November 2016 – Page 5 – Online Personals Watch

After Settling Lawsuit, ChristianMingle Allows Gay Dating

Posted on November 7, 2016

READING EAGLE – Nov 6 – ChristianMingle.com opened to gay users after settling a lawsuit that claimed that it violated California's non-discrimination law. But the new search function likely won't prove very useful to gay men or women – the site now lets them view profiles of the same gender, but does not specifically show them fellow gay users. Parent company Spark Networks said it has no plans to advertise the site to gay Christians, or to go further to make the site work for gay or bisexual users.

by Julie Zauzmer
See full article at Reading Eagle

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Sex Crimes Involving Tinder And Grindr On The Rise

Posted on November 4, 2016

THE SUN.CO.UK – Nov 4 – Crimes involving the apps have risen 2,000% in four years. 50 sex crimes involving dating apps Tinder and Grindr were reported to Scotland Yard in the six months to June. In all, 187 London crimes were linked to the dating apps in the first half of the year.

by Stian Alexander
See full article at TheSun.co.uk

Mark Brooks: Tinder has experienced explosive growth, so its only natural that the number of Tinder connected and reported crimes rises in unison. All sizable dating apps should have people ready to work with police and assist with reported crimes, and deal quickly with subpoenas. Or they will end up suffering the consequences in the press for not acting swiftly.

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Dating Apps In India Pave New Path To Getting Hitched

Posted on November 4, 2016

THE ECONOMIC TIMES – Nov 4 – In all, TrulyMadly, Woo and Tinder have ~1M monthly active users in India, according to a report in tech journal iGadgetsworld. While data for matrimonial sites were not available, experts foresee dating apps catching up. Ritesh Banglani, who led an investment in TrulyMadly last year, said 25-35% of the "users on dating apps are looking for marriage". The trend of arranged marriages is likely to continue to decline and the logical next step for matrimonial sites would be to stay relevant either by innovating or acquire a leading dating app in India." Matrimony.com, which operates BharatMatrimony, acquired Matchify in April last year but CEO Murugavel Janakiraman insists that dating apps aren't able to scale up or make money here. "We tried out Matchify but India has a largely traditional user base so these apps are not going to work here," he said. Gourav Rakshit, CEO of Shaadi.com, conceded that although the site gets ~11K new registrations every day, many of its users are on dating apps as well.

by Shashwati Shankar
See full article at The Economic Times

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

It Looks Like Hinge Is Going Back To Freemium Model

Posted on November 3, 2016

BUSINESS INSIDER – Nov 4 – In October, Hinge launched a totally new app focused on relationships (versus hookups). After a free trial everyone on Hinge was supposed to pay $7 per month. Hinge's CEO was shunning the freemium model. He said the people who pay tended to be "power users" of swiping apps. Now it seems that he has changed his mind and is not going to force everyone to pay. This is what the app sent to its users today: "As an Early Member, you've helped create a community of people who want more. To thank you, we'd like to give you Hinge free, forever." What Hinge is offering is a "Basic Membership" with limited features.

by Nathan McAlone
See full article at Business Insider

See all posts on Hinge

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Match Group Profit Jumps 60%

Posted on November 2, 2016

MARKETWATCH – Nov 1 – Match Group reported a Q3 profit of $56.4M, compared with a profit of $35.3M in Q3 2015. Dating revenue increased 22% to $287.5M from $235M a year ago. The number of paying members increased by 31% to 5.5M, an all-time high for Match Group, driven by Tinder. "We are ahead of schedule and in very good shape to at least double Tinder's paid-member count this year," said Gary Swidler, Match Group's CFO. Tinder ended Q3 with ~1.5M paid users, up from 800K at the end of 2015.