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

9 Dating Apps and Sites That Died

MASHABLE - Here are nine dating sites and apps that died. RIP.

1. Sparked
   Facebook Dating launched in 2019, five years after founder Mark Zuckerberg claimed that Facebook was a better dating site than Tinder. Facebook Dating has thousands of active users, while Tinder has millions. Facebook tried again with Sparked, a video speed dating app that launched last year. Sparked shut down less than a year after its inception.
2. Chappy
   UK reality star Ollie Locke launched gay dating app Chappy in 2018 with help from Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd. Chappy shut down and folded into Bumble just two years later.
3. Hater
   Hater made waves back in 2017. This app's niche was connecting people through things they despise. App founder Brandon Alper pitched Hater on Shark Tank in 2017 and received $200K from billionaire Mark Cuban, but the following year Hater wasn't making money.
4. HowAboutWe
   HowAboutWe was an innovative dating app in that singles snagged dates by suggesting activities with each other. HowAboutWe's demise was due to a buyout. Match acquired HowAboutWe in 2014, and the site is no more.
5. Spoonr
   First called Cuddlr, the app launched in 2014 to help people find platonic cuddle buddies. Cuddlr shut down in 2015 and rebranded as Spoonr months later. Spoonr closed in 2017 with a tweet: "It was fun while it lasted! SPOONR is now closed! Hugs."
6. Siren
   Siren launched in 2015 by two women of color to "fight the swipe" of dating apps created by men. Instead of swiping, Siren posed daily questions for users to answer and seek potential matches based on whose responses they liked. Siren shuttered in 2017 with a blog post. Co-founders Susie Lee and Katrina Hess claimed that investors didn't complete their payments, and the app ran out of money.
7. Missed Connections
   Oh, Craigslist Missed Connections. Gone too soon.
8. Yahoo! Personals
   A site with the same fate as Craigslists' personals, Yahoo! Personals shuttered in 2010 when it merged with Match.
9. GreatBoyfriends.com and GreatGirlfriends.com
   A two-for-one, GreatBoyfriends and GreatGirlfriends launched in 2002 by then-Elle Magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll. GreatBoyfriends and Girlfriends died after wedding site The Knot acquired them in 2005.

by Anna Iovine
See full article at Mashable

Feminist Dating App Siren Is Shutting Down

THE STRANGER - Apr 4 - Siren, a dating app designed by and for women, is shutting down on April 7. Founder Susie Lee, a Seattle artist and entrepreneur, cited financial difficulties as the reason. "The efforts of two co-founders alone were not enough to compete with the well-funded companies in this space," Lee wrote in an e-mail. Siren was unique. Rather than focusing profiles on a woman's looks, the app was a place where genuine conversations could flourish. Currently, Lee said she isn't sure what the future holds for her and Siren Design Director Katrina Hess. "The mission of Siren, which is compassion and humanity in technology, will definitely live on in our next endeavor," Lee said.

by Ana Sofia Knauf
See full article at The Stranger

See all posts on Siren

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Tinder's Competitors Are Banking On Its Sleazy Image

BUSINESS INSIDER - Nov 5 - When Tinder launched in 2012, every match felt like an adrenaline rush. But those matches are no longer quite as exciting. A 2016 study looked at the user reviews of 97 dating apps and analyzed how their quality scores have changed over the past year. Tinder experienced the largest YOY decline. In a 2016 survey by Consumers' Research, 13% of Tinder users reported relationships lasting longer than one month. Its photo-based interface probably contributed to its hookup image. Apps like Bumble, Hinge, Happn, Coffee Meets Bagel, Siren, Her are not heavily photo-based. Bumble has a similar interface as Tinder, but doesn't have the reputation of being a hookup app. That's because only women can message their matches first on Bumble. Men seem to like the app because women seem to take more initiative in starting a conversation. Siren, which launched in late 2015, abandons the swipe interface entirely. It features a daily question and a feed that displays users' answers.

by Leanna Garfield
See full article at Business Insider

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Siren's #MoreThanMeat Campaign Against Tinder

REFINERY 29 - July 11 - Siren has pitted itself against Tinder with its new #MoreThanMeat campaign, which encourages Tinder users to make a "MeatFace" of their profile picture. Users can create their own MeatFace selfie whether or not they have a Siren account. "Tinder feels like a crazy stupid frat party," states Siren CEO and cofounder Susie Lee. "That's not honestly how you'd navigate your life most of the time." Instead, Lee and her company hope to use "technology to create a more humane space for people to meet and really solve the problem of loneliness."

by Sara Murphy
See full article at Refinery 29

See all posts on Siren

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Dating App Siren To Be Featured In The PBS Series 'Start Up'

GEEKWIRE - May 18 - The dating app was founded by Susie Lee and Katrina Hess in 2014. It relies on conversation as a starting point rather than photo surfing. Siren raised $500K this spring.

