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

Facebook Dating Opens to Friends With Secret Crush

TECH CRUNCH - May 1 - Facebook built Dating to be privacy-safe, hoping to avoid the awkwardness of friends or family checking out users' romance profile. Facebook has announced at its F8 conference that Dating is opening in 14 more countries, bringing the total to 19. It will launch in the US before the end of the year. Dating brings with it a new feature called Secret Crush. Users can choose up to 9 friends they like-like. If they've opted into Facebook Dating, they'll get a notification that some friend has a crush on them. If they add them as a Secret Crush too, they're both notified and can chat on Messenger.

by Josh Constine
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Facebook Dating Is Launching In Colombia

TECH CRUNCH - Sep 20 - Users in Colombia are able to create a Facebook Dating profile now, but the company won't start serving matches until there are enough sign ups. The dating feature is centered around an algorithm-powered homescreen of Suggested romantic matches based on everything Facebook knows about users. There's no swiping and it's not trying to look cool. "The goal of the team is to make Facebook simply the best place to start a relationship online", said Facebook Dating's product manager Nathan Sharp. For now there are no plans to monetize it with ads or premium subscriptions to bonus features. When users opt in, they verify their city using their phone's location services, and decide whether to add details like a free-form bio, workplace, education, religion, height, and if they have children. Facebook offers non-binary genders and sexual orientations. To fill out their profile, they'll choose up to a dozen photos they upload, are tagged in, previously posted to Facebook, or cross-posted from Instagram as well as answer up to 20 questions about their personality. Users can select to filter their matches by distance (up to a max radius of 100km), if they have children, religion, height, and age.

by Josh Constine
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Summarized by the IDEA team

Here's Mary Meeker's Essential 2018 Internet Trends Report

TECH CRUNCH - June 5 - Legendary venture capitalist Mary Meeker has just released the 2018 version of her famous Internet Trends report. As of 2018, half the world population, or ~3.6B people, will be on the Internet.

• Mobile usage: U.S. adults are spending more time online thanks to mobile, clocking 5.9h per day in 2017 vs 5.6h in 2016.
• Mobile ads: $7B mobile ad opportunity.
• Crypto: Coinbase's user count has nearly quadrupled since January 2017.
• Voice: Voice technology is at an inflection point due to speech recognition hitting 95% accuracy and the sales explosion for Amazon Echo which went from ~10M to 30M sold in total by the end of 2017.
• Tech investment: We're at an all-time high for public and private investment in technology.
• Ecommerce vs Brick & Mortar: Ecommerce growth quickens as now 13% of all retail purchases happen online.
• Amazon: More people start product searches on Amazon than search engines now.
• Subscription services: They're seeing massive adoption, with Netflix up 25%, The New York Times up 43%, and Spotify up 48% YOY in 2017.
• Education: Employees seek retraining and education from YouTube and online courses to keep up with new job requirements and pay off skyrocketing student loan debt.
• Freelancing: The on-demand workforce grew 23% in 2017 driven by Uber, Airbnb, Etsy, Upwork, and Doordash.
• Transportation: People are buying fewer cars, shifting transportation spend to rideshare, which saw rides double in 2017.
• Enterprise: Consumerization of the enterprise through better interfaces is spurring growth for companies like Dropbox and Slack.
• China: Alibaba is expanding beyond China with strong gross merchandise volume, though Amazon still rules in revenue.
• Privacy: China has a big opportunity as users there are much more willing to trade their personal data for product benefits than U.S. users.
• Immigration: 56% of top U.S. companies were founded by a first- or second-generation immigrant.

by Josh Constine
See full article at Tech Crunch

Summarized by the IDEA team

How Raya's $8/Month Dating App Turned Exclusivity Into Trust

TECH CRUNCH - Mar 24 - Raya is less like Tinder and more like a secret society. It costs a flat $7.99 for everyone, women and celebrities included. Launched in March 2015, Raya has purposefully flown under the radar. No interviews. Little info about the founders. In late 2016 it quietly acquired video messaging startup Chime, led by early Facebooker Jared Morgenstern, without anyone noticing. He'd become Raya's first investor a year earlier. The app has reportedly attracted celebrities like DJs Diplo and Skrillex, actors Elijah Wood and Amy Schumer and musicians Demi Lovato and John Mayer, plus scores of Instagram models and tattooed creative directors. Raya users can now see nearby people on a map when GPS says they're at hot spots like bars, dance halls and cafes.

by Josh Constine
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Summarized by the IDEA team

