Month: January 2017

Our Other Dating Industry Blogs

Posted on January 31, 2017

The news on our other dating industry blogs is even more specialized and may or not make it onto Online Personals Watch, so it’s worthwhile subscribing to these select blogs as well.

  • Courtland Brooks Agency-Consultancy Ideas Blog
  • Internet Dating Jobs
    Want a job? Looking for someone to work for your dating or matchmaking company. You can email tips@onlinepersonalswatch.com to share jobs, and we’ll review and list them. This is where we list all the top jobs in the dating industry.
  • Internet Dating Investments
    This is important for dating site owners and investors. We focus on M&A activity, and funding, and anything that touches on company valuations, along with trends that specifically effect dating industry financial interests. We also list pdf precisely summaries of the public company financial reports.
  • Internet Dating Newswire
    Sometimes we see interesting press releases and we summarize them here. Most of the time we don’t run press releases on Online Personals Watch, but we may run them here. This is most useful for PR professionals in the dating industry.
  • Internet Dating Science
    There’s so much academic research which is highly applicable to the dating industry. Occasionally we run summaries of interesting research here.
  • Internet Dating Affiliates
    If you’re an affiliate or an affiliate manager, you’ll find this interesting. We occasionally find interesting dating company updates and news on internet dating affiliate programs, so we summarize it here.

New Dating App Shinder Only Has One Male User

Posted on January 30, 2017

Shinder sheds profileASKMEN – Jan 30 – Shed Simove created an app called Shinder, where women have access to only one profile – his. With the tagline, 'Quality, not quantity,' the app works like Tinder, where users can swipe right or left, depending on whether they like what they see. The London-based product designer and motivational speaker, says, "I joined all the usual dating apps and sites… I quickly realised that it's tough to stand out and get noticed."

by Jessica Brown
See full article at AskMen

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Grindr Sued Over Alleged Murder

Posted on January 30, 2017

LawsuitTMZ – Jan 30 – Matthew Herrick, a Grindr user claims the app is being run recklessly and as a result someone actually tried to rape and murder him, although the lawsuit is thin on specifics regarding the 2 allegations. Although the suit cites no specific instance of attempted rape and murder, it does offer up several examples of aggressive men coming to his home and workplace. Herrick says he lodged 50 complaints to Grindr and 14 police reports, to no avail.

See full article at TMZ

See all posts on Grindr

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Bumble Matched 400K Friends And Raised $40K For Planned Parenthood

Posted on January 30, 2017

Bumble planned parenthoodMASHABLE – Jan 30 – Bumble BFF, the friendfinder side of Bumble, the female friendly dating app, donated 10 cents for every mate match they made. It was done as part of a 12-hour campaign, and in that time there were 438,790 BFF matches.

by Cassie Murdoch
See full article at Mashable

See all posts on Bumble

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Yellow, Tinder For Teens, Is Every Parent’s Nightmare

Posted on January 30, 2017

Yellow screenshotDAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Jan 30 – The social networking app Yellow, which has 7M users, has been described as 'Tinder for teens'. Mother, Tanith Carey spent two months monitoring the activities of youngsters on the site and says it is an 'unedifying meat market' for 'sexual fishing' which puts teens at risk Just like Tinder, Yellow was launched as 'a virtual flirting app'. Users make a profile, posting a selfie photograph or video, then flick through all the other people on the site. They can then 'swipe right' if they like the look of someone, or left if they don't. Getting onto the site is easy for everyone regardless of their age. The founders say they are five millennial friends, who met at college: Emmanuel Khayat, Sacha Lazimi, Arthur Patora, Jeremie Aouate and Anthony Tuil. The makers insisted the site is moderated, children can report problems and 'a significant number of profiles are checked every day' — although they twice declined to say how many.

by Tanith Carey
See full article at DailyMail.co.uk

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

How Match.co.uk Is Leading The Latest Web Conversion Trend

Posted on January 30, 2017

Robot-customer-serviceVENTURE BEAT – Jan 28 – One of the biggest emerging technologies of 2016 was AI with chatbots. e.g. Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, Google Home, and Microsoft released its Bot Framework. A trend that started with SMS messaging led to chat "conversational interfaces" being at the heart of how we communicate with businesses in the future? Match UK quietly released a chatbot. Visit the main page and wait around a bit. It replaces a sign-up form. A UX/UI Designer from Zurich used a conversational web bot to replace his site and said traffic was up 1,000% and in 48 hours he got 250 emails from people chatting with the bot. In the 2016 Facebook study More than a Message 56% of a survey group said they'd rather message than call customer service. Facebook's $19 billion WhatsApp acquisition in 2014 should tell you all you need to know about the future of messaging.

by John Jackson
See full article at Venture Beat

Mark Brooks: Fascinating. Marc Lesnick is working on Mobile Dating Conference Los Angeles speakers now. Please let us know if there's any particular chatbot technology speakers you'd like there. btw, Date.com tried this a few years back, but I don't think the tech was up to par, as they pulled it quickly.

