ABC.NET.AU – June 25 – Cupid Media, an online dating company that operates ~35 niche dating sites such as ChristianCupid, MilitaryCupid and SingleParentLove has been found in breach of privacy laws after hackers accessed the personal information of ~245K of its Australian users. At the time of the incident, Cupid did not have password encryption processes in place.
Month: June 2014
RSVP To Merge With Oasis Active
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD – June 24 – RSVP, the online dating site owned by Fairfax Media, is poised to sign a merger agreement with rival Oasis Active, which is backed by Ten Network Holdings. RSVP is wholly owned by Fairfax, while Ten controls ~40% of Oasis, sharing the registry with other investors including co-founders David Heysen and Daniel Haigh, as well as former Star City, Engin and Solution 6 boss Neil Gamble. The merged entity would be worth ~$90M, with Fairfax to retain ~50% holding. Ten will control ~20% with Mr Heysen and Mr Haigh also retaining stakes.
by Sarah Thompson, Jake Mitchell & Gretchen Friemann
See full article at Sydney Morning Herald
Oasis Active Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Dave Heysen, said: “Oasis has always admired the RSVP brand in Australia and look forward to working with a business that has been one of the major players in the Australian market for more than 15 years. Together we can ensure that we continue to develop our products to cater for a wider range of the Australian singles market as well as collectively develop ways to best leverage rapidly changing technology.”
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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Match.com Partners With American Mensa
CNN – June 23 – Members of the brainiac group can connect through a separate dating service called Mensa Match. In addition, Match.com members can add a special Mensa badge to their profiles, signaling a specific interest in connecting with a single person with a confirmed genius-level IQ score. According to Match, 80% of singles find it very important to be with someone of the same intelligence level.
Ashley Madison Forced To Close Its Office In Ireland
IRISH MIRROR – June 23 – Despite having ~125K users in Ireland, AshleyMadison has been forced to close as Irish are too prudish about infidelity. The site can’t find enough staff to operate its office. CEO Mr Biderman said he came here because the country was technically advanced but he didn’t anticipate it would be impossible to hire staff.
by David Coleman
See full article at Irish Mirror
Unofficial Tinder App ‘6tin’ For Windows Phone Makes Its Debut
WINBETA – June 21 – Rudy Huyn is known in the Windows Phone community as the developer who created an unofficial Instagram and Vine app before the official apps were made available. He created 6tindr app, an unofficial Tinder app. The app was pulled and unavailable for months until now, reappearing as 6tin. There will not be an official Tinder app.
Spark Networks: Proxy Fight Re-Scheduled For June 28th
BUZZFEED – June 20 – Osmium Partners is almost certain to win the four board seats it is gunning for when Spark holds its annual shareholder meeting, allowing the activist hedge fund to take control and force a sale of the company. Spark has delayed the annual meeting until June 28. Osmium, which owns 15% of Spark, launched its proxy battle in Dec '13. According to Osmium, Spark has failed to innovate and stay competitive.
by Mariah Summers
See full article at Buzzfeed
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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Skout Launches Group Messaging App
TECH CRUNCH – June 20 – Skout, an app backed by Andreessen Horowitz that helps strangers meet locally, is branching out with a new group messaging app called Fuse. Once someone starts a ‘Fuse,’ everyone else has 3-10 minutes to respond. Once the timer ends, all of the content disappears. There’s also a Ghost mode, so people can respond anonymously. Skout CEO Christian Wiklund said they broke out the app separately because they didn’t want to bog down the core Skout experience with too many extra features. That’s a similar decision to what Facebook has done with Paper and Messenger.
Lesbian Dating App Dattch Is Launching In NYC
NY POST – June 19 – Although it launched last September in London, Dattch has only opened for business in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Florida. Now it will officially open to Big Apple residents. The app, whose name is a combination of “date” and “catch”, screens its members to ensure men don’t sneak past.
Tinder & Meetup Has A New Competition In iHookup Social App
WALLST CHEATSHEET – June 19 – Founded by brothers Robert and Dean Rositano, iHookup Social app helps get people together. The publicly traded company has a market cap of $3M according to CEO Robert Rositano, and it recently passed the 200K user mark. An upcoming release of the app which will allow users to browse local venues and then suggest other users that might be interested in going. The app makes money mainly from subscriptions but to compete with Tinder, the company has plans to expand the functionality for free users moving forward.
Momo Is Shutting Its English Service
THE NEXT WEB – June 19 – Momo, the popular Chinese flirting app valued at $2B, will discontinue the English version of its service on July 1. The app is hugely popular in China and boasts ~100M downloads. Back October 2012, it launched its English version but it seems that the move didn’t go according to plan, even though the company claims users in 150 countries.