MARKETWIRED – Aug 13 – Q2 total revenue decreased by $63k compared to Q1 2016 and 18% YOY due to a decrease in the number of active subscribers. Advertising revenue increased by $42k, or 37% YOY. Total expenses were reduced by $509K in the Q2. Net loss increased to 841k from 259k in Q2 2015. Snap kicked-off development of a new product targeting users 50+ and translated FirstMet service into nine additional languages to test opportunities in international markets.
OPW – Aug 11 – Online Personals Watch (OPW) readers get a 50 GBP break on the upcoming Internet Dating Conference in London on Tuesday and Wednesday September 27-28th. Book now so you get the early bird pricing. I'll review the agenda next week on OPW.
SPARK.NET – Aug 10 – Spark Networks has entered into an agreement with PEAK6 Investments which saw a significant potential in Spark's Jewish and Christian brands. PEAK6 purchased 5M shares for $7.8M and owns now 16% of Spark's outstanding shares. PEAK6 executive Danny Rosenthal will become CEO and will join the board of Directors. PEAK6 Chief Architect David Budworth will become CTO, PEAK6 CMO Lisa McLafferty will become Chief Revenue Officer. PEAK6 President Brad Goldberg will join the Board of Directors.
Spark's Q2 Revenue was $9.1M, down 26% YOY. Net income was $329k, an YOY increase of $424k and a $3.7M increase from the prior quarter. Returns on direct marketing spend have improved. Every dollar in direct marketing spent has resulted in ~$5 in revenue in the Christian network segment (compared to $1.3 in Q2 2014). In the last few months, JSwipe began selling paid subscriptions which now represent 3% of total Jewish network's paid subscriber base.
BW DISRUPT – Aug 10 – Woo has ~3M downloads and is currently a leading dating-matchmaking app in India. Woo was founded by U2opia Mobile in 2010 and was launched in July, 2014 by Sumesh Menon and Ankit Nautiyal. TagSearch, one of the key features of the app, allows users to view profiles based on attributes such as the city they live in or the profession they're in. Woo targets single, urban professionals in the age group 25-35, seeking a life partner. The app has received Series A funding from Matrix Partners and Omidyar Network.
OPW INTERVIEW – Aug 10 – MeetMe had impressive Q2 results and announced their acquisition of Skout, one of the hallmark mobile brands in the dating industry. I spoke to Geoff Cook, CEO and Co-founder of MeetMe, about the acquisition and what it will mean for both brands. – Mark Brooks
Why did you choose to buy Skout? I have always been impressed by Skout’s number of chats per user per day. We’ve made a lot of progress on MeetMe, going from 8-10 chats per day to 25-30 chats per day, and Skout was having comparable numbers. We felt very familiar and comfortable with their business model. 90% of their revenue comes from ads, which is very similar to our business model. They have 700k-800k DAU, combined we’re ~2M DAU. We looked at some of the top level metrics and saw this merge as a pretty clear pathway to $100M revenue. So it made sense both strategically, operationally, and financially.
Would you say that the acquisition of Skout has expanded your geographic footprint? It certainly expanded our geographic footprint. ¾ of Skout’s DAUs are international. MeetMe is much more focused on the US. Only half of our 1.3M DAUs are international. Skout is strong in Asia, so this will also increase our density among Asian users.
So, in these areas, will you promote Skout or MeetMe? How do you intersperse the numbers and drive membership between the two? The first thing we will be working on is the lowest hanging fruit. We can improve their ad program based on our knowledge of mobile monetization. We are also thinking about cross promotion to drive MeetMe users to Skout and vice versa. We do intend to maintain Skout as a standalone brand. But over time, there will be no reason to have two separate cloud based chat systems.
How would you imagine someone describing the Skout end user experience vs the MeetMe experience? They are very similar. In terms of how they are different, MeetMe has put a fair amount of emphasis on “Discuss” feature, where we transformed feeds into topic oriented communities. Skout has “Queue”, a swipe-able feature where you can like or dislike different users to unlock the chat, which is a relatively important piece of their app. We will continue investing in both “Queue” and “Discuss” and make them better.
How about the teams? Will you have an office in San Francisco? Have any changes been made? At the time of the announcement, there was a reduction at Skout. Skout’s founders, Christian Wiklund and Niklas Lindstrom, have both agreed to help us for a year. We will maintain a team and an office in San Francisco and are looking to be posting open positions shortly to tap into the talent pool there. Right now we have our main office in New Hope, PA, and we have a satellite office in Philadelphia in order to tap into that job market.
CBS NEWS / AP – Aug 10 – Tinder spokeswoman Rosette Pambakian said usage has skyrocketed in Rio. Matches in the Olympic Village increased by 129% over the weekend, and the company expects that trend to continue, she said. ~10k athletes are living in the Olympic Village. ~450k condoms have been allocated for athletes, more than three times as many as in London.
FORTUNE.COM – Aug 9 – For many companies, fraternities and sororities were the keys to early success. When Tinder started, Justin Mateen hosted a huge party at his parents' California home in September 2012 and invited popular sorority sisters and fraternity brothers from several colleges in the area. The ticket to the party was a Tinder download. A 2014 Gallup poll found that being involved in a fraternity or sorority may boost one's interest in entrepreneurship. Of the 30k college graduates surveyed, those who had participated in Greek life were more likely to start their own businesses than those who hadn't. The entrepreneurs behind companies such as Uber, Snapchat, Dropbox, Lyft, Blue Apron, EventBrite, and Warby Parker all pledged fraternities in college. So did the founders of Fortune 500 companies like Nike, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot.
LINNS – Aug 9 – The Online Dating stamps were issued June 7 by San Marino in a pane of three stamps and six labels. San Marino is calling this issue "Amore Tecnologico," which translates to "technological love." American illustrator Andy Rementer created the cartoon designs for these 1.60 stamps.
DAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Aug 6 – Love-struck Dutchman who flew 5k miles to meet Chinese woman he met online is hospitalised after waiting 10 days at the airport. She never showed up. She explained later that she had been having a plastic surgery and had turned her phone off while her face was wrapped in gauze. He refused to leave the airport. Coupled with lack of sleep and adequate nutrition he passed out as an effect of his severe diabetes. (The site is AsianBeauties.com, which forwards into AsianDate.com)
MARKETWIRED – Aug 13 – Q2 total revenue decreased by $63k compared to Q1 2016 and 18% YOY due to a decrease in the number of active subscribers. Advertising revenue increased by $42k, or 37% YOY. Total expenses were reduced by $509K in the Q2. Net loss increased to 841k from 259k in Q2 2015. Snap kicked-off development of a new product targeting users 50+ and translated FirstMet service into nine additional languages to test opportunities in international markets.
