USA TODAY – Aug 2 – Founded by University of South California graduates Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, Tinder focuses on the power of first impressions. The main thrill is the lack of rejection. As they swipe through profiles, users never know whether they've been rejected or just haven't come across another user's recommended feed yet, and none of the activity is ever posted to their Facebook account. Since its launch in Sep 2012, Mateen says Tinder has seen 100M matches and 7.5 billion profile ratings. "At first around 80% of our users were 18-24, now 67% are 18-24 and we are seeing more in the 25-34 range joining," Mateen said. Match.com has only 25% of users under 30.
Month: August 2013
Interview With Meetic’s Digital Marketing Director
BANDT – Aug 1 – Meetic was founded in 2001, is headquartered in
France, and has 5M active users. Meetic’s digital marketing director
Pierric Duthoit shares some of Meetic’s history and plans for the
future.
Q: How many countries are you in now?
A: 16 countries, in 13 languages, with offices in London, Amsterdam, Madrid, Milan, Stockholm and Munich.
Q:
Meetic acquired the European operations of Match.com in 2009. In 2011,
IAC bought Meetic. How has that impacted on your business?
A: Match.com purchased an 81% capital share of Meetic. This partnership
resulted in one clear pan-European leader. It has brought us a lot of
new, fresh ideas.
Q: You must hold a lot of data about your customers. How do you use this data to enhance the customer experience?
A: We do not use members' data outside of our website. We have a
business intelligence department working on optimising the user
experience through algorithms based on users’ behaviour.
Q: You must always be after new leads. How do you acquire them?
A: We mainly use two major channels: offline and online. Both are
mandatory in our business and include TV, radio, print and billboards.
The flexibility and efficiency of online makes it a pure performance
channel for the acquisition of new members. We use all the classic
strategies like SEM, affiliation, display and partnerships.
Q: What makes Meetic different?
A: 10 years of experience. Being a leader forces you to invest in many services to stay on top.
Q: How have your digital and display strategies evolved?
A: Mobile is becoming a strong source of traffic for us. We have to be more efficient on mobile than on desktop.
The Moral Obligation Of (Internet Dating) Companies To Make Money
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL – RESEARCH & IDEAS – Aug 4 – Most of us tend not to think of capitalism as a moral system…it's one step removed from the law of the jungle. Self-interest explicitly delivers on certain moral goods for society. The social responsibility of business…is to increase its profits. Capitalism tends to be self-correcting. When the free market fails, the market itself steps in to correct the problem. If enough CEOs and lobbyists get together and say there is something not quite right about what we are doing, then we may be able to start changing norms.
Full summary at CourtlandBrooks blog
See full article at Harvard Business School website
Mark Brooks: The Internet dating industry is on the precipice of a 'correction.'
iovation Launches New ReputationManager 360 Features
IOVATION – July 30 – iovation is stopping
Internet fraud and identifying good online customers with their device
reputation database. The company has announced the addition of a number
of new capabilities that increase businesses’ control and flexibility
when fighting fraud.
New ReputationManager 360 features include:
- Mobile Emulation Detection – targets attacks originating from PCs posing as mobile devices.
- New Device Identification.
- Velocity by rule set – enables the ability to count transactions that
occur at specific customer touch points, such as at login and account
creation. For example, detecting a high number of login attempts could
indicate that a cybercriminal is testing passwords. - Additional rules for Real IP – provides more options for which IP
addresses and associated geolocation information are considered.
Singles Searching For Love In Unexpected Places
OASIS DATING NETWORK – July 30 – 60% of people browse for dates while in bed, 25% search for dates on their lunch break, and 21% search for dates while on the toilet or in the bathroom, according to results of a national survey by the Oasis Dating Network, which runs leading Australian dating site Oasisactive.com.