Facebook Should Actually Be Tinder Too

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 17 - Facebook's latest attempt is a Meetups feature. It surfaces big groups of friends saying some might want to hang out. If both both users say yes, it connects you over Messenger. The idea behind Meetups is smart, but the execution is a mess. Because Meetups ambiguously shows multiple people at once, sends aggressive notifications to participate and encompasses all kinds of relationships. Facebook should build a "Matchmaker" feature into its profiles. If you're romantically interested in someone, you could hit a button on their profile that they've opted in to displaying. If they hit the button on yours too, Facebook lets you both know. Facebook's made it easier than ever to "feel connected," endlessly scrolling through friends' photos, while actually allowing us to isolate ourselves. Matchmaker is its chance to fulfill the most fundamental purpose of what we used to call "social networks."

by Josh Constine
See full article at Tech Crunch

Summarized by the IDEA team

MeetMe Acquires If(we), Parent Company Of Tagged And Hi5

TECH CRUNCH - Mar 7 - The deal is worth $60M in cash, partially funded by a $30M loan from JP Morgan. Tagged and Hi5 will both remain their own distinct brands. If(we) reported $44M revenue in 2016, with 56% coming from mobile and claimed to have 5.4M MAU, with 18k new users coming every day. The company managed to raise $28.7M. After the merger, the combined company will have 10.6M MAU and nearly 1.1M DAU. MeetMe expects If(we) to add $9M to its earnings over the next 12 months.

by Josh Constine
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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Zoosk Drops 1/3 Of Its Staff

TECH CRUNCH - Jan 14 - Despite $61M in funding, Zoosk is laying off 1/3 of its staff. ~40 people will be let go. Founded in 2007, Zoosk found success by building extensions for MySpace, Facebook, Hi5, and Bebo. It reached 40M registered users and 12M actives by 2009. Zoosk made money by selling subscriptions. The dating app ditched its IPO plans in 2014, and its founders stepped down. Former CFO Kelly Steckelberg became CEO. "To operate as a sustainable, profitable and innovative company, we've made the difficult but necessary decision to reduce our headcount", she commented.

by Josh Constine
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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Tagged Founder Greg Tseng Tags Out After 11 Years As CEO

TECH CRUNCH - Dec 2 - Greg Tseng is stepping down from the CEO role after 11 years running its dating social network Tagged and game studio hi5. He'll remain a board member. The company's new CEO will be its COO Dash Gopinath, who was formerly the Chief Product Officer of Tagged competitor Badoo. Tagged still have a team of ~100 people and 2015 will be its 8th consecutive profitable year. The company raised $12M.

by Josh Constine
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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Hinge Raised $4.5M

TECH CRUNCH - July 2 - VCs Founders Fund and Lowercase Capital invested $4.5M in online dating app, Hinge. Hinge delivers a daily set of tailored matches based on users' profession, education and interests. Hinge’s iOS and Android userbase grew 300% this year in the nine cities it operates in: DC, Philadelphia, NYC, Boston, San Fransicso, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and L.A. The new round brings it to $8.6M in total funding. The money will go to focusing on new product features.

by Josh Constine
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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Hinge Launches In San Francisco

TECH CRUNCH - Jan 17 - Dating app Hinge launched in Feb in Washington. It saw ~25% monthly growth as it expanded to New York and Boston. In Nov it raised $4M. The app looks a lot like Tinder with their swipe to approve or dismiss matches, and the option to chat if users like each other. But Hinge users receive a limited set of potential matches each day to seriously consider each person and check out the profiles rather than photos. Hinge plans to monetize by selling premium services that enhance users’ experiences.

by Josh Constine
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Hinge Raised $4M

TECH CRUNCH - Nov 4 - Mobile dating app, Hinge, has raised a $4M Series A from Great Oaks, Social + Capital, and more. At first glance, the app looks like Tinder. It gives you one potential mate at a time that you can swipe right to approve or swipe left to dismiss. If two people approve each other, they’re allowed to chat within Hinge. Founder Justin McLeod believes that people use this app to find romance as opposed to Tinder, mostly known for hookups. Since expanding beyond its home city of DC in August to New York and Boston, Hinge has doubled its user count to 60K.

by Josh Constine
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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

How Badoo Got 130 Million People And $100M In Revenue

TECH CRUNCH - Dec 6 - Badoo has recently reached 130M registered users and now brings in $100M a year. Badoo would be the 4th biggest social network if it was just a social network. But Badoo adapts to the local needs of its international user base. In the UK it’s used for casual dating, in the Czech Republic it’s a marriage site, and in Indonesia burqa-clad women find self-expression on the site. While it can be tempting to gate some crucial features behind a pay wall, Badoo decided to make all of its core functionality free. While it was growing to a scale where it could support itself, Badoo took $30M in funding. Now it doesn’t need to take additional funding rounds. To reach its $100M in yearly revenues, though, Badoo lets users pay to be more visible and learn who they should try to start a conversation with.

by Josh Constine
See the full article at Tech Crunch

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