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

OkCupid CEO, Ariel Charytan, on Love, Tech, and Success

THRIVE GLOBAL - Nov 13 - OkCupid CEO, Ariel Charytan, discusses OkCupid's new market expansion.

Q: Tell us about your career trajectory?
A: Over the past two decades, I've learned that the fundamental thing we collect in life isn't money or titles, but experiences. What attracts me to new roles is the opportunity to experience something new. I have sought and been fortunate to have always worked on products that improve people's lives.

Q: What got you interested in the industry?
A: Human relationships. They are one of the most fascinating topics to study.

Q: What projects can we expect to see next?
A: OkCupid has always been a platform that allows people to be their true selves. In places like India, we are continuing to match people on what matters most to them and specific to their culture. I'm proud to be able to give people that opportunity because it's something everyone deserves.

Q: I have been predicting a greater use of AI in dating apps for years. What in your opinion is the future of dating?
A: The future of dating is going to look a lot like the origin of OkCupid. We match people on shared beliefs and values through thousands of personalized questions. AI has helped us with showing daters the people they would actually want to meet beyond simple attraction.

by Clarissa Silva
See full article at Thrive Global

See all posts on OkCupid

S'More: a New Dating App That Looks to Suspend Physical Attraction for Something More

TECH CRUNCH - Nov 11 - According to former Chappy Managing Director Adam Cohen Aslatei, "something more" is one of the most common pieces of feedback that dating apps get from their users. That's where S'More comes in. S'More was founded by Aslatei to provide a dating app to users that goes beyond superficial looks. Rather than scrolling through a feed and swiping left and right, users are served five profiles each day. User profiles on S'More consist of icons, rather than pictures and text, which reveal characteristics about the profile's owner. The company plans to generate revenue through a freemium model. S'More is now launching in beta in Boston and the D.C. area with plans to launch in New York soon.

by Jordan Crook
See full article at Tech Crunch

Tinder Seeks to Tackle Trans Harassment

BBC - Nov 12 - Many have wrongly had their profiles removed from the app because Tinder imposes an automatic ban if a profile receives lots of complaints. Transgender women had been particularly affected by the complaints and subsequent harassment. CEO Elie Seidman said the unfair complaints had been an "unforeseen consequence" of Tinder's policy that its users should not be able to filter out trans people from the profiles they are shown as potential matches.

See full article at BBC

See all posts on Tinder

Yacktman Asset Management Takes $1.22M Position in Spark Networks

DARBY NEWS - Nov 11 - Yacktman Asset Management acquired a new stake in shares of Spark Networks in the Q3, according to its SEC filing. The institutional investor acquired 220K shares, valued at $1,2M. Yacktman Asset Management owned ~0.07% of Spark Networks at the end of the most recent quarter. Gabelli Funds also purchased shares of Spark Networks, valued at ~$55K. Renaissance Technologies purchased $454K worth of Spark shares. Finally, Canaan Partners purchased $22.6M worth of Spark shares.

See full article at Darby News

See all posts on Spark Networks

This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com

OPW Podcast - The Top Dating Industry News for Nov 12th

OPW - Nov 12 - Match Results, Magic Lab Acquisition, The Meet Group, Facebook & Tinder whitelisting.

For the top weekly dating industry news in ~2 minutes subscribe to OPW's Two Minute Tuesdays (TMT) podcast on Breaker, Google podcasts, Spotify, Anchor or Stitcher.

Lex - New App That Offers Text-based Personal Ads

THE CUT - Nov 12 - Last year, Kelly Rakowski started Personals, a modern reimagining of dyke-centric ads from the pages of the '80s and '90s lesbian erotica magazine On Our Backs. In early November, she announced Personals would be making a major move, launching its own app with a new name: Lex. After months of beta testing from Kickstarter supporters, Lex (as in "lexicon") is now available for free download, offering the same text-based personal ads and missed connections. Rakowski says an app was necessary based on the number of ads she began receiving. A 2018 Kickstarter campaign raised ~$50K, which all went to the development of Lex. Anyone who donated to the campaign were early beta testers of the app, providing crucial feedback. On launch day, Lex saw 6K downloads.

by Trish Bendix
See full aticle at The Cut

See all posts on Personals

Chinese Spend $30B on Singles' Day

TELEGRAPH.CO.UK - Nov 12 - Alibaba said sales for its annual Singles' Day shopping blitz have exceeded $30B, putting the event on track to set a record in its 11th year. The figure is equivalent to ~80% of Amazon's sales in its most recent quarter. Singles day or Guanggun Jie (Nov 11) is a shopping holiday popular among young Chinese people that celebrate their pride in being single. Alibaba turned China's informal Singles' Day into a shopping event a decade ago and built it into the world's biggest online sales fest.

