DAILYMAIL.CO.UK - Nov 8 - Fast food giant Domino's Pizza has announced plans to launch a dating app to match customers over their favourite toppings. CEO Don Meij said Domino's is set to launch a dating app in Netherlands at the company's general meeting in Brisbane on Wednesday. 'Simply swipe your favourite pizza and the Domino's dating app will connect you to other pizza lovers, find a match, and go on a date,' he said.
Domino's Pizza To Launch A Dating App
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Tinder Co-Founder: Siri Might Become A Matchmaker Soon
WEBPRONEWS - Nov 8 - Tinder Co-Founder Sean Rad, in an interview on stage at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, said that he thinks that as the technology of AI advances that Siri might become a matchmaker soon.
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Badoo Is Facing An Investigation By HMRC Over Its Corporate Tax Bill
TELEGRAPH.CO.UK - Nov 7 - Badoo, part of the matchmaking empire controlled by Russian tycoon Andrey Andreev, is under investigation for its tax payments for the years 2013 to 2016. The news comes as Mr Andreev, 44, whose fortune has been estimated at over £1B, talks up plans to take the company public in a New York listing which could value it at several billion dollars. Badoo is structured with more than a dozen subsidiaries as well as other investments. Its parent company is listed as World Vision, a company incorporated in Bermuda, which in turn is controlled by Rimburg International, a company domiciled in the British Virgin Islands. A separate entity, Badoo Limited, also said it was under investigation. The company reported turnover of £144M for the year ending December 2017, up from £107M in the previous 12 months, for a reported loss of £5.6M. Badoo said the loss was "primarily due to the marketing focus of the business".
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The Meet Group Q3 Financial Results
PRESS RELEASE - Nov 7 - Total revenue was $45.7M, up 42% YOY. Net income was ~$1.3M, compared to $2.2M last year. "We continue to grow video revenue across all of our apps," said CEO Geoff Cook. "In one year, we have increased the annualized video revenue run rate from virtually zero to $55M for the month of October. Traffic in the quarter was also strong. We grew mobile daily active users 3% sequentially to 4.3M and mobile monthly active users 7% sequentially to 14.6M."
See full article at The Meet Group website
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LA Clippers Push Women's Empowerment With Bumble Deal
CNN - Nov 7 - In the era of #MeToo dating app Bumble has teamed up with a high-profile sports team to "shake up" a predominantly male-driven industry. The Los Angeles Clippers signed a reported three-year $20M sponsorship deal with Bumble. The partnership launched with a #strongerwithher campaign at a Clippers game - encouraging fans to honor women who impact their lives. The deal places the dating app's logo as a patch on the Clippers' uniform.
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Romanian Dating Site Sentimente.ro Is Using AI
WALL-STREET.RO - Sentimente.ro, the Romanian dating site, uses artificial intelligence to make recommendations based on users' behavior on the platform. Launched in 2011, sentimente.ro claims 400k active monthly users. The site invested 100K Eur into its AI interface called Wally, and is already seeing a 30% increase in the number of users, especially among those aged 25-35. The site is expecting 700K Eur in revenue this year.
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Tinder Now Has 4.1M Paying Users, Expects $800M In Revenue This Year
TECH CRUNCH - Nov 7 - Match Group surpassed analyst's forecasted revenue of $437M, reporting Q3 revenue of $444M, a 29% increase YOY. Match says it expects to bring in a total of $1.72B in annual revenue. Despite positive earnings, the company's 4Q outlook failed to satisfy Wall Street. Match said it expects $440 - $450M in revenue in Q4, falling short of the $454.5M analyst estimate. Shares of Match sank 10% in after-hours trading as a result. Year-to-date, Match's stock is up ~60%. Tinder continues to be Match's growth engine, responsible for half its paid users and half its projected annual revenue. Tinder is expected to bring in $800M in revenue in 2018. Hinge, another app-based dating service acquired by Match in June, is on its way up. Match says it's seen a 5x increase in downloads since it first invested. Match also announced that it would, for the first time, issue a special cash dividend of $2 per share on Match Group common stock and Class B common stock, to be paid out on Dec. 19.
