WKRB13 – July 24 - Spark Networks insider Gregory J. Franchina sold 21.528 shares of the company’s stock on the open market. The stock was sold at an average price of $5.95, for a total value of $128,091.
by Kristian Gore
The full article was originally published at WKRB13, but is no longer available.
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BUSINESSWIRE – July 25 – On the two-year anniversary of Dr. Neil Clark Warren’s return as CEO of eHarmony, the company has announced 54% growth in subscribers.
TECH CRUNCH – July 24 – Facebook is growing about twice as fast on mobile compared to its services as a whole. It has now 1.07B mobile monthly users, and 654M daily mobile users. That helped it bring in 62% of its ad revenue from mobile.
OPW – July 24 – You can now download the latest update to the Courtland Brooks Affiliate Networks Payouts Spreadsheet, designed to provide affiliate marketers and dating site owners with a comprehensive list of the affiliate programs in the industry. Discover the latest offers from leading affiliate networks including CJ Affiliate by Conversant (formerly Commission Junction), Neverblue, and Zanox all in one convenient, up-to-date spreadsheet.
THE PHILOSOPHER'S MAIL – July 24 – Here are the reasons why people make the wrong choices.
1. We don’t understand ourselves
All of us are crazy in very particular ways. The problem is that knowledge of our own neuroses is not at all easy to come by.
2. We don’t understand other people
Our brains are primed to take tiny visual hints and construct entire figures from them – and we do the same when it comes to the character of our prospective spouse.
3. We aren’t used to being happy
We marry the wrong people because the right ones feel wrong. We don’t ultimately associate being loved with feeling satisfied.
4. Being single is so awful
After a certain age, society makes singlehood dangerously unpleasant.
5. Instinct has too much prestige
Back in the olden days, marriage was a rational business. What replaced the marriage of reason was the marriage of instinct, the Romantic marriage. If one felt ‘in love’, that was enough.
6. We don’t go to Schools of Love
Presently, we marry without any information. We go into it without any insightful reasons as to why marriages fail.
7. We want to freeze happiness
We want to marry the person we are having a terrific time with.
8. We believe we are special
Marriages face immense challenges. And we do not easily apply this insight to our own case.
9. We want to stop thinking about Love
We are exhausted by the melodramas and thrills that go nowhere.
BUSINESS INSIDER – July 24 – We've got new apps popping up every day: Coffee Meets Bagel, Hook, Pinch, Instamour, Wyldfire, Whim, Floret… Online dating can often be frustrating, which in turn leads to more willingness to try new apps. A lot of people see a need to come up with new ideas. Mark Brooks, the iDating consultant behind Courtland Brooks, thinks that dating apps more closely translate the real-life experience of meeting someone. "The mobile platform is simply a superior platform for internet dating. Mobile daters will go on many times during the day but just for a few minutes, they’re chatting and then they go back to work, and then jump back on. Internet dating has never really meshed with true user behavior," he said. "The true user behavior is when someone starts chatting someone else up, they’ll be in a continuous conversation and reel them in for a date. The problem with online dating is the incentive structures are quite broken. Mobile gets us closer." These dating apps all need to figure out the revenue model. Brooks thinks in-app spending is the way to go. And then there's always ads. Larger corporations acquiring the smaller startups when they run out of money. We saw this happen with IAC. Brooks sees Match Group holding out as the powerhouse. Match Group is currently under IAC, but Brooks anticipates a future separation that would leave Match Group as the ultimate online dating umbrella. "Starting a dating app is rather like starting a restaurant," Brooks said. "It looks very easy to do. It's a very sexy business. But it's a lot more difficult because of the critical mass problem. "What I typically find happens is that entrepreneurs spend 90% of their money building the app. But it does require cold hard cash to grow. Although there may be many startups, there will be few survivors. Very few have that unique way of driving eyeballs. Tinder did well."
BIZWOMEN – July 23 – Talia Goldstein started her matchmaking business, Three Day Rule (TDR) in 2010. She now employs a team of 12 full-time matchmakers, with plans to grow that number to 30 by the end of the year. Match has just partnered with TDR and held a Series A round for an undisclosed sum. Match will incorporate the elite TDR service onto its site, and the funds will be used to scale the service and expand the TDR team. The starting price for TDR service is $5K for 6 months.
AUSTIN BUSINESS JOURNAL – July 23 – Zachary Dell, the son of Dell CEO Michael Dell, is getting into the online dating business by launching ThreadDating.com, a mobile dating app for college students. In April, several publications reported that Michael Dell’s 20-year-old daughter, Alexa, was dating Sean Rad, the CEO of Tinder.
by Christopher Calnan
See full article at Austin Business Journal
FORBES – July 22 – Brian Freeman and Andrew White started Wyldfire, a new dating app that is a lot like Tinder. “Without Tinder, we wouldn’t exist,” says Freeman. “We’ve taken their idea and spun off something we think is super highly valuable off the core concept.” They surveyed female friends about their experiences with online dating, who told them the biggest drawback was the explicit come-ons they received from guys. Wyldfire is an app that men could only join if invited by a woman member. Chats are limited to 20 messages. Wyldfire only has ~ 6K users so far but 60% of them are women.
