THE MEMO – Jan 24 – Until recently, the same-sex dating scene was dominated by Grindr, Hornet and SCRUFF – all of which struggle with an overt hookup culture. Chappy, co-founded by Made in Chelsea's Ollie Locke, is an attempt to fight back with his gay dating app Chappy. He says gay men deserve better. "By using Chappy, users commit to treating their fellow members with respect, kindness and honesty, without judgment or bias." Because of Facebook connection, everyone is more accountable for their actions. Mr Right or Mr Right Now is Chappy's sliding scale of what you're looking for. Something serious, or something more spontaneous. Chappy already has 150K monthly active users who've collectively swiped ~600M times across the UK and US since launch.
Month: January 2018
COO Of Spark Networks To Speak At iDate This Week
WEBWIRE – Jan 23 – Michael Schrezenmaier, COO of Spark Networks, will speak about the need to keep on evolving in the dating industry at the iDate Internet dating conference. iDate is taking place this week (Jan 24 – 26) at the Hyatt Place in Delray Beach, Florida.
Bumble Adds Instagram Option To Users’ Profiles
VENTURE BEAT – Jan 23 – Bumble has integrated Instagram into its users' profiles. They can now opt-in to allow potential matches to scroll through their Instagram feed through the Bumble app. For now, the option is only available on Bumble Date and Bumble BFF, not on Bumble Bizz, which was launched last October. Tinder added the Instagram integration back in April 2015.
How OkCupid Users Really Feel About Donald Trump
POPSUGAR – Jan 23 – OkCupid revealed that ~600K people have used the platform's Trump Filter – a question that just reads "Trump?" with optional responses of "Hell Yes," "Yes," "Hell No," and "No" – as of Jan. 12, 2018. 90% of users opted for "Hell No", while only 7% opted for "Yes," and 3% "Hell Yes." According to previously released statistics, the users who discuss their politics in their profile are 52% more likely to get matches, and 30% more likely to get a message out of the exchange.
Millennials Spend 10 Hours A Week On Dating Apps, Research Reveals
Tinder’s Lack Of Encryption Lets Strangers Spy On Users’ Swipes
WIRED – Jan 23 – Tinder's mobile apps still lack the standard encryption necessary to keep photos, swipes, and matches hidden from snoops, according to researchers at Tel Aviv-based app security firm Checkmarx. Just by being on the same Wi-Fi network as any user of Tinder's iOS or Android app, the researchers could see any photo the user did, or even inject their own images into his or her photo stream. And while other data in Tinder's apps are HTTPS-encrypted, Checkmarx found that they still leaked enough information to tell encrypted commands apart, allowing a hacker on the same network to watch every swipe left, swipe right, or match on the target's phone nearly as easily as if they were looking over the target's shoulder. Checkmarx says it notified Tinder about its findings in November, but the company has yet to fix the problems. To fix it, Checkmarx says Tinder should not only encrypt photos, but also "pad" the other commands in its app, adding noise so that each command appears as the same size or so that they're indecipherable amid a random stream of data.
CCBill Partners With DatingPro As A Payment Platform
PRWEB – Jan 23 – This new integration partnership further supports the end-to-end payment solutions needs of DatingPro's expanding base of ~10K dating site and mobile app merchants.
Badoo Is Looking For A Buyer
CNBC – Jan 23 – Badoo is seeking a sale that could value the company at $1.5B and reportedly hired J.P. Morgan Chase to help it find a buyer. Possible buyers include Match Group, non-U.S. based strategic buyers, and private equity buyers. Badoo is now owned by Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev and is also a majority owner of dating app Bumble (Badoo owned 79 percent of Bumble as of March 2016, according to TechCrunch).
by Alex Sherman & Leslie Picker
See full article at CNBC
What Is Viola.AI?
eHarmony VP Of Content To Speak At iDate
WEBWIRE – Jan 22 – Jeannie Assimos, VP of Content at eHarmony, will discuss how she has seen the online dating landscape change in the ten years since she joined the company. The conference is taking place this week – January 24-26, at the Hyatt Place in Delray Beach, Florida.