PR NEWSWIRE – Mar 16 - Jiayuan.com International, operator of the largest dating site in China, has established a special committee to consider the non-binding proposal letter from Vast Profit Holdings Limited that proposes a "going-private" transaction involving the acquisition of all of the outstanding ordinary shares of the Company not already owned by Vast Profit. The Special Committee is composed of the following independent directors who are not affiliated with Vast Profit. Mr. Jianzhang Liang resigned from his position as a director of the company.
OPW – Mar 13 – The next iDate (Internet dating conference) will be held in Beijing, China in May 27-29, 2015. The event will cover the mobile and online dating market in China and other regions of the Far East.
YOURSTORY – Mar 12 – iCrushiFlush is a fairly new social discovery app. The app has managed to get 185K downloads across India in just one week. Users need to register on the app using their Facebook credentials. It works like Tinder; people either crush or flush potential matches. Users remain anonymous and the other person will only come to know when there is a mutual match. In case of a match, a chat opens up between the two individuals and they can start messaging each other. Additional features are virtual gifts that are purchased with in-app currency. The app is now amongst the Top 15 Free Social Apps in India.
WANT CHINA TIMES – Mar 13 – "We are now shifting toward mobile with our re-launched app designed to further support user-growth, especially among younger users, said Wu Linguang, CEO of Jiayuan International. Jiayuan.com is also launching an online-to-offline (O2O) business model to extend Jiayuan's services beyond matchmaking and into building relationships. The company will unveil "smart bracelet sets" that allow couples to exchange real-time information and offer classes to help people improve their relationships.
The full article was originally published at Want China Times, but is no longer available.
OPW INTERVIEW – Mar 13 – Jason Du is founder of an extensive and impressive niche dating network, SuccessfulMatch, which includes SeniorMatch.com, LargeFriends.com, BikerKiss.com and many other fascinating niche dating sites. I’ve known him several years now, from iDate, and finally got him to interview. 🙂 (Full disclosure: MillionaireMatch.com is a client of Courtland Brooks).
What is your founding story? I graduated from UC Berkeley and worked in Silicon Valley for years. At that time I was curious why so many of my friends and coworkers, who were very successful people, were still single. When I asked them, they said: a) they were too busy, b) it was hard to find people matching their criteria and c) they didn’t want to date gold diggers. So this is how my idea for a dating site for successful and attractive people came up. I launched MillionaireMatch.com in 2001. The site quickly took off. I am very happy for my best friend who found his wife through MillionaireMatch.com.
What counties are you in now and do you have plans for expansion? Most of our members are from USA, Canada, UK, Australia and Germany. Our headquarters is located in Ontario, Canada, and we are currently exploring other markets.
How are you different from sites like Match.com and OkCupid? Many of our users are verified. We verify their income, education, photo, age, etc. We focus on having quality and genuine profiles on our site. We want to be sure that people really are who they say they are. We also understand that privacy is crucial to our members. For example celebrities are provided with a special access to ensure anonymity. We also allow our members to show off their luxury lifestyle by posting photos of their expensive cars, yachts, etc.
So what makes you different from a “Sugar Daddy” dating site? MillionaireMatch.com is for successful singles looking for a serious, long-term relationship. Over 90% of our members stated they were looking for long-term relationship. Gold diggers are warned on our homepage that they are not welcome.
Tell us more about the income verification process. Do all members have to have their income verified? It’s optional. This feature is for premium members only. Once they upload their profile photo, we ask them for their ID (passport or driving license), tax returns and property info to prove their income claim is true. If their annual income is over $200,000, they can place a “verified badge” on their profile.
What are your plans for mobile? Our new iOS and Android apps will be launched in one or two months. They have totally new looks with more features.
ADNEWS – Mar 12 - eHarmony has 61M members and 14 years of data that can be used beyond dating such as HR. eHarmony's Elevated Careers is currently in beta in US but it will shortly make its way to Australia. It seems obvious why eHarmony would be eyeing off a different vertical. Even before Tinder, online dating was a crowded market. But global COO Armen Avedissian says eHarmony’s moves into other verticals is based on three things: a need in society, the creation of more revenue and a “very underutilised product” in the form of its matchmaking capability. eHarmony has also recently overhauled its infrastructure, allowing for its 125 terabytes of data to be processed. It also implemented an in-house attribution measurement system to improve the way it spends on marketing. eHarmony saw a reduction in marketing spend from $100M to $80M.
COINDESK – Mar 11 - Badoo is now allowing its users to pay for premium features using bitcoin in more than 20 countries. Launched in January, the payment option was initially available in Italy, Spain and the UK, before expanding to an additional 20 countries. The payment option was enabled through a partnership with Dutch online payment provider Smart2Pay.
NY POST – Mar 11 – Whitney Wolfe is best known for co-founding Tinder and then suing the hookup app for sexual harassment in June. “Women run the world right now,” says Wolfe, who settled out of court with IAC for a rumored $1M. She started Bumble, a dating app where women make the first move. Bumble has hundreds of thousands of users, and ~12% week-over-week growth. Bumble plans to tap the “matchmaking for friends” market in the next few months and grow usership to 1M.
GLOBALNEWS.CA – Mar 12 – Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) says romance scammers often steal photos off social media sites and use dating sites to lure potential victims. The centre claims ~$13M dollars was lost to romance scams in 2014. John Maitland, a police officer and creator of PhotoVerified.com has developed a new app to help people avoid suspected scam artists. The app creates an authenticated photo of the user’s online account. PhotoVerified.com plans on connecting with dating sites to help verify the photos of its users. It is launching a crowd funding campaign on Monday Mar. 30, through Kickstarter.
DAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Mar 12 – Last week it was revealed that BeautifulPeople.com had expelled ~3K people for not maintaining the appearance necessary to meet the high standards expected on the site. The move angered outsiders who disagreed with the site's selective policy. The 'Ugly' troll attack originated in Russia where ~2,700 applications were made to the site in a few hours. Over half of these were fake profiles and part of the ugly troll army.
PR NEWSWIRE – Mar 16 - Jiayuan.com International, operator of the largest dating site in China, has established a special committee to consider the non-binding proposal letter from Vast Profit Holdings Limited that proposes a "going-private" transaction involving the acquisition of all of the outstanding ordinary shares of the Company not already owned by Vast Profit. The Special Committee is composed of the following independent directors who are not affiliated with Vast Profit. Mr. Jianzhang Liang resigned from his position as a director of the company.
