FORBES INDIA - Nov 18 - Barry Diller, the former Hollywood mogul has ground his way to a $4.2B technology fortune. At IAC he has built and spun off ten publicly traded companies, including Ticketmaster, travel giant Expedia and Match Group, Tinder's parent company, worth a combined $70B. "Spinning off Match is a process of renewal in that IAC gets to start inventing again. We are shrinking in order to grow again… shrinking with $5B of cash," he says. Former Diller lieutenant Dara Khosrowshahi, now the CEO of Uber Technologies, says, "Barry's like a shark. If he stops swimming, he dies. So he just keeps going." Diller's current hand looks challenging. Match shares were falling after Facebook said it would redouble its online dating efforts. There are also lawsuits. The co-founders of Tinder, Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, claim they were deprived of billions when the app was consolidated by Match. Diller responds sharply: "Sean Rad is a blowhard and a bad actor." Facebook, Diller adds, has yet to register as a threat to Match. "I'm not overly worried," he quips, then brings up the possibility of regulation. "I think that there are real issues," he says, turning his attention to Google. "It's okay to take our money as advertisers. It's not fine, in my opinion, to then try and get our customers."
831 posts categorized "Tinder"
Barry Diller Begins Again
| |
Tinder Introduces New Feature for Dating at Events in India
INC42 - Nov 18 - Tinder is launching a new in-app feature, Festival Mode, in India. Users can now add a badge to their profile highlighting their planned festival destination so they can match and chat with other users attending the same event before they arrive. Tinder had first introduced Festival Mode in May 2019. Since then it has enabled such dates across events such as EDC Las Vegas, Bonnaroo, British Summer Time and EDC, Orlando.
| |
Top Grossing Dating Apps Worldwide for October 2019
SENSORTOWER - Nov 13 - The top grossing dating app worldwide for Oct 2019 was Tinder with ~$88.7M in user spending, which represented 18% growth from Oct 2018. ~43% of Tinder's revenue was from the U.S., followed by 7% from UK and 5% from Australia. Bumble was #2 with ~$20M in gross revenue, which represented 44% growth YOY. 77% of Bumble's revenue was from the U.S., followed by 9% from UK. The next top grossing app was Tantan, followed by Pairs and Badoo.
| |
Tinder Seeks to Tackle Trans Harassment
BBC - Nov 12 - Many have wrongly had their profiles removed from the app because Tinder imposes an automatic ban if a profile receives lots of complaints. Transgender women had been particularly affected by the complaints and subsequent harassment. CEO Elie Seidman said the unfair complaints had been an "unforeseen consequence" of Tinder's policy that its users should not be able to filter out trans people from the profiles they are shown as potential matches.
| |
OPW Podcast - The Top Dating Industry News for Nov 12th
OPW - Nov 12 - Match Results, Magic Lab Acquisition, The Meet Group, Facebook & Tinder whitelisting.
For the top weekly dating industry news in ~2 minutes subscribe to OPW's Two Minute Tuesdays (TMT) podcast on Breaker, Google podcasts, Spotify, Anchor or Stitcher.
| |
Behind the Scenes Look at the Making of Swipe Night
OPW - Nov 9 - "'Swipe Night", Tinder's first foray in original content, was a huge success. According to Tinder, Total matches jumped 26% compared to a typical Sunday night, and messages increased 12%.
| |
Mark Zuckerberg Let Tinder Get Special Access to Users' Data
FORBES - Nov 8 - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg considered entering the online dating business as far back as 2014, but he put the idea on the back burner, instead giving Tinder special access to its users' data, leaked emails between top executives show. The leaked correspondence is part of an ongoing lawsuit between Facebook and Six4Three, a now-defunct app developer that sued Facebook in 2015 for restricting user data access, alleging the actions were uncompetitive. The correspondence shows how perilously close Tinder came to losing key access to Facebook user information that helped Tinder grow rapidly in its early years, when members often used their Facebook logins to access the app. When Facebook further restricted the kind of information third-party apps could access after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in March 2018, Tinder's app crashed. Tinder was on Facebook's radar in 2013. Zuckerberg wrote in January 2014 to two executives: "Tinder's growth is especially alarming to me because their product is built completely on Facebook data, and it's much better than anything we've built for recommendations using the same corpus." In 2014, Facebook announced it would start preventing third-party app developers from having access to data on users' friends, including birth dates, photos and pages they liked. The company gave a May 2015 deadline for developers to comply with its new set of access rules. However, Zuckerberg made some companies and apps an exception. Tinder was one. Facebook agreed to give Tinder a special data-sharing agreement, internally known as "whitelists," if the dating app shared trademark rights on "MOMENTS." which was the planned name for a photo app that Facebook wanted to launch, an email exchange in March 2015 showed. When asked about this agreement in 2018, a spokeswoman for Tinder said: "Tinder never received special treatment, data or access related to this dispute or its resolution." Other dating apps that had whitelist agreements with Facebook include Bumble, Badoo, Coffee Meets Bagel, Hinge and jSwipe.