by Kurt Schlosser
See full article at Geekwire

See all posts on Siren

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Female Friendly Dating App Siren Raised $500K

GEEKWIRE - Mar 22 - Siren, the dating app that lets women make the first move, has raised $500K of a planned $750,000 seed round. The dating app, which won App of the Year at last year's GeekWire Awards, will use the money to further develop their platform and user base. Currently, the app has ~20K users.

by Madeline Vuong
See full article at Geekwire

See all posts on Siren

This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Siren Dating App's 2015 Year In Review

HUFFINGTON POST - Dec 31 - Siren, a female-friendly dating site that lets women be in control, launched in 2014. Durex approached Siren to partner in their campaign #Connect that went viral with ~37M views. Siren won Geekwire's App of the Year, beating out Starbucks and Alaska Airlines. The app was also named one of the Top 10 startups to watch in Seattle. In November, Siren started to serve the LGBTQ community, growing 150% in the last three months.

by Susie Lee
See full article at Huffington Post

See all posts on Siren

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Siren Is Another Female-Friendly Dating App

HUFFINGTON POST - Dec 10 - Susie Lee launched Siren, a female-friendly dating app, two months ago. Siren allows women to control their own visibility. Users choose who gets to see their photos and when, exactly, they reveal them. After two months, the app gained 9,500 members, and the female-to-male ratio is 53:47 across all ages, according to Lee. There is no swiping, users get to know each other through a "Question of the Day" forum.

by Kelley Calkins
See full article at Huffington Post

See all posts on Siren

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Whitney Wolfe Explains Bumble App Concept

BBC NEWS - Oct 12 - Whitney Wolfe, a co-founder of dating app Tinder, says she wants her new company to disrupt the sector, and cut back on the amount of online harassment directed towards women. She says the restrictions in the app which block men from driving the conversations are pushing social change.The word feminism has been co-opted and contorted, she says, but "what it really means is equality between men and women". When women make the first move, she says, men are often flattered and behave much more politely. Bumble isn't the only female-friendly app. Siren, a dating platform made by women, allows women to control their visibility, so they can block their profile from other users.

by Regan Morris
See full article at BBC News

See all posts on Bumble
See all posts on Siren

Summarized by

Bumble, Siren, The Grade - Female Friendly Dating Apps

THE GUARDIAN - Apr 12 - There are now ~91M people on dating apps – and most of that is thanks to Tinder that makes 21M matches and processes 1.5B swipes every day. A new generation of app developers, many of them women, are launching female-orientated dating apps where women are the gatekeepers. One of them is Bumble, founded by Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe. "Bumble is about establishing equality", she says. "When some men feel rejected, they respond with aggression. So if we eliminate the rejection, what is there to be aggressive about?” Susie Lee is the creator of Siren, an app where a woman’s photos are hidden to men until she chooses to match with them. Siren is expanding globally in the summer. Even more interesting is Wyldfire. The app's initial unique selling point is that only men invited by women could be a part of the app, though it has recently introduced an “election” feature where men can offer themselves up to have their profile vetted by female members. The Grade marks users from A+ to F depending on their popularity, quality of messages and responsiveness.

by Hannah Ellis-Petersen
See full article at The Guardian

See all posts on Siren
See all posts on The Grade
See all posts on Bumble

Summarized by

Siren: Dating App Created By Women To Filter Out Creepy Guys

THE SEATTLE TIMES - Apr 12 - Susie Lee, a Seattle-based visual artist turned tech entrepreneur, created Siren, a dating app designed to protect women from creepy messages from guys. The free app, allows women to peruse men's pictures and their answers to the "Question of the Day". If a woman is suitably impressed by a man's answers, she can make herself visible to him. Only then can he see what she looks like. The biggest hurdle Siren faces is getting enough money and users to go viral.

by Tricia Romano
See full article at Pantagraph

See all posts on Siren

Summarized by

New Dating Sites That Want To Get Rid Of Creeps

WASHINGTON POST - Oct 1 - In the past six weeks, three creep-free, lady-friendly dating sites have launched. Mesh auto-filters messages based on things like curse words, and another, Siren, lets women control which men can see their profiles. Singled Out, which launched in beta this week, solicits discussion questions from female users. Women can initiate messages with the men whose answers interest them.

by Caitlin Dewey
See full article at Wasthington Post

See all posts on Siren
See all posts on SingledOut

Summarized by

Siren: Empowers Women With ‘Constructive Flirting’

GEEKWIRE - Aug 14 - Siren is a unique tool that lets women make the first move and takes inspiration from Seattle entrepreneur Susie Lee’s experience as a respected contemporary digital artist. Arriving in the App Store this week, the app gives power to women and ditches the notion of “matching”. While both men and women compile their profiles in the same way, only females are allowed to make the first move, giving her control of visibility and maintaining a certain level of safety. The company has raised $410K and plans to reel in revenue include a sponsored “Question of the Day,” and in-app purchases, along with a membership program.

by Taylor Soper
See full article at GeekWire