See full article at Telegraph.co.uk

Taimi, LGBTQI Dating App, Adds a New Travel Feature

MEDIUM.COM - Nov 12 - The latest update of the LGBTQI social networking and dating app includes Taimi Spot and Spotify Integration. TAIMI Spot allows users find connections in cities around the globe regardless of their permanent base. The tool will be extremely handy to frequent travelers and business people. Spotify Integration will allow users to share their favorite songs with potential matches.

See full article at Medium

See all posts on Taimi

Internet Dating Jobs Listing Update - November 2019

OPW - Nov 12 - The new Internet dating jobs listing is live on the Internet Dating Jobs blog.

Below see a couple of this month's most interesting offers:

Bumble
  Social Media Director

CoffeeMeetsBagel
  VP of Product

Lovoo
  Head of Live Streaming and Community Management

Match Group
  SVP, Tax

Spark Networks
  Director of Accounting

The Inner Circle
  CMO

The League
  Director or VP of Operations & Finance (COO fxn)

Tinder
  VP Product Innovation

To see more open positions go here.

Do you have an idating industry job offer which is not included? Please, send it to tips@onlinepersonalswatch.com and we will add it to the list.

Andrey Andreev Sells Stake of Bumble's Parent Company MagicLab to Blackstone

TECH CRUNCH - Nov 9 - Andrey Andreev, the founder of Badoo, is selling his entire stake in MagicLab, the company that owned both Bumble and Badoo (and other dating apps), to Blackstone, which is one of the world's leading investment firms. He will step away from the business in the process, and Wolfe Herd, Bumble's founder, becomes the CEO of the whole company, retaining much of her stake in the business. That stake is at ~19%. The deal values MagicLab at $3B. Blackstone also will be making an investment in the company as part of the deal.

by Ingrid Lunden
See full article at Tech Crunch

See all posts on Badoo  
See all posts on Bumble

This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com

Behind the Scenes Look at the Making of Swipe Night

OPW - Nov 9 - "'Swipe Night", Tinder's first foray in original content, was a huge success. According to Tinder, Total matches jumped 26% compared to a typical Sunday night, and messages increased 12%.

Former CEO of Zoosk and Tai Buy Dressbarn

OPW - Nov 8 - Alex Mehr co-founded and was CEO of Zoosk. He's teamed up with Tai Lopez, who also ran a dating company in the past, to acquire the distressed womens clothing company Dressbarn which has annual sales of $740m and 600 stores, and was started in 1962. They will move the HQ from New Jersey to Los Angeles. See FB video link.

See all posts on Zoosk

Match Group Gets Boost From Wall Street Analysts

WALL STREET JOURNAL - Nov 7 - Match Group offers attractive potential for growth, analysts say. Shares slid late Wednesday after its outlook for the current fiscal quarter left investors disappointed. But after a string of bullish analyst notes, the stock rebounded - finishing Thursday up 4%, compared with the S&P 500, which rose 0.3%. IAC which has an 81% stake in Match, climbed 3.8%. Competitors also took a leg higher: The Meet Group, which owns a live-streaming dating game called NextDate, added 9.4%.

by Akane Otani
See full article at Wall Street Journal

See all posts on Match Group
See all posts on The Meet Group

The Meet Group Q3 Results

PRESS RELEASE - Nov 8 - The Meet Group, a leading livestreaming provider, reported financial results for its Q3 of 2019. Total Q3 revenue was $52.6M, up 15% YOY. Adjusted EBITDA was $11M, compared to $8.7M in the prior year quarter. Video revenue for the Q3 grew ~85% from the prior year quarter to $20.3M. The company is expecting full year 2019 revenue to be in the range of $211M to $212.5M and Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $41.5M to $42M.

See full article at The Meet Group website

See all posts on The Meet Group

Tencent Launches a Video Dating App

KR ASIA - Nov 8 - New video-calling app Maohu comes as Tencent competes against ByteDance and Kuaishou for short video dominance. Maohu allows users to choose beautifying filters or put on cartoon masks when connected with friends and people nearby. The app matches users, based on location and interests. Men are required to take off masks to send a friend request and can only get three matches per day, while women don't have these limitations.