| |
Tinder's Interactive Video Series 'Swipe Night' Is Going International Next Year
TECH CRUNCH - Nov 7 - Swipe Night was a success. According to Match Group, "millions" of Tinder users tuned into to watch the show's episodes during its run in October, and this drove double-digit increases in both matches and messages. As a result, Match confirmed its plans to launch Swipe Night outside the U.S. in early 2020. Swipe Night asked users to make decisions to advance a narrative that followed a group of friends in an "apocalyptic adventure." The 5-minute long episodes ran every Sunday night in October from 6 PM to midnight. Swipe Night led to a 20% to 25% increase in "likes" and a 30% increase in matches. Also importantly, the series helped boost female engagement in the app. Swipe Night isn't the only video product Match Group has in the works. Plenty of Fish and Twoo are testing live streaming broadcasts.
by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch
See all posts on Tinder See all posts on POF
See all posts on Match Group See all posts on Twoo
| |
Rosette Pambakian Says Arbitration Deal Doesn't Cover Assault
LAW360 - Nov 6 - Rosette Pambakian, an ex-Tinder executive, who claims she was wrongly fired for reporting an alleged sexual assault by its parent company's then-CEO urged a California federal judge to keep the case out of arbitration, saying she was tricked into signing an unconscionable arbitration agreement that doesn't cover the purported wrongdoing.
| |
Match Group Q3 Earnings, Shares Plummet Following a Weak Q4 Forecast
WSJ - Nov 6 - In Q3, Match Group's profit rose to $151.5M, from $130M in Q3 '18. The revenue rose 22% YOY to $541.5M, topping analysts' expectations of $540.7M. Yet total operating costs and expenses jumped 20% in the quarter as selling and marketing, product development, amortization and general operating expenses nudged higher. Overall average subscribers rose to 9.6M in the latest quarter, up from 8.1M in the year-ago period. Shares of Match Group dropped 16% after the company's financial targets for the current quarter came in below analysts' estimates. Match Group said it expects total revenue for the Q4 to be $545M - $555M, falling below analysts' estimates of $559M in revenue. Match also projected adjusted EBITDA in the range of $205M to $210M, behind analysts'target of $228M, and also said it expects to spend ~$25M in long-term investments and incremental legal costs in the Q4. Match Group is involved in several legal tussles, most recently with the Federal Trade Commission over claims that it induced nonpaying users to subscribe to its Match.com app based on "fake profiles." Match is also involved in an intellectual-property battle with Bumble, as well as multiple suits against a Tinder co-founder.
| |
Tinder co-founder Sean Rad on the $2B Lawsuit Against IAC
| |
IAC Must Face Tinder Co-founder's $2 Billion Lawsuit
REUTERS - Oct 30 - A New York state appeals court has rejected IAC's bid to dismiss a $2B lawsuit by a group of Tinder founders, executives and early employees who said it undervalued the dating app to avoid paying them billions of dollars. The decision affirmed a June 13 ruling by New York State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla in Manhattan. IAC and Match separately sued Rad in January, accusing him of having secretly copied files and other proprietary information. They also filed a $400M countersuit in September accusing him of having recorded conversations with his superiors without their consent. Rad has sought to dismiss the January lawsuit, and in an Oct. 17 court filing Rad's lawyer called the countersuit "legally without merit" and an effective attempt to bankrupt Rad.
| |
Tinder and Other Dating Apps Don't Comply With Dutch Privacy Laws
NL TIMES - Oct 29 - Dating platforms Tinder, Happn, 50plusmatch, Parship, and Paiq are in violation of Dutch privacy law, according to consumers association Consumentenbond. They place tracking cookies without users' permission and their privacy statements are intentionally vague about who they share information with, according to the association. The consumers' association addressed the dating sites on this violation of the General Data Protection Regulation. Happn, 50plusmatch, and Paiq adjusted their cookies policy. Tinder and Parship did not.
by Janene Pieters
See full article at NL Times
| |
Tinder Has 50 Gender Options But Transgender People Are Being Banned
PINKNEWS.CO.UK - Oct 26 - Despite having 50 gender options, and nine sexualities, trans people say Tinder condones "discrimination" against trans people using the app, partly because of poor customer support for trans people who have been banned. A Tinder spokesperson said in a statement: "We recognize the transgender community faces challenges on Tinder, including being unfairly reported by potential matches more often than our cisgender members. This is a multifaceted, complex issue and we are working to continuously improve their experience."