by Kate Clark
See full article at Tech Crunch
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See all posts on Hinge
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Dating Apps In The Cancer World
CURE TODAY - Nov 7 - Being single often includes dating, but that is an uncomfortable and often taboo topic for people affected by cancer. "Some of the most frustrating things that cancer patients deal with, when it comes to dating, are struggling with body image and self-esteem," says Sarah Paul, LCSW, manager of the child, adolescent and young adult program at CancerCare, a national organization dedicated to providing free, professional support services to anyone affected by cancer. When Laura Brashier received a diagnosis of stage 4 cervical cancer at age 37, her life came screeching to a halt. Later she launched RomanceOnly.com in 2011. With the tagline "intimacy…without intercourse," the website now connects 14k users. In February 2005, Darryl Mitteldorf started CancerMatch.com which has since grown to serve ~1.3M members. RomanceOnly charges $9.99 per month; CancerMatch is sustained by donations made to MaleCare.org.
by Stacy Willingham
See full article at Cure Today
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Charly Lester, Co-Founder Of Lumen, Shares Her Story
FORBES - Nov 7 - Charly Lester is the Co-Founder and CMO of Lumen, the dating app for over 50s. Fresh from raising £3.5M from Andrey Andreev, the Founder of Badoo, Charly shares her story and motivation to make 50 the new 30. "Lumen was my co-founder's (Antoine Argouges) idea – but the minute he told me about it I knew it needed to be done, because for the last 5 years people had been asking me which app their divorced parents should try, and I had never had an answer for them. Women in their 50s and 60s have long complained about issues where men their age ignore them on dating apps, and only look for younger women. Men on Lumen are interested in dating women their age." Over 50s are too often the target of scammers and catfish online, so Lumen is the first mainstream dating app to insist on 100% photo-verification. Every user takes a selfie of him or herself on registration, and this is cross-referenced with the photos on their dating profile. The artificial intelligence also moderates for age. The app is already seeing ~1K downloads every day in the UK, and will be launching internationally very soon.
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Match Group Q3 Results: Revenue Up 29%
MATCH GROUP - Nov 7 - Total Revenue grew 29% YOY to $444M, driven by 23% subscriber growth and 6% ARPU growth. Average subscribers increased to 8.1M, a 23% YOY increase. Operating income was $140M, up 54% YOY, while Adjusted EBITDA increased 38% to $165M.
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Web Summit Insanity
OPW - Nov 7 -
I'm at Web Summit this week. This conference is just incredibly massive. And yet, we only have two representatives from the dating industry speaking. Sean Rad, Founder of Tinder, and the CEO of eHarmony, Grant Langston. They're both speaking twice on Wednesday.
It would be nice to have a couple more speakers from the dating industry speaking at Web Summit. We're well represented with these CEOs of course, but are we under-represented? Just sayin'. Please comment.
Post by Mark Brooks, CEO IDEA
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Slow Dating Is The French-Invented Hack
COSMOPOLITAN - Nov 5 - Dating app Once launched in France and recently made its way stateside. Instead of passively swiping through profiles, Once introduce each user to only one person, per day. If the users both like each other, they start a conversation and see where it leads. If not, they have to wait until the next day to meet someone new. But what if all potential matches are bad? Jean Meyer, CEO of Once, says making good matches is a concern, obviously, but he's more focused on cutting down absentminded app time. "Even if your match of the day is crap, it's okay," Meyer says. "Maybe you're not going to talk to that person, but at least you're going to put the app away, and you may even put your phone away and do something else with your day. You can put 100% into another task that's not swiping on ten-thousand profiles." The League, which only serves users a few matches per day, operates on a similar premise as Once. And when Hinge redesigned to eliminate swiping and force people to slow down a bit, users grew by more than 400%.
by Hannah Smothers
See full article at Cosmopolitan
See all posts on Once
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IPO Could Value Bumble At $1.1 Billion
BLOOMBERG - Nov 5 - An IPO in Bumble could value the app at as low as $1.1B, below the $1.5 billion figure it was reportedly seeking in January, according to calculations by Synovus Trust senior portfolio manager Dan Morgan. Andrey Andreev, majority holder of Bumble's parent company, is talking to banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. about a possible Nasdaq listing. Morgan applied the average multiple to an estimated 2019 revenue of $283M to get a $1.1B IPO valuation, though said it could increase on Bumble's plan to launch advertising next year.
by Shelly Hagan
See full article at Bloomberg
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
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Tinder Study: Millennials And Gen Z Value Respect, Independence And Loyalty
ET BRAND EQUITY - Nov 5 - Millennials and Gen Z value respect, independence and loyalty in a partner, reveals a new Tinder study. 70% of women ages 18 - 35 place the highest value on finding a partner who respects them for their choices and who they are. Loyalty was also important for women, and 68% of them surveyed unanimously agreed. As for men, the most important quality that they looked for in a partner is loyalty (56%). The third quality that 64% of women and 51% of men surveyed seek in their partners is independence.
