BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK - July 11 - BeehiveID was a company that identified fake online dating accounts created for fraudulent use. "We were using all of the same data that Cambridge Analytica was using. Our timing was terrible!", says Mary Haskett, now CEO of identity tech company Blink Identity. "We had a million Facebook profiles with complete data. And that's wrong. In Facebook's defence, they figured that out and changed their access, which killed my company – but I wasn't bitter because it was the right thing to do", she added. Haskett and long-time collaborator Dr. Alex Kilpatrick then developed ID technology for the US military capable of identifying people at walking speed using a mixture of facial recognition, iris scanning and fingerprints. She and Dr. Kilpatrick co-founded privacy-first company Blink Identity, which is based in Austin, Texas, to use the tech to improve the experience at music gigs and sports events. The firm raised a seed round of $1.5M with participation from Live Nation, parent company of Ticketmaster. It has since begun to run pilot programmes at music venues.
CEO of BeehiveID: "Facebook Scandal Killed My Start-up"
| |
The "Marriage Pact" - Dating Algorithm That Gives College Students One Match
VOX - July 11 - In 2000, psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper wrote a paper on the paradox of choice - the concept that having too many options can lead to decision paralysis. Seventeen years later, two Stanford classmates, Sophia Sterling-Angus and Liam McGregor, landed on a similar concept while taking an economics class on market design. "Tinder's huge innovation was that they eliminated rejection, but they introduced massive search costs," McGregor explained. "People increase their bar because there's this artificial belief of endless options." Sterling-Angus and McGregor had an idea: What if, rather than presenting people with a limitless array of attractive photos, they radically shrank the dating pool? What if they gave people one match based on core values (based on complex compatibility questions), rather than attraction? Their study called "Marriage Pact" focused on matching people with their perfect "backup plan" - the person they could marry later on if they didn't meet anyone else. It quickly became a viral phenomenon on campus. They've run the experiment two years in a row, and last year, 7,600 students participated: 4,600 at Stanford and 3,000 at Oxford. Next year the study will be in its third year, and McGregor and Sterling-Angus tentatively plan to launch it at a few more schools including Dartmouth, Princeton, and the University of Southern California. But it's unclear if the project can scale beyond the bubble of elite college campuses.
| |
The Meet Group Updates Its Flagship App With Industry-First Safety Practices
BUSINESSWIRE - July 11 - "Today we unveiled a number of safety-related features on MeetMe," said CEO Geoff Cook, "including the Report Abuse button we have seen in any major livestreaming app. When a user taps this button, a screengrab will be sent to our 200+ person moderation team for rapid review of both the screengrab and the active livestream."
| |
Dating App Once Lets Users See Their Attractiveness Score
NEON - July 11 - Jean Meyer is the CEO and founder of a slow dating app Once that sends users only one match per day. The app has launched a new feature that lets users see their attractiveness score.
Q: Don't you think this score could destroy a person's self-esteem?
Jean Meyer: Every dating app has an attractiveness score. People with high scores are matched with other people with high scores. We wanted to be a little smarter and stay transparent. We believe it is important to be transparent about how we do things.
Q: You use this transparency to lure people back into the app. How does it work?
A: We do not email people with: "Hey, come back and use the app". We want to give them relevant information. It works because people are curious and want to know their score.
Q: What is your score?
A: Not very good - 2.58. The score just tells me that my pictures are not good enough. That's a good feedback.
Q: Don't you think it has something to do with being a man?
A: That as well.... the average score for women is 4, for men it is 2.
Q: Who decides who is matched with whom?
A: In the beginning we had human matchmakers. We asked them to just rely on their gut feeling. We did that for a year and a half, until we had enough data to write an algorithm.
Q: Are interests and hobbies also being considered?
A: The picture is 95%.
Q: So if I rate many blonde men well, will I be matched with blonde men?
A: It's not that easy. We are doing a cluster analysis based primarily on people whose opinions are very divided. Imagine two different women. They both have the average score of 2.5 out of five. But one of them got plenty of twos and threes and the other got a lot of ones and fives. Then one of them is the average and the other is polarized. The people we care about are the ones who split the opinion. Because they probably belong to a certain type. Either you love them or you hate them.
| |
Blued Launches LGTBQ Anti Cyber Bullying Campaign in India
MENAFN - July 11 - The campaign focuses on making people aware about being bullied or mocked online as well as the threats an individual faces when one encounters someone who isn't what they claim to be. Blued, has partnered with Queerythm and Ya.All, community based organizations that provides support groups for the LGBTQI community, and launched helpline numbers to report such incidents. These helplines will also work toward counselling people who have been a victim to cyber bullying or physical abuse. In a recent survey report, 42% of the LGBTQ members have been a victim of virtual harassment and the numbers of incident have swiftly been rising. Launched in 2012, Blued is the largest gay dating social media app with ~40M users globally.