| |
The Success of Tinder's Swipe Night
CNN BUSINESS - Oct 23 - "Swipe Night" is Tinder's first foray in original content. This month, Tinder released a four-part, short-form video series with a few twists. New episodes were released every Sunday in October, but were available only for six hours, from 6 p.m. to midnight local time, exclusively on the Tinder app in the US. The episodes were interactive. Users were asked to swipe left or swipe right to make a choice, which then affects the rest of the story. Third, those decisions then determined who they matched with on Tinder in the future. The purpose of "Swipe Night" was to create a discussion among Tinder users. And it worked. Total matches on Tinder jumped 26% compared to a typical Sunday night, and messages increased 12%. Given the engagement it received in the US release, Tinder is planning an international rollout of the series in February 2020.
| |
Can Facebook Buy Match Group?
TREFIS - Oct 15 - In 2018, Facebook announced that it would launch a dating feature. Facebook has the benefit of a massive user base, and even a small percentage of its users adopting a new dating feature could catapult it to the lead position in this segment. However, the perception of Facebook's treatment of user privacy will act as a major deterrent for potential users. Facebook is no stranger to growing by acquisition, and Match Group looks like a great fit. Tinder represents an asset similar in quality and potential to WhatsApp which Facebook bought in 2014. As of 2018, the following is how Match Group's Key Metrics compared with Facebook:
- User base: 7.9M for Match Group vs 2.25B for Facebook
- Average Revenue per Users (ARPU): $220 for Match Group vs $24.8 for Facebook
- Revenues: $1.7B for Match Group vs $55.8B for Facebook
- Adj EBITDA: $654M for Match Group vs $34B for Facebook
- EBITDA/user: $83 for Match Group vs $15 for Facebook
Valuations: Standalone and that of the combined entity
For Match Group, we expect EV to be 9.2x the 2020 revenues of $2.5 billion. This translates into an implied enterprise value (EV) of $22.8B for the Match Group, and also represents an EV/EBITDA of 25.5x for the company.
| |
A Lady Flew to New York to Meet Lewis Capaldi After a Tinder Match
EVENING TIMES - Oct 15 - A lucky student has had the trip of a lifetime to New York after matching with Lewis Capaldi on Tinder. She was picked by Lewis who flew her and a friend to Brooklyn for his show on October 11. The trip was part of a competition marking the Bathgate-born singer's partnership with the dating app.
| |
Top Dating News for Oct 15th - Match, Pambakian, The Meet Group, Tinder
OPW - Oct 15 - News about Match breakway, Pambakian update, The Meet Group new features, and Tinder's fabulous growth.
Here's the top dating news in ~2 minutes. Subscribe to the Two Minute Tuesdays (TMT) podcast on Breaker, Google podcasts, Spotify, Anchor or Stitcher.
| |
App Revenue Climbs 23% YOY to $21.9B in Q3
TECH CRUNCH - Oct 11 - In the Q3 of 2019, consumer revenue grew 22.9% YOY from $17.9B to reach ~$21.9B across both the App Store and Google Play worldwide, according to new data from Sensor Tower. The App Store continues to account for the large majority of this revenue, making up 65% of total spending compared with just 35% on Google Play. App Store users spent $14.2B, up 22.3% from $11.6B in Q3 2018. Google Play generated $7.7B in revenue, up 24% from $6.2B in Q3 2018. Despite the overall growth, one big app market - China - saw a slight decline. Its installs dropped 6% YOY to 2.2B. But its revenue grew by 26.9% to $4.1B. This could be attributed to the nine-month game license freeze in China which, though now lifted, had slowed momentum. The top money-making (non-game) app in the quarter was again Tinder, which generated $233M in consumer spending, up 7% over the prior quarter. Netflix was No. 2 and YouTube clocked in at No. 3, at $164M in Q3.
| |
Rad's Lawyers File to Dismiss Defamation Lawsuit
TECH CRUNCH - Oct 9 - Last week, former Tinder CEO Greg Blatt filed a defamation lawsuit against Sean Rad and Rosette Pambakian, who are part of a group of Tinder founders and former executives who accused Blatt of sexual harassment and assault as part of a broader suit. Now Rad and Pambakian's attorneys have filed their own motion to dismiss the suit, arguing that it "seeks to chill protected speech through costly litigation" - in other words, that it's the kind of lawsuit prohibited under California's anti-SLAPP law.
| |