulen, is looking for "inspiring and ambitious" members who are 25 - 45 and live in major cities.
by Maghan McDowell
See full article at San Francisco Chronicle
See all posts on The Bevy
See all posts on Three Day Rule
See all posts on The Inner Circle
| |
Biometrics, Real-time Data Poised To Change Dating
SF CHRONICLE - Feb 13 - Innovators like to envision a future in which technology will streamline, simplify and democratize love in its many phases - from dating to sex to marriage and even heartbreak. Virtual reality and apps can be used to simulate sex and intimacy. Facebook last year introduced a "take a break" function that allows people getting over romantic relationships to control how much they do or don't see of their ex. Others online dating services uses biometrics and science to match people. eHarmony CEO Grant Langston said the company will incorporate more advanced scientific tools. "I can see a day where people take a swab of their cheek to get a DNA-level analysis of what they would be attracted to," he said. Some dating sites/apps are getting people to put down their devices and meet in person. "You won't get a sense of that real chemistry until you're meeting face-to-face," said Mandy Ginsberg, CEO of the Match Group. Lesbian dating app Her started hosting in-person events last year.
by Marissa Lang & Dominic Fracassa
See full article at SF Chronicle
See all posts on Match Group
See all posts on eHarmony
See all posts on Her
| |
eHarmony CEO Wants To Court The Tinder Crowd
SF CHRONICLE - Nov 26 - eHarmony seems a little archaic. For Grant Langston, eHarmony's new CEO, the challenge is making the site relevant to the hook-up generation. "We don't have any interest in a person who just wants to pick up someone," said Langston. "But there are people using Tinder who are not looking for a hookup," he said. "We've learned that people in their 20s and 30s who have income are very happy to spend more in the search for a more enduring relationship," Langston said. "When you're in the 40s and 50s that changes. You can see the impact of relationships that don't work out. You see bitterness. To reach people in that limited window, eHarmony must make itself easier to use," Langston said. In early December, eHarmony will release features that will make communications feel less like email and more like IM. eHarmony also wants to explore video. The biggest problem, though, is price. Tinder is free and eHarmony is $57 a month. There's also the problem of people associating eHarmony with older people.
| |
Critics Challenge The 'Science’ Behind Online Dating
SF CHRONICLE - Mar 4 - There is no evidence that dating sites do anything much more than increase the pool of potential partners", said Eli Finkel, a psychologist at Northwestern University who studies relationships. Or, as Stanford sociologist Michael Rosenfeld put it, “The algorithms for matching at dating sites are mostly smoke and mirrors.” eHarmony was founded by a clinical psychologist who felt most marriages that ended involved people whose personalities were too different. A research has found both similarity and complementarity have little impact on relationship quality at all. And people are terrible at figuring out what they actually want in the first place. Finkel and his colleagues also issued a challenge to dating sites: Submit their algorithms to clinical review. “No one was interested in working with us,” said Finkel.
| |
Niche Sites - A Way To Fine-tune The Search For Compatible Partners
SF GATE - Feb 17 - GlutenfreeSingles.com is a fairly new niche dating site that was created in July 2013. It now has ~25K users, ~6K of them are active on a weekly basis. “Niche sites are like traditional dating on steroids,” said Eli Finkel, a psychologist at Northwestern University who studies relationships. "The idea is to meet someone who is especially compatible." Niche sites help cut down some of the noise of dating online. Sam Yagan, head of Match Group, is skeptical that sites catering to smaller niches will really take off. “For one, the marketing is very hard,” he said. “How do you even reach a gluten-free single? It’s just crazy.”
| |
Dating Apps That Give Women More Power
SF CHRONICLE - Feb 21 - When designing her new dating app, Bumble, Whitney Wolfe was inspired by the Sadie Hawkins dance, in which women reverse traditional courtship rituals by asking the men to the dance. The app works similarly to Tinder, which Wolfe co-founded. The difference? With Bumble, only the woman is allowed to send the first message after a mutual match is made. The Catch, launched on Valentine’s Day, “gamifies” the selection process with a Q&A from the woman to a handful of candidates. Project Fixup, ensures that the guy actually wants to date, rather than simply chat, with a pay-per-date model that arranges the person, time and place; the two parties only have to “accept” and show up.