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Bumble To Promote Bumble Bizz At Melbourne Cup Carnival
THE AGE - Nov 5 - Bumble is using this year's Melbourne Cup Carnival to promote its Bumble Bizz feature which launched earlier this year and is aimed at putting an end to harassment on recruitment platforms for women. On Bumble Bizz, like on the dating app, it is women who must make the initial contact. Bumble's focus on women has paid off with 1.7M registrations in Australia on Bumble and 42M registrations globally. The platform has seen 50% growth in Melbourne over the last six months and has been valued at $1B putting it in the category of a unicorn startup. Bumble wouldn't reveal how much the Melbourne Cup campaign is costing the startup but an industry insider said corporate marquees start at $500k for the cost of the build, hospitality and partnership fee.
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Shareholders Increase Stake in Spark Networks
FAIRFIELD CURRENT - Nov 4 - First Manhattan Co. boosted its holdings in Spark Networks by 197.3% during the Q3. The firm owned 225,170 shares. First Manhattan owned 6.99% of Spark Networks worth $2.6M at the end of the most recent quarter. Separately, PEAK6 Investments increased its position in Spark Networks by 7.4% in the Q2. PEAK6 Investments now owns 478,119 shares valued at $5.1M.
by Darrell McKinsey
See full article at Fairfield Current
See all posts on Spark Networks
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
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Sex Workers Say That Tinder Is Shutting Down Their Profiles
BUZZFEED - Nov 4 - Soliciting is banned on the app, but sex workers say that even when they make clear they are only using Tinder for dating their profiles get taken down. They said they had mentioned in their profiles that they were sex workers – but only because they wanted to be up front with people who they matched with. Tinder may be shutting down sex worker profiles to avoid falling foul of Trump's SESTA/FOSTA legislation. In April, President Donald Trump signed a bill made from a combination of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or SESTA, and the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, known as FOSTA, which gave law enforcement officials sweeping new powers to go after internet platforms used by traffickers, including making those platforms liable for the content that users publish.
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Barry Diller On the Internet Revolution: Really Young, Truly Radical, Very Troubled
WEBPRO NEWS - Nov 3 - Barry Diller, Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC and Expedia, recently reflected on the relative youthfulness of the Internet and areas which are still ripe for entrepreneurs. IAC owns Tinder and Match. People forget that the Internet revolution is still really young, only 22 or 23 years. It took 10-15 years just to get up enough bandwidth to actually have rich media being served through it. We are really at the very earliest stage of this.
Part 1
Part 2
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Matrimony.com Appoints New Chief Operating Officer
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA - Nov 3 - Matrimony.com has appointed Sankara Narayanan as the chief operating officer with immediate effect. Narayanan had served telecom operator Aircel as its national operations-Head and Vodafone Essar as its CEO.
See full article at Business Standard
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Bumble Is Slowly Backing Off On Its $400M Lawsuit Against Match Group
THE VERGE - Nov 2 - Bumble is looking to drop its $400M countersuit against Match Group. Yesterday, Match filed a notice of non-opposition, essentially saying that it's okay with Bumble dropping its claims so long as the court issues declaratory judgments absolving Match from allegedly stealing Bumble's trade secrets. Match is also hoping the court will issue declaratory judgments validating its patents and Bumble's alleged infringement of them, which are involved in its original lawsuit from March. Both companies seem okay backing away from this case for now, but Match seems to want to get some absolution out of it, especially if it'll benefit the company's lawsuit against Bumble. Match sees Bumble's countersuit as serving only as a publicity stunt to bolster its reputation.
by Makena Kelly & Ashley Carman
See full article at The Verge
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