| |
Tinder Lite to Launch in Vietnam
THE VERGE - July 10 - Tinder Lite app is 25 times smaller than the main app, and while it maintains the core functionality, like swiping, it nixes more data-heavy ones, like the Feed. The idea is that Tinder Lite is faster, requires less battery life, and reduces data usage. For now, Tinder Lite users can't upgrade to a Tinder Plus or Gold subscription within the app, but the company says it plans to do so over time. The app will be available through Google Play in Vietnam in the "coming weeks" and will subsequently come to other areas in Southeast Asia and South America.
| |
Facebook Dating to Allow Users to See if Their Friends Have a Crush on Them
VOGUE INDIA - July 9 - Following the launch of Facebook Dating in Colombia, Thailand, Argentina and Mexico, the app is slowly expanding to more countries including: Singapore, Malaysia, Brazil, Vietnam and the Philippines. It is also set to debut in the US in late 2019, and Australia shouldn't be too far behind either. The inbuilt app has eliminated the Tinder-style swipe right, swipe left mechanism and has a unique algorithm that matches users with potential love interests instead. One important feature of this algorithm is called "Secret Crush", where users can find out whether or not their real life friends might have a crush on them. Users can add up to nine friends on the list and Facebook notifies these friends that they have a secret admirer. The admirer won't be revealed unless there is a mutual secret crash.
| |
Scruff Acquires Jack'd for an Undisclosed Sum
SYS-CON - July 10 - Perry Street Software, a New York-based gay mobile software developer and the parent company of Scruff, has acquired gay dating app Jack'd. Jack'd will continue to operate as a stand-alone app. Since its launch in 2010, Jack'd has grown to ~5M members worldwide. Perry Street will invest significant resources to upgrade the technology and reliability of the Jack'd app. In the coming months, Jack'd members can expect to see the removal of all programmatic advertising, enhanced controls over privacy and security, and new features such as improved messaging, redesigned Match, richer search, and the ability to include video as part of member private albums or in chat.
See all posts on Jack'd
See all posts on Scruff
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com
| |
Bumble Owner Launches Independent Investigation Into Its Workplace Culture
BUSINESS INSIDER - July 10 - Badoo founder, Andrey Andreev, is launching an independent investigation into his workplace culture after an explosive report by Forbes. Forbes spoke to 13 former employees who described naked cocaine-fueled parties, software updates named after porn stars, and inappropriate remarks made by Andreev. Andreev said he has was "shocked and saddened" by the allegations and has brought in HR firm Peninsula Group to conduct an investigation.
by Isobel Asher Hamilton
See full article at Business Insider
| |
Bumble CEO Responds to Reports of Misconduct at Parent Company
TECH CRUNCH - July 10 - Following an extensive report in Forbes about Bumble's parent company and its billionaire founder Andrey Andreev, the female-first dating app's founder Whitney Wolfe Herd has issued a statement. She says she was "mortified by the allegations" and "saddened and sickened to hear that anyone, of any gender, would ever be made to feel marginalized or mistreated in any capacity at their workplace." The allegations went beyond portraying a sexist work environment and detailed racist attitudes of the Badoo founder.
| |
Over 1,300 Android Apps Scrape Personal Data Regardless of Permissions
TECHRADAR - July 8 - Researchers at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) created a controlled environment to test 88K apps downloaded from the US Google Play Store. They peeked at what data the apps were sending back, compared it to what users were permitting and 1,325 apps were forking over specific user data they shouldn't have. They used a variety of angles to circumvent permissions and get access to user data, including geolocation, emails, phone numbers, and device-identifying IMEI numbers.
| |
Q&A With Vivek Jain, Founder of the New Dating App LOKO
FASHION WEEK DAILY - July 8 - Dating app LOKO lets users communicate with each other exclusively by video before meeting in person.
Q: Where does LOKO's name come from?
A: It's Hawaiian, and it means character and disposition. It's also an anagram of "look."
Q: What was your experience with dating apps?
A: I tried all the apps that everyone's heard of, and it was a disaster.
Q: What made it so frustrating?
A: You don't get a real sense of who a person is based on text messaging.
Q: Do you see any benefit in online dating?
A: For people who are really busy, it allows you to meet people you wouldn't normally. But that's where technology should stop - just allowing you to connect with somebody. After that some old-fashioned human interaction needs to play a more important part.
Q: What makes LOKO different from other dating apps?
A: As far as I know, we are the first video-only dating app. There is no texting and no static photos.
Q: How does it work?
A: You set up a profile with two videos: an eight-second "hello," and an optional 30s "about me." Once you set up your profile, it goes to a human moderator for approval. Once your profile is approved, you can look at other videos and match like you would in any other dating app.
Q: How do you meet people?