by Maghan McDowell
See full article at SF Chronicle
See all posts on Bumble
See all posts on Project Fixup
See all posts on The Catch
| |
IAC Owns Online Dating
SF GATE - Aug 23 - Online dating is a saturated marketplace, dominated by Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp. It controls ~27% of the U.S. dating services market. Its next closest competitor, eHarmony, has half that. Tagged, a social discovery startup, killed its dating app, Swoon, this year, in part because of the saturation of IAC dating products. "Any company should be cautious in innovating in the dating market," said Steve Sarner, the company's VP of marketing. In 2014, IAC's dating-related profit is expected to grow by 14%. "They have been very aggressive and bought companies that were very well-placed strategically and by design. That is a big part of how they have grown," said Mark Brooks, an online-dating analyst. "They are at this point running out of companies they can buy." Tinder, the company's latest hit, is a version of what Hot or Not pioneered a decade ago and what the app Grindr had perfected for the gay community. "Basically, they are shaking trees," said Brooks.
| |
Love Blooms On Dating Website For Farmers
SF CHRONICLE - Jan 1 - FarmersOnly.com is an online dating site for agricultural types. When Miller created FarmersOnly in 2005, most of the areas he wanted to target didn't have Internet service. The company stumbled along for a few more years until Wi-Fi became more widespread. Now, the site has ~1M members. The membership costs $21.95 a month.
by Stacy Finz
See full article at SF Gate
| |
Zoosk Is Taking Steps Toward IPO
SF CHRONICLE - Dec 9 - Zoosk has picked Bank of America to lead its IPO, along with Citigroup and Royal Bank of Canada. Zooks has 40M active members and 2.9 percent market share. Zoosk said in May that Q1 revenue topped $40M and visitors to the website more than doubled from the prior year.
| |
False Sense Of Security In Users Of Dating Sites
| |
Gay Men Meet Up Through Grindr App For iPhone
SF GATE - Mar 19 - Gays are "grinding," the latest verb in the gay lexicon, which refers to the new gay dating app for the iPhone called Grindr. It uses GPS technology to download hundreds of pictures of available men within walking distance. As of this month, Grindr has 500,000 users worldwide and 2,000 more join daily. The free version of the app is supported by ads, and the $2.99 monthly ad-free version allows users to view twice the number of men - 200 - at once. FULL ARTICLE @ SF CHRONICLE
| |
eHarmony Settles Lawsuit Over Gay Matchmaking
SF CHRONICLE - Jan 27 - As a result of a 2008 settlement with the state of New Jersey, which sued the company for discrimination, men and women seeking same-sex matches were redirected from eHarmony to an affiliate Web site, Compatiblepartners.net. A separate class-action civil rights lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles in 2007, saying that eHarmony violated California law barring businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation. The firm would establish a $2M settlement fund, with about $500,000 set aside for gay, lesbian and bisexual Californians who can show they were harmed by eHarmony's policies. The company did not admit wrongdoing. FULL ARTICLE @ SF CHRONICLE
See all posts on eHarmony
See all posts on Compatible Partners
| |
Online Dating Looks For Love On Social Media
SF CHRONICLE - Oct 27 - Some argue that social media such as Facebook or Twitter, which provide a more accurate snapshot of users' lives, can lead to better connections. Gelato, a new dating site, lets users create their profiles based on information from Twitter, Facebook, Hulu, Netflix and Last.fm. Thread, a site that opened in September, takes a jab at the awkwardness of navigating the Internet to meet strangers by helping Facebook users connect with the friends of their friends. Zoosk claims to be a combination of social networks and online dating. Co-founder Shayan Zadeh said that the site's platform is the digital equivalent of going out to a bar with friends and meeting new people. Blackbox Republic, another newcomer for sex-positive people, describes itself as a social dating site. It provides an environment where people can create networks they can retain even after finding new love interests. In a way, its goal is to challenge the shop-and-go spirit of the classifieds system, Blackbox Republic CEO Sam Lawrence said. OnlineDatingPost.com editor Dave Evans said "You're always going to have these dominant players, but the interesting stuff is with the edge cases. These guys have created a sexier proposition." FULL ARTICLE @ SF CHRONICLE
See all posts on Gelato See all posts on Zoosk
See all posts on Thread.com See all posts on Blackbox Republic
| |