See all posts on Match.com

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Political Dating Sites Are Hot

Posted on January 28, 2017

Maplematch iconECONOMIST – Jan 28 – After Donald Trump was elected president, Maple Match, a dating app which connects Canadians and Americans, was inundated with people signing up. TrumpSingles.com is the opposite. It connects Trump's supporters. The site increased its monthly fee from $4.95 to $19.95 in December following Trump's victory. It enjoyed a bump in users even after the price increase. Match.com, Bumble and Tinder cater for everyone. That has left lots of room for "niche" providers. Making money is difficult, however. It is hard for new businesses to charge subscription fees while building brand awareness. "To be successful, niche dating sites need critical mass and a mobile platform," says Mark Brooks of Courtland Brooks, an online-dating consultant.

See full article at Economist

See all posts on Maple Match
See all posts on Trump Singles

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Men Paying $1,500 On Rent-a-date Apps For Chinese New Year

Posted on January 28, 2017

China rent girlfriend boyfriendCNET – Jan 27 – Girlfriend "rental" apps are enjoying a boost as Chinese New Year approaches this weekend. Prospective girlfriends (and boyfriends) for hire are charging up to 10,000 yuan a day. That's around $1,500. Channel News Asia reports that there are at least five of these rent-a-date apps in China.

by Chris Matyszczyk
See full article at CNet

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Glimmer: A New App For People With Disabilities

Posted on January 28, 2017

Glimmer logoBUZZFEED – Jan 26 – The app launched this month to connect people with disabilities and promote transparency between users. App creator, Geoffrey Anderson, was inspired to create Glimmer after working at nonprofit for people with disabilities, as well as witnessing his own brother overcome adversity. While the app is disability-inclusive, it's definitely doesn't exclude any other users.

by Kirsten King
See full article at BuzzFeed

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Who Scored The MOST Internet Dating Press Coverage In 2016?

Posted on January 28, 2017

Press coverage picOPW – Jan 27 – Each year we review press hits to see who got the most and the best and worst coverage. Here's the Online Personals Watch press rankings for 2016.

1. TINDER – 122 posts on OPW (in 2016)
And Tinder is the winner again, it's safe to say, not just on OPW but in general when it comes to press coverage. Again, some negative news were covered during the year, i.e. they were sued over the "Super Like" feature, experienced a global outage in November, also the lawsuit against 3nder got some quite negative mentions. But overall, Tinder did well in the press. A few more examples: they bought contact management startup Humin in March, launched Tinder Social, first in Australia in April, than worldwide in July, invested in Hey! Vina app in September, launched "Tinder Boost" feature first in Australia in September and a month later worldwide, and Tinder was recognized as the strongest part of Match Group. Tinder also lost Sean Rad as CEO again last year, but on the other hand made some interesting hires – see the news here and here.

2. MATCH GROUP: 46 posts on OPW (last year, we didn't have separate categories for Match Group and Match.com yet, and Match got 70 press hits that made OPW. Match.com got just 26 in 2016!).
Also Match Group got good and bad press coverage during last year. Financial results got a lot of coverage last year, and were analyzed by multiple experts, along with predictions for Match Group's future. Mandy Ginsberg returned to Match as CEO of Match US, and safety concerns were discussed on multiple occasions, Match Group got sued by their investors, and launched their Fresh app in June. Some major stock sales and changes in company management were also covered, i.e. the company got new CEOs for OkCupid and Twoo, but also lost some people, i.e. their CFO of Dating.

3. eHARMONY – 32 posts on OPW
eHarmony's news coverage was positive overall during last year. The company finally launched Elevated Careers. eHarmony's founder Dr. Warren stepped down and Grant Langston became new CEO and this change got a a lot of mentions in the press, along with numerous interviews with the new CEO talking about what's next for eHarmony.  On the other hand eHarmony lost it's COO, Armen Avedissian in August. Eventually, in December, big changes were announced.

See the rest of the list on Courtland Brooks blog.

Post by Courtland Brooks team