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

Byte of Life: the Economics of Tinder

DAILY TROJAN - Tinder is the undisputed leader of the dating app ecosystem. The app found its place during the 2010s tech startup boom because of its quirky yet simple matchmaking system and its swipe feature. Tinder's algorithm utilized an "Elo score," which assigns a number to each user based on the self-learning algorithm's perceived beauty of them. In 2019, Tinder announced that it updated its algorithm. Scrapping the Elo score for a less competitive system, their new algorithm supposedly matched users based on similar swiping histories and common user profiles. It eliminates great matches that probably would have occurred if the Tinder algorithm wasn't used in the first place. While Tinder's revenue and user base grow each year, Tinder is not the future of dating. This is because algorithms are fundamentally opposite in nature to one of the most important factors in human relationships: unpredictability!

by Miguel Mercado
See full article at Daily Trojan

See the top news on Tinder

46% Single Indians Looking for Committed, Serious Relationship: Bumble Survey

EVERYTHING EXPERIENTIAL - Bumble has revealed that one in two (46%) single Indians are looking for a committed, serious relationship in 2021, post the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. "One in five people are looking to get married. More than one in three (33%) are feeling hopeful about dating right now as lockdown restrictions lift across India. Meanwhile, 33% of single Indians are using video dates to really get to know each other better before meeting IRL," the survey said.

by Abhishek Sharma
See full article at Everything Experiential

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White Label Dating Partners With Fonix to Enable Phone-based Carrier Billing

PRESS RELEASE - Dating SaaS platform, WhiteLabelDating.com, has partnered with Fonix to facilitate carrier billing for online dating subscriptions. The Fonix Carrier Billing platform enables White Label Dating to charge subscriptions to a member's mobile phone bill.

See full article at WLD website

See the top news on WhiteLabelDating.com

Investors See Big Potential in Smaller Online Dating Companies

WALL STREET JOURNAL - Since Jan '19, App Annie data show U.S. users have spent 7.4M hours on dating apps a month on Android phones alone. Match Group and Bumble collectively boast ~$50B in fully diluted market value, but plenty of businesses are trying. Coffee Meets Bagel, which hits users with algorithmically curated matches every day at noon, has made ~130M matches since its launch in 2012. Hily, which works to make it easier to start conversations, has 22M users. Snack, which is focused on video-first dating, was the 10th most-downloaded dating app in the U.S. last month, according to App Annie. Some just need a larger platform to help them take off. Hinge, in which Match took a majority stake in 2018 before acquiring it in 2019, saw ~100K U.S. downloads in Jan '18. By Mar '21, it was closer to 600K. Berlin-based Spark Networks did $233M in revenue last year. And then there is eHarmony owner ParshipMeet, which is preparing for a 2022 IPO. In the Q2 it had €139M ($164.2M) in revenue.

by Laura Forman
See full article at Wall Street Journal

Match and Bumble Should Benefit From Apple Decision

THE STREET - Match Group and Bumble should benefit from the court ruling last week that Apple can no longer prevent apps from offering direct payment options, says Cowen analyst John Blackledge. Match spent ~$500M in app store payments in 2020, or just under 80% of cost of revenue, he said. He estimates that 75% of these fees went to Apple. "If we assume that 50% of Match's iOS customers will opt to pay via credit card on the Match website (with a 3% take for payment processing), Match could generate an additional $295M in 2022 Ebitda, a 19% increase vs. our current estimate of $1.58B," he wrote. Bumble would see 2022 Ebitda rise by $88M.

by Dan Weil
See full article at The Street

See the top news on Match Group
See the top news on Bumble

Internet Dating Jobs Listing Update - September 2021

OPW - 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
  VP, Growth Marketing

CoffeeMeetsBagel
  VP of Marketing, Asia

Dil Mil
  VP Product

Lovoo
  Chief Product Officer

Match Group
  VP, Product

Reflex Media
  VP of Finance

The League
  VP Marketing

Twoo (Massive Media)
  VP Community - Ablo

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.

So Syncd Dating App Nears Six-figure Revenue

EXPRESS.CO.UK - Sisters Jessica and Louella Alderson launched So Syncd, a new dating app promising to help people find true love through personality type matching and has since seen 100K users and ~ 1K couples find love, collecting a few marriages and six-figure revenue along the way. So Syncd uses the Myers-Briggs test to match potential couples by weighing up their strengths and weaknesses to create a "perfect complementary couple".

by Samantha Leathers
See full article at Express.co.uk

See the top news on So Syncd

Ireland's Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival Is Headed to Spain

IRISH CENTRAL - The world-famous Lisdoonvarna matchmaking festival is heading abroad for the first time to Spain. The long-running festival, which is Europe's biggest singles event, is being held in a small coastal town of Cabo Roig in the Alicante region between the 19th and 26th of October.

by Nick Bramhill
See full article at Irish Central

Yu-kai Chou - Using Gamification to Influence User Behaviors

OPW - The integration of gaming elements, either explicitly or implicitly, is a powerful way to engage with users and motivate their behaviors. Yu-kai Chou, Founding Partner and Chief Creation Officer of The Octalysis Group, is a leading expert in gamification. He is also the author of Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards. Chou created the Octalysis Framework to describe the eight components of gamification: epic meaning, accomplishment, empowerment, ownership, social influence, scarcity, unpredictability, and avoidance. These are the core drives that influence user behavior. Yu-kai Chou provides a detailed explanation of gamification in the latest video in the LTR Conference series.

