INDEPENDENT.CO.UK - Jan 14 - Bumble has temporarily removed its politics filter "to prevent misuse" in response to tweets encouraging users to change their political view to conservative in an attempt to match with and identify Capitol rioters. Bumble has previously said that it had begun taking action against profiles promoting involvement in the riots.
Bumble Temporarily Removes Politics Filter
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More Young Indonesians Skip Dating, Go Straight to Marriage
WALL STREET JOURNAL - Jan 14 - Dating still remains the main method of courtship for young Indonesians. Dating apps such as Tinder are popular in large cities like Jakarta, and a 2017 government survey found that two-thirds of Indonesians aged 15 to 24 have dated. But many Islamic figures say it encourages young men and women to engage in premarital sex, which is forbidden in Islam. Some couples chose a speedy marriage, with much of the getting-to-know-each-other process occurring after the wedding. The practice is known as "taaruf." Taaruf differs from arranged marriages, as it is often initiated by young people themselves rather than their families. There are even online taaruf apps, such as Taaruf Online Indonesia which currently has 18K active users.
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IAC, Barry Diller Targeted by Pension Fund Over Match Spinoff
BLOOMBERG LAW - Jan 13 - A pension fund sued Match Group Inc.'s board, former controlling stockholder IAC/InterActiveCorp, and billionaire businessman Barry Diller, claiming Match Group's spinoff last year left it saddled with billions in debt and IAC "flush with billions in cash."
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App Annie State of Mobile 2020 Report
APPANNIE - Jan 14 - According to App Annie's annual "State of Mobile" industry report, mobile app downloads grew by 7% YOY to $218B in 2020. Consumer spending grew by 20% to $143B, led by markets that included China, the United States, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
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Tinder Makes a Pivot in Thailand as a Social App Beyond Dating
BRANDING IN ASIA - Jan 14 - Tinder has launched a new campaign in Thailand aiming to reposition the brand as a social app beyond dating. For years, Tinder had been established as a dating app with a stereotype of finding one-night stands and friends with benefits. This reputation posed a challenge for recruiting new users in Thailand, where a research showed that Gen Z is the most likely group to quit the app within one week for not wanting to participate in hookup culture. The agency came up with the idea "Friends with (Other) Benefits", or in Thai "Puen Sampan" which twists the word for "sex" into a brand new word for "friendship". In less than one week, the launch film received ~9M views and the campaign line "Puen Sampan" started trending on social media.
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Match Stock Upside Expected as Covid Vaccines Drive In-Person Dating Rebound
INVESTORS.COM - Jan 14 - Match stock should be a big reopening beneficiary as coronavirus vaccinations gain traction globally and the company rolls out new products, analysts say. Match stock gained 83% in 2020. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Tinder launched video chat services for stay-at-home users. After Q3 earnings, shares hit an all-time high of 159.53 on Dec. 17. "For 2021, we believe new products catalysts (Tinder Platinum, live video, Swipe Night) and higher willingness to date in-person will likely drive an acceleration in revenue growth," said Jefferies analyst Brent Thill.
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SeekingArrangement Helps Students Avoid Student Debt
GLOBENEWSWIRE - Jan 13 - The number of university students on SeekingArrangement, the world's largest Sugar Dating site, continues to grow. And today the site announces its top Sugar Baby Universities. Arizona State University maintains its dominance with 2,680 students in the U.S. While in Canada, The University of Toronto has the most with 257 students.
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Taimi Reaches 9M Users
MEDIUM.COM - Jan 13 - Taimi, the world's largest LGBTQ+ social network and a dating app, started 2020 with 3.5M users and ended it with 5.5M users. Taimi users liked each other 1.15B times, and sent ~9.3M likes. 2020 was also the year livestreaming emerged on Taimi. In the first four months after being rolled out, app users started 546k unique livestreams, amassing 13M views.
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SoSyncd - a New Dating App Based on Psychoanalysis
DAILYMAIL.CO.UK - Jan 13 - Sisters Jess and Lou Alderson launched their dating app in January 2020. It is called SoSyncd, and ~30K people signed up in its first year. Rather than presenting an array of pictures, SoSyncd gives potential partners a compatibility score based on psychoanalyst Carl Jung's theory of personality types - for example ambitious, nurturing, practical or fun. SoSyncd is free and a paid-for upgrade service is planned for later this year.
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A Matchmaking Alliance Was Set up in Shanghai
GLOBAL TIMES - Jan 13 - A "co-sharing matchmaking service" consisting of Shanghai's 28 matchmaking agencies has been set up in Shanghai, aiming to buck the declining marriage trend. Member agencies of the alliance will share with each other the information about their clients, including their personal details and preferences, to expand the pool of potential marriage partners, said the Shanghai Marriage Introduction Organization Administration Association, a government-backed group that built the alliance. Shanghai has ~3M single adults. The marriage rate has experienced a six-year consecutive drop, falling from 10.5 per thousand in 2013 to 6.8 per thousand in 2019, according to the local civil affairs authority.
