Month: December 2017
Q & A With Dating Industry Expert, Mark Brooks
Q: How did you become an expert in the dating industry?
A: I started an adventure club in Silicon Valley in 1996. It was a singles club that wouldn't admit to being a singles club. I learned a lot about how people felt about early dating sites. I worked for some dating sites from 2000 – 2005 and was coerced into speaking at the Internet Dating Conference in 2005. Ed Baig from USA Today interviewed and quoted me. I'd been working in the iDating business since 2000, in earnest, and he put me on the map as bonafied dating industry expert.
Q: So you're an expert in the industry, but have you ever used a dating site?
A: My goal is to help create dating apps that I'd actually want to use. In 2000 I used Hypermatch, a site I worked on. It worked quite well for me, and was a precursor to eharmony really.
Q: What did you learn from your personal online dating experience?
A: I dated a girl seriously from the site. We were very compatible in many ways, but one. Our senses of humor were just off.
Q: What are the greatest benefits of online dating?
A: Dating apps services are generally brilliant at one thing. Helping people get the tough questions out of the way right up front. i.e. got kids? want kids? married? want to get married one day?
Q: Where do you see room for improvement?
A: Helping people facilitate highly-compatible connections. The secret is to observe people's behavior, and match against behavior. In the future, to fulfill its potential, the dating industry will need to connect with more academics, do a lot more experiments, and learn how to correlate observed behaviors and preferences with character traits and compatibility.
Q: What can you tell us about online dating users today versus online dating users 10 years ago?
A: In the past there was a major stigma around Internet dating. Now, I think pretty much everyone knows someone who has been successful with online dating.
Q: What do you expect will be the big changes in the dating industry in 2018?
A: Tinder will continue to rule the roost. VC money will burn out. Dating apps will charge more, which will fuel a resurgence in innovation and new app development. I sense the beginnings of a hunger for change and renewal. We'll see more fracturing of the market in 2018-2020 as niche dating apps start to take root.
Whitney Wolfe Herd Lands On Forbes’ 30 Under 30 For 2017
CALIFORNIA BLOG – Dec 14 – Forbes' annual 30 Under 30 issue highlights 30 people who are not only wildly successful but who also happen to be under the age of 30. Ms. Wolfe' dating app Bumble has ~22M registered users and is experiencing a YOY growth of 70%. Tinder has ~46M users and 10% growth. Monetization of the app started in August 2016. For 2017, Bumble is expected to exceed $100M in sales – and that figure is expected to double in 2018.
by Haley Rothwell
See full article at California Blog
Plenty Of Fish Adds New Conversation Features To Differentiate Itself From Tinder
TECH CRUNCH – Dec 14 – POF was founded in 2003, then sold to Match Group in 2015 for $575M. It has since remained fairly quiet. That is now changing. POF is set to launch a collection of new modern features, called "Conversation Powers". It includes voice messaging, video calling, and the ability to share photos in chats. In the near future, it will also include the ability to share GIFs in conversations and add illustrations to photos, like doodles and stickers. POF will trigger the "Conversation Powers" after users have chatted with a match for a period of time. POF aims to differentiate itself from Tinder and others going forward by doubling down on conversations – something that's already a key focus for the company. POF claims 150M registered users worldwide. The company also says it was seeing $80M in revenue at the time of its acquisition, and has been growing that in the double-digits since.
Tinder Is Testing A Feed Of Real-time Updates From Users’ Matches
Grindr’s Online Magazine “Into” Boasts Strong Q1 Numbers
The Disruptive Influence Of Apps On Gay Bars
Former OKCupid Engineer To Speak At iDate In Florida
WEBWIRE – Dec 12 – Dale Markowitz, a former engineer and data scientist at OKCupid, will discuss how technology will transform the future of dating apps, from their matchmaking algorithms to the way they combat harassment, spam, and the lies users tell. Her writing on the intersection of dating and tech has appeared in The Washington Post, New York Magazine, and Gizmodo. The next Internet dating conference is taking place in January 24 to 26, 2018 at the Hyatt Place in Delray Beach, Florida. You can register here.
DNA Romance Uses DNA Tests For Matchmaking
27% Of Millennials Say They Would Consider Dating A Robot
INFOSURHOY – Dec 12 – A new report from Paris-based Havas, a quarter of 18-34 year-olds feel it's normal to form friendships and even romantic relationships with robots in the future instead of humans. Males are three times more likely to form a relationship with a robot than women. The findings were based on a survey of 12k people of mixed ages worldwide.