EWEEK – Feb 12 – As Valentine's Day approaches, there has been an uptick in the volume of botnet spam sending fake dating messages, according to research by IBM. The dating spam is being delivered by the Necurs botnet and began growing on Jan. 16. Among the email subject lines were simply "Hi" or "Hey", with the body of the email claiming to be from Russian women living in the U.S. and looking for companionship.
Month: February 2018
What Men And Women Really Want In A Mate
WASHINGTON POST – Feb 12 – In one study conducted by economist Raymond Fisman and colleagues for Columbia University, 392 singles were invited to participate in a speed-dating event. Each participant went on 10 – 20 four-minute dates. They then rated them on a 1-to-10 scale and indicated whether they would like that person's contact. 43%of them requested the contact information of the person they had just met. The data collected reveals that both men and women really care a lot about attractiveness (though men care ever so slightly more). However, women care about intelligence roughly twice as much as men. Men valued women's intelligence only until it matched their own, and they actually found women whose ambition exceeded theirs to be off-putting. A team of economists at the University of Chicago showed that when women out-earn their husbands, marital satisfaction is lower, and divorce is more likely.
Grindr Launches Explore
MILEHIGHGAYGUY – Feb 12 – Grindr has released its new "Explore" feature that lets users browse and connect with people anywhere in the world. Grindr users can use Explore to see who's out there, but contacting, tapping or favoriting people elsewhere will require a subscription to Grindr XTRA, the app's paid service.
Tinder Users Are Changing Their Locations To Match With Athletes At The Winter Olympics
Gray & Farrar – The High-End Offline Matchmaking
THE TIMES – Feb 11 – Gray & Farrar is the high-end matchmaking agency that makes discreet matches for the very wealthy. It has ~2K clients on its books, ranging from executives to global leaders to the offspring of dynastic families. It charges a minimum £15K annual fee for at least eight introductions, rising to £100K for its bespoke service. Last year, the business turned over £3.7M and made a £1.1M profit. Its 15 staff work in a six-storey townhouse in Mayfair, central London.
by Liam Kelly
See full article at The Times
Indians Spend 3 Hours A Day On Smartphones
by G. Seetharaman
See full article at Economic Times
Andrey Andreev: Badoo Not For Sale
GQ MAGAZINE – Feb 12 – The Russian multimillionaire Andrey Andreev claims to have revolutionized online dating and changed the world a bit. Andrey Andreev created Badoo in 2006. The app has ~370M registered users, 7 times more than Tinder. His fortune is estimated at £700M. Whitney Wolfe has teamed up with Andrey Andreev to launch Bumble, a dating app that lets women initiate the first contact, which is 79% owned by Badoo. "We've been the first in all areas – localization, swipes. We were the first to introduce a messaging service," Andreev explains the success of Badoo which took advantage of the arrival of the first iPhone. "Each month we introduce a striking innovation. We have not realized even 1% of the ideas that we can potentially put in place." CNBC has reported about Andrey's intention to sell Badoo, which could be valued at $1.5B. No, he does not intend to sell.
On Dating App Hater, Every One Is A ‘Hater’
CNBC – Feb 12 – Hater was created by a Goldman Sachs alum to unite people by things they dislike. The company has raised ~$1M, and has been downloaded more than a million times. Currently the Hater app has 4,000 topics such as cargo shorts, crocs, and vegan food. Like the Tinder dating app, people swipe through the topics, either right or left, to say if they like it or hate it.
Men Are More Into Valentine’s Day Than Women
THE INNER CIRCLE – Feb 13 – A research by The Inner Circle dating app has found that men are more keen to celebrate Valentine's Day than women. And that applies whether they are casually or seriously dating. Men are also more likely to spend more money on a gift, with 45% believing you should spend £25 – 50 on a present.