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FriendFinder Networks Achieves Court Judgment Against Match Group
BUSINESSWIRE - Jan 12 - In 2019, FFN discovered it had overpaid PlentyofFish by $116K for members sent to AdultFriendFinder over the course of a business relationship that goes back to 2011. Unfortunately, PlentyOfFish refused to correct this overpayment, and it was necessary to file litigation. FFN has paid over $13M since 2011 for the members PlentyOfFish sent to its adult websites.
See full article at Businesswire
See all posts on FriendFinder Networks
See the top news on Match Group
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Single Seniors Excited for Vaccine so They Can Date Again
NEW YORK POST - Jan 11 - Helen Fisher, Ph.D., an anthropologist who conducts scientific surveys for Match.com, predicts that "seniors will be out in droves. They have been more cautious over the past year than their younger counterparts, but as soon as they're vaccinated they'll be out." According to Fisher, video chatting will remain commonplace as an important "vetting stage" before in-person dating. But, she added, "The brain is built to meet somebody in person. It's much more intense." Like everyone else, older singles are looking for "romantic love," she said.
by Suzy Weiss & Doree Lewak
See full article at New York Post
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Matrimony.com Launches New Matchmaking Portal Only for Doctors
BUSINESS TODAY - Jan 11 - DoctorsMatrimony.com was launched after Matrimony saw a 40% increase in the number of doctors registering over the past 3 years. Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder and CEO, Matrimony.com, while explaining why they launched an exclusive service for doctors, said, "Most doctors feel the need for a companion who understands their profession and shared values well and that seems possible when the life partner is also a doctor."
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The Ex-cop Behind China's Largest Gay Dating App
TECHXPLORE - Jan 8 - Browsing the Internet as a young policeman in China, Ma Baoli recalls the sheer volume of web pages telling him he was a pervert, diseased and in need of treatment - simply because he was gay. Two decades later, the softly spoken 43-year-old now helms Blued, one of the world's largest dating platforms for gay men. The app went public last July with an $85M debut on Nasdaq. Ma's journey to the apex of China's tech industry began in the early 2000s when he began publishing Danlan.org, a blog about his life as a gay man. Ma's blog gradually expanded into an influential online forum for LGBTQ people in China. Increasing local media coverage of the website outed Ma to his coworkers and prompted him to leave the police force in 2012. He launched Blued the same year. The app today says it has 58M users. It has yet to turn a profit but company figures show losses have narrowed since the platform began paid memberships, livestreams and ads in 2016.
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Five Experts Share 2020 Lessons About App Marketing and Engagement
FORBES - Jan 8 - From time spent in mobile apps to revenues generated by in-app purchases and subscriptions, metrics broke the records in 2020. Downloads reached 130B, and consumer spending grew to $112B by year end. However, marketers will need to invest more than money to sustain current growth and engagement. Most markets are saturated, and many consumers are taking longer to convert.
#1 Amaze customers with coherent user journeys
While it's tempting to focus on top-funnel metrics to attract new users, it's critical to deepen engagement with existing ones, says Noa Gutterman, Director of Marketing at VSCO, one of the largest photo/video editing apps on the market. Marketers should also focus on high-value users, not high volume. Her advice: Create a coherent user journey with creatives.
#2 Educate consumers with contextual campaigns and cues
"In 2020, mobile payment apps turned from a nice-to-have to an essential in this pandemic," says AJ Wang, Head of Acquisitions and Performance Marketing for fintech app GCash. His advice: Marketers should shift gears to become "lifestyle enablers," showing consumers how they can continue to manage all aspects of their financial lives and well-being from home.
#3 Listen, act and innovate to drive customer connection
A December Morning Brew/Harris poll found that 40% are using dating apps more, and 44% have anxiety over lost time dating in real life. "Covid has changed the face of dating, ushering in a new era of video dating with more daters opting to video chat and date virtually than ever before," according to Jade Worobec, head of performance marketing at The Meet Group. Her advice: Adapt to user needs quickly to show you have their back.
#4 Unravel data to retain subscribers in a post-IDFA world
Costs to acquire app subscribers hover at the high end of the scale, which is why marketers must optimize the events that deliver high-intent users likely to stay for the long haul. Apple's decision to revoke its identifier for advertisers (IDFA) makes an even bigger challenge. Oliver Wang, a Senior Growth Manager at Elevate Labs, a company that offers a suite of brain-training tools to help users boost practical skills, disagrees. His advice: Optimize events to improve the signals you send ad networks.
#5 Get out of your comfort zone and leverage new channels
Depending on where you sit, TikTok is at the center of controversial debate or the epicenter of successful and viral campaigns. 2020 will go down as the year the video-sharing social networking service broke into mainstream media. "We found early success on TikTok through its influencer network, particularly as it relates to engagement with our ad creative", says Chy Seng, Mobile Marketing Manager GRAMMARLY.
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