INSTINCT MAGAZINE – Sep 6 – The series, titled What the Flip, is supposed to take a look at what the dating experience is like for different kinds of Grindr users. The first episode was already released last week and another one is coming out next week. The first episode shows a White man and an Asian man switching profiles and seeing how the other side lives.
Month: September 2017
Q&A With Besedo’s Filter Manager – Kevin Martinez
BESEDO.COM – Aug 21 – Kevin Martinez is a filter manager at Besedo, the content moderation company that is working with dating sites, including Match.com.
Q: Tell us more about what you do.
A: I make sure that our clients' filters are working as well as they should be. I assess decisions that our automated moderation tool Implio has made. I take a sample of content that's been approved – items that have been filter-rejected and filter-approved – and identify if any mistakes were made. I then learn from these mistakes and make appropriate adjustments to the filter.
Q: What kind of things are you looking for?
A: Typically, we're looking for false positives in filters: terms that are correctly filtered according to the criteria set, but aren't actually prohibited. For example, firearms brand Beretta. Weapons are prohibited for sale online in some nations, but not in others. So, for many sites a filter rejecting firearms would make sense. However, there's another Italian brand called Beretta – but this company manufactures water heaters. So, lots of research is needed to ensure that a Beretta water heater parts ad isn't mistakenly rejected from an online marketplace.
Q: What's the overall effect of a 'bad' filter, then?
A: It depends. If the filter is set up to auto-reject matched words and phrases, it leads to a bad user experience as genuine ads might get rejected.
Q: Which rules are hardest to program into a filter?
A: Scam filters are the most complex to implement; mostly because scams evolve and because scammers are always trying to mimic genuine user behavior. To solve this, we monitor email addresses, price discrepancies, specific keywords, IP addresses, payment methods – among other things.
Q: What does it take to be a good filter manager?
A: You need to have a curious, analytical, and creative mind.
See full article at Besedo blog
(FULL DISCLOSURE: Besedo is a client of Courtland Brooks.
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The World Of Modern Matchmaking
INSIDER – Sep 8 – Modern matchmaking companies like Tawkify, OkSasha, and Three Day Rule are reinventing an old tradition. They use technology like algorithms, but also emphasize the importance of in-person connections. Tawkify is a network of "dating concierges" that runs extensive data analyses on every date they arrange whose services range from $99 to $6K per year. Sasha Silberberg, founder of Bay Area matchmaking company OkSasha, began filling up her "match book" catalogue of singles while working as a Lyft driver. Silberberg, who declined to share her rate but reportedly charges $1K or more for a range of services, believes that meeting in person is crucial both for her as a matchmaker to get a feel for her clients, and for the clients themselves to assess someone's compatibility based on more than a short profile. Talia Goldstein got her start as a matchmaker by planning singles events. When they began to draw crowds of over 600 people in LA, she left her job as producer at E! Entertainment in 2013 to found Three Day Rule and pursue matchmaking full-time. Three Day Rule uses facial recognition software to determine someone's type. They ask clients to submit photos of their exes and run the images through their database in search of matches with similar facial structures.
by Talia Lakritz
See full article at Insider
Evolve Joins HubSpot
GLOBE NEWSWIRE – Aug 28 – Evolve, a mobile technology and machine learning company, has joined HubSpot. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Evolve App provides advice in love, powered by machine learning. It uncovers hidden patterns in an individual's dating and relationship history, and gives them intelligent advice in their love life. HubSpot is a leading inbound marketing and sales platform.
See full article at Globe Newswire
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
The Path To Greater Profits For Meetme + Skout + Tagged Is Paved With Video Creators
The Meet Group (formerly Meetme) acquired Skout in 2016 and if(we) which operates Tagged, in 2017 and has been working to merge the platforms so members can interact between all three apps: Meetme, Skout and Tagged.
I spoke to Geoff Cook yesterday about the integration projects and he said it was going quite well. He had previously mentioned that Skout was on track for doing $7.5m in adjusted EBITDA in their first year and almost one year later, he said they're on track for that. They just launched live streaming video on Skout last week, using the same engine as Meetme. Now their intention is to add gifting in another month and then combine user-bases between Skout and Meetme.
Ultimately, this adds to the membership density, but Skout is more International. Skout is 80% international, whereas Meetme is 40%. What is common is that people on both platforms are looking to connect with new people, and not just for dating. That's a key distinction that really separates these platforms from the likes of Facebook and Match.
So what of Tagged? Geoff described Tagged as an African American app inside the USA. "That's what we found so attractive about it. It has similar features to Skout and gives The Meet Group the opportunity to create a live streaming app for African Americans. Video is now available to all of Tagged and is being well adopted and used."
By early next year, Geoff said they will have Tagged, Skout and Meetme on one video platform and they're working on adding some interesting new video features like the ability to add guest videos into a stream.
Just where does Meetme fit in the market now? Is it a social discovery service? Not so, said Geoff. Ultimately, the social discovery descriptor really faded out. He'd describe Meetme's services as belonging to "one big meeting category," which makes sense really. Facebook, Match and The Meet Group all seem to share a common cause in helping people meet. But the nuances of these services differ in that Facebook helps people stay in contact with people they already know, Match helps people within the context of wanting to meet a mate, and "Meetme and Tagged are the neighborhood bar, stated Geoff. "Video is the live entertainment at the bar."
"Meetme has always had a mission of helping users meet the universal need for human connection." Meetme's live streaming video is different from dating apps. Live streamers can ask and answer questions and receive gifts and the whole experience is more about "social entertainment." It's not really fundamentally about dating. "Meetme is the social graph of the people you want to know," stated Geoff.
Geoff described the distinction with Facebook further. Zuckerberg talks about connecting with communities and helping the world become less fragmented but Facebook doesn't want you to make a bunch of friends with people you don't know. That would just complicate the product and change the context too much.
The Meet Group will continue to be focused on live streaming. In fact, Geoff believes the entire live streaming video category to be fledgling. "Video has the potential to be as disruptive as mobile was to the web," Geoff believes. What do you think? Your comments, please.
(Full Disclosure: Mark Brooks owns shares of The Meet Group)
See all posts on The Meet Group
Previous interviews with Geoff Cook:
Post by Mark Brooks @ Courtland Brooks
eHarmony Skills Coming To Amazon’s Alexa
Dating App Study Infographic
The Meet Group Appoints Mr. Bedi A. Singh To Its Board Of Directors
BUSINESS WIRE – Sep 5 – Mr. Singh brings ~25 years of public company operating and financial experience to The Meet Group, most recently in his former role as CFO of News Corporation.
See full article at The Meet Group website
One Third Of Brits Use Dating Apps While In A Relationship
DAILYSTAR.CO.UK – Sep 5 – Nearly one in three Brits use dating apps even when they have a partner. 46% of men check out other women's profiles. And one in five women browse the sites in secret. Both men and women said "boredom" was behind their straying.
CLiKD To Speak At The iDate Conference In London, Oct 3-4, 2017
WEBWIRE – Sep 5 – Mike Blakeley, CEO and Founder of UK dating app CLiKD will be speaking about its development, covering his journey over the last 12 months from inception through to launch and beyond at the next iDate (Internet dating conference), taking place in London, on October 3-4.