A: If you connect with someone, a calendar pops up so you can schedule a 15-minute video date or chat. We call it the "elimidate."
| |
Forbes Investigation Into Badoo's Corporate Culture
FORBES - July 7 - Andrey Andreev's biggest asset is Badoo, a European- and Latin American-focused dating app that, with 60M users, stands as one of the world's largest. His buzziest, however, is Bumble, the dating app focused on empowering women. Andrey launched his first dating company - Mamba - in 2004. It was a bare-bones desktop dating site for Russian users. Finam Holdings invested $20M in Mamba for a 90% stake; Andreev sold the rest to Finam in 2006 for an undisclosed amount. Building off the success of Mamba, Andreev launched Badoo in 2006. In 2010, Badoo launched its iPhone mobile app. The company went from 20M user sign-ups to 100M in four months, mostly in Europe and Latin America, and notched $200M in revenue. (Forbes estimates that last year Badoo had a bit over $300M in revenue.) Simultaneous with this growth, Badoo began earning a reputation for wild parties. More concerning, several former employees say office behavior was hostile and discriminatory toward women. Andreev maintains that he is a collaborator and unifier, not racist or sexist as others allege. Wolfe Herd, who spent Bumble's formative period walking around London with Andreev for days, says she has never witnessed toxic behavior in the Badoo headquarters. And she stands firmly behind Andreev. "What I've seen firsthand from Andrey is creative and motivating behavior. Andrey has never been anything but kind and respectful to me."
by Angel Au-Yeung
See full article at Forbes
See all posts on Badoo
See all posts on Bumble
See all posts on Mamba
| |
Parship 2018 Financial Results
DEUTCHE STARTUPS - July 8 - Hamburg-based dating company Parship has generated ~125M euros in revenue in 2018. 93% of sales are attributable to the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). The profit was 32.4M Eur, up from 18.6M in 2017.
| |
Badoo and Gay Times Partner in Allyship Campaign Targetting Non-LGBTQ+ People
GAY TIMES - July 8 - Badoo and Gay Times have announced a new campaign, which aims to educate the 430M users of the dating app on how to better be an LGBTQ ally. The campaign is aimed at non-LGBTQ users of the app, and has been called The Allyship Partnership. As part of the campaign, Badoo will donate £1 to Amplifund for every 'swipe of support' and will also include educational in-app cards.
| |
Compatibility Isn't #1 Ingredient to Satisfying Relationship, Study Says
CBS - July 7 - According to a study by Michigan State University in the Journal of Research in Personality, the main ingredient of a satisfying relationship is a nice partner. The researchers studied 2,500 heterosexual couples who have been married for ~20 years and discovered that shared interests weren't the No. 1 element to a satisfying relationship. Instead, simply having a "conscientious and nice" partner lead to happier relationships.
| |
Women Are Happier Than Men Being Single
PHILLIPINE DAILY INQUIRER - July 6 - A 2018 Tinder survey shows that "Women were more likely than men to say that they want to enjoy being single while they are still young." Contemporary researches actually found women are happier than men being single. Speaking at the Hay festival last May, Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioural science at the LSE and a best-selling author who does research on the measurement of happiness, said "The healthiest and happiest population subgroup are women who never married or had children." Meanwhile, it's the men who are more likely to benefit from marriage. He explained, "They take less risks, earn more money at work, and live a little longer."
by B. Del Rio
See full article at Phillipine Daily Inquirer
| |
10 Years of LGBT Love: What's Really Changed?
BBC - July 5 - The London Pride parade will take place on Saturday 6 July in central London, followed by Black Pride on Sunday 7 July in Hackney. While plenty of people head to Pride to celebrate, recent news events, including the attacks on a lesbian couple on a London bus, show why Pride is still so important for the community. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots - the ceremonial beginning of the LGBT rights movement - and the 10-year anniversary of Grindr. "Online dating and hook-up apps have been an absolute win for the LGBT community," says relationship expert Dr Darcy Sterling. One recent US study suggests that two-thirds of LGBT couples meet online. Another important shift has been the demise of gay bars and LGBT spaces. In just over a decade, from 2006 to 2017, the number of bars, clubs and pubs for LGBT people in London dropped from 125 to 53. Racism within the LGBT community is another issue that is starting to be talked about more openly. Last year, Grindr launched a campaign, Kindr, encouraging its users to be nicer to each other. The legalisation of same-sex marriage in England, Wales and Scotland in 2014 - along with ~20 other countries between 2009 and 2019 - has seen tens of thousands of same-sex couples getting hitched.
| |
Match.com: the Busiest Day This Summer
MINDBODYGREEN - July 4 - Match analyzed their 20 years of historical data on app activity and predict July 7, 2019 (the Sunday after the Fourth of July) will be their busiest day of the summer. That's partially because it happens over a long holiday weekend, when they always see a jump in the number of people using dating apps, but it also has to do with the real start of summer finally rolling in. According to Match, they're expecting a 20% increase in activity on July 7 in comparison to Valentine's Day.
| |
Happy 4th July to OPW.news Readers
OPW - July 4 - Happy Independence Day from the Courtland Brooks team. May your businesses continue to grow and prosper in this time of abundance. Have a wonderful day/weekend with your families.
| |