ASSOCIATED PRESS – Aug 20 – On dating sites like PetsDating.com and YouMustLoveDogsDating.com users are encouraged to bring their dogs on first dates to break the ice. "Dogs are amazing icebreakers," said Kris Rotonda, who started YouMustLoveDogsDating.com last year. The site has now 2M members.
by Sue Manning
The full article was originally published at SacramentoBee, but is no longer available.
BBC – Aug 20 – "Everyone is unique and individual but when it comes to dating and relationships, people follow a very common set of patterns", according to POF founder, Markus Frind. "Nearly 70% of the time we're able to predict exactly who you're going to end up in a relationship with," he says. At POF's headquarters, dozens of TV screens display charts and graphs that monitor, in real-time, the millions of messages that users are sending each minute on the site. With all this data, POF can quickly suggest matches to new users who fill in detailed questionnaires about themselves upon joining. POF gets ~2B page views each month and 29% of users find their partner in less than a month. Frind says the transition of users to mobile phones over the past two years has been one of the biggest challenges the company has faced.
USA TODAY – Aug 20 – Jaclyn Ellis has just joined a new dating site, called Special Bridge. The site was created by Jaclyn’s sister and her fiancé when they saw the need for a dating site for people with disabilities.
by Jaye Watson
See full article at USA Today
PR NEWSWIRE – Aug 19 – AYI, the social discovery app owned by Snap Interactive, is now the top grossing app in iTunes App Store. (See iTunes rankings) 32% of new subscription transactions originated from mobile platforms in July 2014.
WSJ – Aug 19 - Match Group is expected to trade at a higher multiple than the rest of IAC, particularly as it starts monetizing Tinder. IAC hasn't mentioned a spinoff but has taken steps in that direction, including creating Match Group with its own management. IAC would need to stabilize it's search-and-apps business (includes Ask.com and About.com) before leaving it on its own. If IAC proceeds with a spinoff, it won't necessarily be a smooth sailing for Match either. Revenue and subscriber growth has slowed in the past three quarters. Average revenue per subscriber has fallen for the past six. The problem: Most user growth is at OkCupid and Tinder, which are free.
OPW – Aug 19 – I'm sending out a survey tomorrow to members of the Internet Dating Executive Alliance. Here's the deal… If you get the survey link and complete the survey this week you'll get the results back in early September for free.
This survey will be a repeat of the internet dating survey that we helped Subscription Site Insider do three years ago, so it will be interesting to highlight the big changes. I won't be selling the report. It will only be available for free to respondents. So please take the time to carefully fill in the report if you want to see the survey results and analysis.
If you don't get the survey link tomorrow and are a dating industry executive and would like to take it, please email me at mark@courtlandbrooks.com.
MARKETING LAND – Aug 18 – Hyperlocal ads allow marketers to use a smartphone’s GPS data to geographically target audiences for the purpose of delivering relevant ads. Users, of course, have to allow location sharing on apps like Swarm and Tinder.
SEEKING ALPHA – Aug 18 - MeetMe has gone from 800K users to 1M in just three months. Mobile revenue is up 114% YOY and mobile average revenue per user is up 123% YOY, outpacing Facebook by 41%. The company is improving in all metrics while the stock is down 37%. Social media is a fast growing sector, led by Facebook. There are smaller companies such as MeetMe that may be worth investing in. The keys to look for are: user growth, revenues, and the innovation.
Grindr is a geosocial networking application geared towards gay, bisexual, and bi-curious men. It runs on iOS, Android andBlackBerry OS devices. Available for download from the Apple App Store and Google Play, Grindr comes in both free and subscription-based versions (Grindr Xtra). The app makes use of the device’s geolocation, which allows users to locate other men within close proximity. This is accomplished through a user interface that displays a grid of representative pictures of men, arranged from nearest to farthest away. Tapping on a picture will display a brief profile for that user, as well as the option to chat, send pictures, and share one’s location.
Grindr was the first gay geosocial app to launch in the iTunes App Store and has since become the largest and most popular gay mobile app community in the world currently available in 192 countries
Website: http://grindr.com/
Owned by: Grindr LLC
CEO: Joel Simkhai
Business address: Grindr, LLC., PO Box 93723 Los Angeles, CA 90093
Email / Contact form: http://grindr.com/contact, help@grindr.com
Phone: (310) 776-6680
Number of employees: 50 (Linkedin 2014)
Blog: http://grindr.com/blog
Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grindr
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Grindr
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Grindr
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/grindr
Date Started: 2009
Founders: Joel Simkhai, Scott Lewallen
Countries served: 192 (Linkedin 2014)
Category: Mobile dating app
Traffic: 86 288 (compete, June 2015)
Milestones:
May 2015 – hired Raine Group to advise it on a possible sale.
November 2014 – claims to be the largest all-male mobile social network in the world, with ~10M users in 192 countries.
September 2013 – Turkey Bans Grindr
December 2013 – Grindr has ~11K members in India.
January 2011 – Grindr launched app Blendr
Grindr news on OnlinePersonalsWatch
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