LTR stands for Love, Technology, Relationships and the online conference covers the Internet dating and Online Social Communities space. It is for members of IDEA and OSCA.

The June LTR was kindly sponsored by RealMe, vPaaS by The Meet Group & Courtland Brooks.

Apple Prohibited From Blocking Outside Payment in Epic Ruling

TECH CRUNCH - A judge this morning issued a ruling in California's Epic Games v. Apple case, siding with the Fortnite maker on the topic of third-party payments. Effectively, Apple cannot prohibit developers from adding links for alternative payments beyond Apple's App Store-based monetization. The ruling notes:

• Apple... are permanently restrained...from prohibiting developers from...including...external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to In-App Purchasing....
• Also, in S.Korea, a new law forced Apple & Google to allow developers to use their own third-party payment systems.
• Apple will have to adjust its rules. It could choose to require apps to include Apple's own in-app payments option as an option, for example.

by Brian Heater & Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

Mark Brooks: This is huge news for dating and social apps of course. Apple will surely appeal, but hopefully this judgement will stand and consumers will be able to enjoy more payment options, albeit at the cost of some inconvenience. Hopefully Apple and Google will be compelled to become more competitve in this new reality. What do you think? Please comment below.

WhiteLabelDating.com Reaches 1M Views Milestone on 'Video Stories' Feature

PR NEWSWIRE - Dating SaaS platform, WhiteLabelDating.com, reached 1M video story views following the launch of their new 'Instagram-like' feature in late August 2021. Traditional dating profiles tend to only highlight a user's most polished photos and can hide the unfiltered personalities of members. Using video stories, White Label Dating has given users the opportunity to communicate more openly and to authentically share their true selves.

See full article at PR Newswire

See the top news on WhiteLabelDating.com

Renate Nyborg Is the New CEO of Tinder

TECH CRUNCH - Ten days after Apollo Global completed its acquisition of Yahoo (formerly Verizon Media) from Verizon for $5B, it has appointed Jim Lanzone, the current CEO of Tinder (for 14 months) as the new CEO of Yahoo. Renate Nyborg, Tinder's head of EMEA, is taking the CEO role at Tinder. Nyborg is young but has a long track record in tech, at Headspace, Apple (subscriptions & developer relations), and building her own startups. Her connection to Tinder is personal. "I swiped right on my husband and it changed my life.... We are building the most fun, inclusive, safest place for singles to connect... We're...raising the bar for the industry."

by Ingrid Lunden
See full article at Tech Crunch

See the top news on Tinder

Bumble Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd: "We Need to Stop Giving People Responsibilities Based on Gender"

VOGUE -

Q: Ms. Wolfe Herd, this year you were the youngest woman to ever list a company on the stock exchange. What does this label mean to you?
Whitney Wolfe Herd: When you consider that there have been hundreds of IPOs led by men my age, this seems rather daunting. There are so many incredible women out there who are much more talented than me. And the fact that I have that title just goes to show how difficult it is to do it.

Q: In your opinion, what are the crucial things that need to change?
A: I think we need to stop giving people responsibilities based on gender.

Q: How can family and career be reconciled in your company?
A: We allow our employees to work within schedules that suit their families - not just women, but men too, after all, feminism is about us all.

Q: And what has to be done so that more women get into the tech industry?
A: We have to start with education. We need to encourage more women to get into STEM subjects.

Q: Which of your professional successes are you particularly proud of?
A: Every day it has been my drive to ensure that we create a safer, more equitable online experience that will hopefully also steer offline behavior in a positive direction. We achieved that. We even helped pass a law!

Q: Is there anything that you are dying to learn?
A: Loads of things! I want to learn more languages. I want to learn how to write code. I want to learn meditation. I think the moment you have nothing more to learn, life is over.

by Maria Hunstig
See full article at Vogue

See the top news on Bumble

New Privacy Features for Grindr Users

GRINDR BLOG - Gay dating app Grindr has introduced two new privacy features. 1. Access and Portability. All Grindr users now have automated access to the information stored by Grindr about them, and the information is portable, meaning Grindr will email users a copy of their information. 2. Ad Targeting Opt-Out, which allows users to opt out of LGBTQ+ ads outside their use of the Grindr app.

by Shane Wiley
See full article at Grindr Blog

See the top news on Grindr

Bumble Shares Dip After Hours on Secondary Stock Offering

MARKETWATCH - Bumble's shares fell 3.4% after hours to $55.78 after the dating app company said that an affiliate of Blackstone will offer the public 15M shares of the company. Bumble doesn't intend to sell any of its shares and won't receive proceeds from the sale. However, it will incur some costs associated with the sale, the company said.

by Kimberly Chin
See full article at Marketwatch

See the top news on Bumble