OPW - "As of September 30, 2022, Ship is no longer available. For questions or concerns, please contact us", says a message on the getship.co website. It is unclear why Match Group quietly pulled the plug on Ship, a dating app that lets singles involve friends in the matchmaking process, but it seems the app did not get enough traction. In the latest earnings call, Bernard Kim, Match Group CEO, said: "We must focus our investment on brands that are growing and pull back in areas that are not driving growth." This is the strategy Match Group is taking in 2023.
7 posts categorized "Ship"
Match Group Shuts Down Dating App Ship
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Niche Dating Apps Are the Next Big Thing
WALL STREET JOURNAL - Aug 2 - The options range from apps for those committed to sobriety (Loosid) and people on the autism spectrum (Hiki), to matchmakers for fitness buffs (TeamUp), dog lovers (Dig), gamers (Kippo), vegetarians (Veggly) and amateur astrologists (Stars Align, NUiT and the Pattern). "S'More" helps users pair up by shifting the focus from physical appearances to mutual goals and interests. When matches first connect, they see only blurred versions of each other's profile photos, along with bios, hobbies and answers to prompts like "What are your top 3 qualities in a match?" As they exchange messages, their photos gradually un-blur. Christian Mingle was launched in 2001, while Grindr made its debut in 2009 and Tastebuds, which matches people based on their taste in music, showed up in 2010.
10 oddly specific, real dating sites
- Bristlr: For bearded men and women who love beards
- Zombie Passions: For those hung up on the "undead"
- Sea Captain Date: For seafarers seeking their first mates
- Clown Dating: "Everyone loves a clown"
- Mullet Passions: For anyone who likes a good party in the back
- Paranormal Dating: For those with metaphysical fixations
- Equestrian Cupid: Because horse gals and lads deserve love, too
- Sizzlr: For lovers of all things bacon
- Twindog: To help your furry friend find a canine best friend
- Ship: If you want your friends to do your swiping for you
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Dating Apps Wingman and Ship Let Friends Take Over
ESQUIRE - Mar 18 - Tina Wilson is the founder of Wingman, a 3-year-old app that allows users to recruit friends and family to swipe on their behalf. Like many, she was irritated by the fake profiles and bad matches that come with online dating. "I kind of had that light bulb moment," says Wilson. "Wow, wouldn't it be fun if I could just let my friends do it for me? They have great insights. They're always going to toot my horn, and they love me, but they can also talk about my flaws and help me bypass some of the craziness that goes on." Ship is another friend-swiping app that launched last year. It is not surprising that both Wingman and Ship were founded by women; men, studies have found, often have a harder time than women building and maintaining friendships. In Britain, nearly 1 in 5 men says he has no friends at all. According to a spokesperson for Ship, women tend to have more friends swiping on their behalf than men do.
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Dating App Ship Lets Friends Find Your Matches
ENGADGET - Aug 15 - The Match Group and Betches Media have now released an Android version of Ship, which lets users swipe for their friends and discuss profiles in group messages. The iOS version, which debuted back in January, is now the fastest-growing dating app in the Match Group family. With Ship, users can invite their friends (as well as parents and siblings) to join a "crew". Members of the user's crew can swipe on dating profiles on their behalf. A "crew chat" group messaging feature can be used for members to discuss the merits of a potential match.
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Females 'Ship' MatchGroup's New Dating App
WALL STREET JOURNAL - May 21 - Match Group has teamed up with millennial digital brand Betches to create Ship, which was launched in January. Ship allows friends to vet potential mates for one another. On its first-quarter conference call in early May, Match said Ship is seeing strong engagement in big cities. The company said ~70% of registrations thus far are female and ~60% of matches are made by friends.
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Dating Startups Aim For Disruption, But Good Ideas Can't Buy Them Love From Investors
CRUNCHBASE - Apr 3 - US dating startups haven't attracted much funding. There were ~40 companies in the "dating" category on Crunchbase that were founded in the past three years, each with their own spin on the gaps they believe Tinder and Bumble haven't been able to fill. Tina Wilson founded Wingman, a dating app which involves friends in the dating process. Match Group partnered with content platform Betches to launch a similar app called Ship. Another new dating startup is Plum. The app is currently in its beta and aims to incentivize men to behave appropriately by implementing a ratings system based on communication, follow-through, and profile authenticity. "Anyone can have a good idea, but if the audience isn't there to back it up, that presents quite an issue," says Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO of Spark Networks. "It's very difficult for small companies to reach critical mass. That's a result of the sheer amount of competition and the massive amount of money that is required to spend on marketing," he said. But what does work? The backing of large players like The Match Group and Badoo. "Hinge is an excellent example of a company that had an amazing product, great concept, and it was going nowhere, and Match bought it for almost nothing," Folgueira explained, adding that now, with Match's backing, Hinge will be huge.
by Savannah Dowling
See full article at Tech Crunch
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Match Group and Betches Partner for a New Dating App "Ship"
THE VERGE - Jan 22 - Match Group and the media brand Betches are partnering to launch an iOS dating app that allows users to help their friends pick out potential dates. The app is called Ship, and it lets users swipe for their friends and chat about profiles in a group chat within the app. Match supplies the tech expertise for Ship while Betches provides the branding, marketing, and bigger idea. Betches started as a website and is now a viral social media and digital humor company with ~6M Instagram followers and ~3M monthly unique visitors. Match is likely leveraging that built-in group to see if they can serve as a pool of daters from the onset. For now, there isn't a revenue model for Ship, although that'll probably change, assuming it attracts enough people to be successful.
by Ashley Carman
See full article at The Verge
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