ANEWDOMAIN – Sep 14 – Avid has planned a $200M IPO on the London Stock Exchange, which the recent Ashley Madison hack supposedly waylaid. But leaked emails suggest that the so-called LSE float was a PR-generated story handed to BloombergUK. In an April 16 message to Jason DeZwirek, the firm's largest owner at 30%, Biderman allegedly noted that even some of his "sophisticated financial advisors believed it to be true."
by Gina Smith
See full article at ANewDomain
BLOOMBERG – Sep 10 – eHarmony Founder Neil Clark Warren discusses the company’s competition and the online dating landscape. eHarmony is responsible for ~2M marriages and the divorce rate is 3.86%. 55% of their subscribers are women vs 45% of men, and the fastest growing demographic is 25-35 years old. 62% of users are coming through mobile phones. When asked about Ashley Madison’s recent hack, Neil Clark Warren was very confident about eHarmony’s security. “We are spending several millions a year to make sure our security is solid”, he said.
TECH IN ASIA – Sep 11 – "Blindfold" dating app was designed for those who would like to keep their private lives private. The app keeps its users' photos blurred until both sides of a match agree to unmask. The app's founder, Wendy Tse, worked as a manager at Society W, a high-end matchmaking service in Singapore. For now, Blindfold is still largely Singapore-based.
PRWEB – Sep 9 – Cuddlr, the cuddling app, is rebranded as Spoonr, and got acquired by Hiplex, a NYC-based company that also operates Tryster, a check-in based dating app.
See all posts on Spoonr (previously Cuddlr)
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
BUSINESS INSIDER – Sep 10 – Raja Bhatia, former AM CTO, is threatening to sue tech blogger Brian Krebs who published a story titled "Leaked AshleyMadison Emails Suggest Execs Hacked Competitors." Bhatia, who left Avid Life Media in 2009, denies the claims. Krebs reported that in Nov 2012, Bhatia told Biderman that he had discovered a "huge security hole" in Nerve.com. He said that he had "access to all their user records including emails, encrypted password, if they purchased or not, who they talked to, what their search preferences are, last login, fraud risk profile, who they blocked or are blocked from, photo uploads, etc."
OPW – Sep 10 - The new Internet dating jobs listing is live on the Internet Dating Jobs blog.
Below see a couple of this month's most interesting offers:
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From our esteemed Courtland Brooks clients:
Global Personals USA (Webdate, Fling, WealthyMen, Crush.com)
Brand Manager (Caliente.com)
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eDarling.de
Director TV Marketing
eHarmony
Director, Data Analytics
Lovoo
Director of Sales & Partnerships @ReachHero
Match.com, Chemistry.com, People Media
Director, Strategy
Spark Networks
Director, New Media and Partnerships
To see more open positions go here.
Do you have an idating industry job offer which is not included? Please, send it to petra@courtlandbrooks.com and we will add it to the list.
TECH CRUNCH – Sep 10 - Tinder has today unveiled a new feature called Super Like. Users can see if somebody super liked them before they swipe. Before, the only way a user could find out if their fellow Tinderers liked them back was if both swiped right on each other.
TECHWORLD – Sep 10 – The Inner Circle, an elite dating app, has stopped accepting women in London for one month to even out the ratio of males to females. London has the widest gender gap out of all the cities it has launched in.
by Sam Shead
See full article at TechWorld
FORBES – Sep 10 – An analysis of the security practices of 24 leading online dating sites has concluded that only seven use secure-enough password practices. Password management company Dashlane assessed each site on 19 different criteria, including the minimum length for a password to be acceptable, and whether there was a requirement for a mix of letters and numbers. Only Zoosk and OkCupid score ~50%. Most mainstream Internet services generally get 75 or above; Apple scores 100%. eHarmony scores 38, while Match.com, Gleeden and Adult Friend Finder all get 30%. At the bottom end of the scale, Badoo and POF with 22.
MARKETWIRED – Sep 10 – Spark Networks is launching a new Tider-like dating app, called Spark. The app is free, pulling user profiles directly from Facebook. Instead of mindlessly swiping right or left, Spark prompts users to compare two local singles and swipe their favorite. If that person likes the user back, it's a match.
The full article was originally published at Spark.net, but is no longer available.