See full article at Abacus News

Mark Zuckerberg Let Tinder Get Special Access to Users' Data

FORBES - Nov 8 - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg considered entering the online dating business as far back as 2014, but he put the idea on the back burner, instead giving Tinder special access to its users' data, leaked emails between top executives show. The leaked correspondence is part of an ongoing lawsuit between Facebook and Six4Three, a now-defunct app developer that sued Facebook in 2015 for restricting user data access, alleging the actions were uncompetitive. The correspondence shows how perilously close Tinder came to losing key access to Facebook user information that helped Tinder grow rapidly in its early years, when members often used their Facebook logins to access the app. When Facebook further restricted the kind of information third-party apps could access after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in March 2018, Tinder's app crashed. Tinder was on Facebook's radar in 2013. Zuckerberg wrote in January 2014 to two executives: "Tinder's growth is especially alarming to me because their product is built completely on Facebook data, and it's much better than anything we've built for recommendations using the same corpus." In 2014, Facebook announced it would start preventing third-party app developers from having access to data on users' friends, including birth dates, photos and pages they liked. The company gave a May 2015 deadline for developers to comply with its new set of access rules. However, Zuckerberg made some companies and apps an exception. Tinder was one. Facebook agreed to give Tinder a special data-sharing agreement, internally known as "whitelists," if the dating app shared trademark rights on "MOMENTS." which was the planned name for a photo app that Facebook wanted to launch, an email exchange in March 2015 showed. When asked about this agreement in 2018, a spokeswoman for Tinder said: "Tinder never received special treatment, data or access related to this dispute or its resolution." Other dating apps that had whitelist agreements with Facebook include Bumble, Badoo, Coffee Meets Bagel, Hinge and jSwipe.

by Angel Au-Yeung
See full article at Forbes

See all posts on Tinder  

What Does Kunlun Want With Grindr?

LA MAGAZINE - Nov 7 - In 2016 when a largely unknown Chinese company dropped $93M to purchase a controlling stake in Grindr, the news caught everyone by surprise. Beijing Kunlun and Grindr were not an obvious match. In the spring of 2018, Kunlun was notified of a U.S. investigation into whether it was harnessing Grindr's user data for nefarious purposes. Then, in November last year, Grindr's new, Chinese-appointed, and heterosexual president, Scott Chen, ignited a firestorm among the app's mostly queer staff when he posted a Facebook comment indicating he is opposed to gay marriage. Now, sources say, even the FBI is breathing down Grindr's neck, reaching out to former employees for dirt about the demographics of the company, the security of its data, and the motivations of its owner. "The big question the FBI is trying to answer is: Why did this Chinese company purchase Grindr when they couldn't expand it to China or get any Chinese benefit from it?" says one former app executive. "Did they really expect to make money, or are they in this for the data?" The U.S. gave Kunlun a firm June deadline to sell to an American suitor. Grindr founder Joel Simkhai, who orchestrated the sale to Kunlun, declined to comment for this article, but one source says he's heartbroken by how everything has gone down.

by Steven Blum
See full article at LA Magazine

See all posts on Grindr

Tinder's Interactive Video Series 'Swipe Night' Is Going International Next Year

TECH CRUNCH - Nov 7 - Swipe Night was a success. According to Match Group, "millions" of Tinder users tuned into to watch the show's episodes during its run in October, and this drove double-digit increases in both matches and messages. As a result, Match confirmed its plans to launch Swipe Night outside the U.S. in early 2020. Swipe Night asked users to make decisions to advance a narrative that followed a group of friends in an "apocalyptic adventure." The 5-minute long episodes ran every Sunday night in October from 6 PM to midnight. Swipe Night led to a 20% to 25% increase in "likes" and a 30% increase in matches. Also importantly, the series helped boost female engagement in the app. Swipe Night isn't the only video product Match Group has in the works. Plenty of Fish and Twoo are testing live streaming broadcasts.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

See all posts on Tinder                    See all posts on POF
See all posts on Match Group          See all posts on Twoo

How Can Dating Apps Protect Users From the Fate of the McDonald's CEO

MARKETWATCH - Nov 6 - Rules on workplace relationships are becoming increasingly common in the #MeToo era. The firing of McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook because of a consensual relationship with an employee is just the latest reminder that office relationships are tricky terrain, and can end badly if they aren't handled carefully. Some companies have procedures for disclosing relationships, but others outright ban it. Almost 80% of companies frown on subordinate-manager dating, according to a survey by the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That's up from 70% in January 2018. Dating analyst Mark Brooks said he doesn't know of a single app that proactively helps users spot co-workers and then block them. "This seems like a logical and valuable feature, and perhaps a dating app will jump on it now. Simply adding a question, 'Where do you work?' and 'Are you allowed to date co-workers?' would help dating apps protect users from the fate of the McDonald’s CEO," Brooks said. "Sour relationships breed sour workplaces. Unfortunately, there seems to be a mismatch between dating-app features and guarding users against this kind of faux pas," he added.

by Andrew Keshner
See full article at Marketwatch

Rosette Pambakian Says Arbitration Deal Doesn't Cover Assault

LAW360 - Nov 6 - Rosette Pambakian, an ex-Tinder executive, who claims she was wrongly fired for reporting an alleged sexual assault by its parent company's then-CEO urged a California federal judge to keep the case out of arbitration, saying she was tricked into signing an unconscionable arbitration agreement that doesn't cover the purported wrongdoing.

See full article at Law360

See all posts on Tinder