MARKETWATCH – Aug 14 – The flap between Tinder and Vanity Fair misses a larger point. Nancy Jo Sales, the author of the recent article in Vanity Fair titled: "Tinder and the Dawn of the 'Dating Apocalypse'", tweeted data from GlobalWebIndex, which alleged that 30% of Tinder users are married. Tinder responded that only ~1.7% of its users were married. But most married people lie about their relationship status. 54% of online daters said dates have "seriously misrepresented" themselves in their profiles, according to a 2013 study by Pew Research Center. People tell lies — big and small — because it’s the norm, says Mark Brooks, a dating-industry analyst and the editor of Online Personals Watch. "It's the norm because it's competitive, and it's an easy way to get ahead. But it's no way to start a relationship. I've always encouraged people to ditch dates fast when they show up and they’ve clearly and outright lied."
Month: August 2015
Bumble And The Grade Are Leaving The Online Creeps Behind
IBTIMES – Aug 14 – In 2014, Cliff Lerner created an app called Mutually that would connect people by the act of mutual swiping but it also recommended date spots, powered by Yelp reviews. The app didn’t take off, but he learned from it. "The real opportunity was to build a product that catered to women," Lerner said. "Our users asked for something that would help them handle men who were hostile and offensive." So he started The Grade — an app that grades users based on their behavior. Another app, Bumble, announced its own verification system. The app will soon grant checkmarks to users who maintain a quick response time and message ratio, and have never been reported for inappropriate behavior. This type of vetting is not new. OkCupid has a red-yellow-green light system based on response time, but Bumble and The Grade are digging more into user data as a way to increase transparency.
by Kerry Flynn
See full article at IBTimes
MissTravel Lets Beautiful Women Find A Sponsor For Their Vacation
TECH CRUNCH – Aug 15 - MissTravel initially launched as a dating site two and a half years ago, the first in the "travel dating space," according to founder Brandon Wade, who is behind sugar daddy sites SeekingArrangement.com and WhatsYourPrice.com. Tinder launched a "Passport" feature earlier this year. But MissTravel, which just launched its mobile app last week, is taking the concept a step further. Users can post trips, and choose from three options: "I Have an Extra Ticket," "Take Me Along,"or "I Have My Own Ticket." According to Wade, MissTravel provides an optional verification to users who choose to pay for a background check, although anyone can create a profile without it. So the app is not responsible for the outcome of users' travel dates. Wade admits that MissTravel dates have resulted in a few "situations where members have been stranded," but he assures that the company did everything it could to help those women get tickets home.
Dating Apps Are Popular To Build But Not The Easiest Businesses To Sell
INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR – Aug 14 – When Match bought POF for $575M in July, smaller dating sites felt encouraged. Mark Brooks, an Internet dating business consultant who has worked with POF, says the news prompted one start-up to approach him with a business plan. "They told me they'd like to get purchased by Match in six to nine months," Brooks says of the would-be clients. He had to set them straight, explaining that the POF acquisition was many years in the making. POF had impressive back-end features and 100M users. Bill Pescatello, a partner at Lightbank, a VC firm in Chicago, feels very optimistic about online romance. "It's crazy looking back to see how Tinder and other mobile apps have changed the game," he says. Tinderites may be anywhere from age 18 to 35, the younger set being those not yet interested in marriage prospects and likely to stay with the service for a longer time, notes Brooks. Another popular apps are Coffee Meets Bagel and Hinge. Dawoon Kang, CMB co-founder, says she believes her site will grow to rival Match. That kind of confidence made it easy for her to turn down Mark Cuban’s offer to buy the company for $30M.
by Lila MacLellan
See full article at Institutional Investor
See all posts on Match See all posts on Hinge
See all posts on POF See all posts on Coffee Meets Bage
Sean Rad Is Back As Tinder CEO
MASHABLE – Aug 12 - Tinder is reinstating co-founder Sean Rad as CEO, five months after he was replaced by Chris Payne. Payne, a former eBay and Microsoft executive, is leaving the company, and Greg Blatt will step in as chairman.
“How Not To PR” By Tinder
TECH CRUNCH – Aug 12 – A piece appeared on Vanity Fair that Tinder didn’t like. And it reacted. On Twitter. A lot. "We were saddened to see that the article didn't touch upon the positive experiences that the majority of our users encounter daily. Our intention was to highlight the many statistics and amazing stories that are sometimes left unpublished, and, in doing so, we overreacted," said Tinder. There's no right or wrong thing to do during a situation like this, but the last thing you want to do is make it worse. The company came off as hot headed and not one that a journalist would care to cover at this point. The company should have at least directly apologized to the writer, Nancy Jo Sales.
Tinder Is Not Happy With Vanity Fair Story
CNN – Aug 12 - Tinder has unleashed an epic rant on Twitter, issuing ~30 messages attacking Vanity Fair and the story’s author, Nancy Jo Sales. The magazine’s story, which ran with the headline, “Tinder and the Dawn of the ‘Dating Apocalypse,'” portrays Millennial daters in a less than flattering light, and explores how digital dating apps including Tinder are changing courtship and sex. Tinder claims Sales didn’t contact them for her story, and it wasn’t happy that she later tweeted a link to a survey that found 30% of its users are married. “My article isn’t even about @Tinder lol,” Sales tweeted.
Asian Dating App Yogrt Raised $3M
TECHINASIA – Aug 12 - Yogrt is a location-based dating app that uses games and quizzes as a tool to break the ice between couples-to-be. The startup has raised a $3Mn series A funding round from Centurion Private Equity and Linear Venture. The app plans to strengthen its presence in Indonesia and expand into other Southeast Asian markets.
by Nadine Freischlad
The full article was originally published at Tech in Asia, but is no longer available.
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Tinder And The Dawn Of The “Dating Apocalypse”
VANITY FAIR – Aug 10 – As soon as people could go online they were using it as a way to find partners to date and have sex with. In the 90s it was Craigslist and AOL chat rooms, then Match.com and Kiss.com. Mobile dating went mainstream five years ago. ~50M people are on Tinder where they might find a sex partner as easily as they’d find a cheap flight to Florida. Dating apps are the free-market economy come to sex. The innovation of Tinder was the swipe. OkCupid soon adopted the function. Hinge, which allows for more information about a match’s circle of friends through Facebook, and Happn, which enables GPS tracking to show whether matches have recently “crossed paths,” use it too. It’s really addicting. “Short-term mating strategies” seem to work for plenty of women too; some don’t want to be in committed relationships, either, particularly those in their 20s.
German Social Discovery App Raised $14.5 Million
PRNEWSWIRE – Aug 11 – Spotted is a social discovery app that connects people who cross paths every day. It turns missed opportunities into second chances. The startup raised $14.5M from Media Ventures GmbH from Cologne, and Prof. Wolf M. Nietzer's Wolfman Holdings GmbH, the Deutsche Balaton AG affiliate in Heidelberg, Germany.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.