DAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Apr 5 – Manchester City have signed a multi-million pound contract with Tinder after sponsorship talks between the dating app and Manchester United broke down. Tinder was interested in becoming United's sleeve sponsor last summer, but have opted for a general agreement with City instead.
Month: April 2018
How Is Grindr Affecting Gay Men’s Mental Health
VOX – Apr 4 – A gay psychiatrist went on Grindr to survey men. He asked them why they're on the app how it's affecting their relationships and mental health. The most common reason users gave for going on the app is sex. Though there is this new attention to sexual health, both Grindr and the research community have been silent on mental health. Yet since 2007, more gay men have died from suicide than from HIV. Grindr may provide men with some relief from their anxiety and depression. But it's temporary. Not all Grindr users are addicted and depressed, of course. Some users use Grindr in a healthy, positive way.
Dream Connections Introduces Animated Video Profiles
PRWEB – Apr 5 – The new Living Profiles feature an animated video instead of a photograph. Mark Edward Davis, founder of Dream Connections, met and married his Ukrainian wife, Anna, in 2006 through the international online dating process. In the years that followed their introduction, Mark wrote a book on international dating and both have appeared on multiple cable TV shows, The Dr. Phil Show, The TODAY Show with Matt Lauer, and more.
Internet Dating Analysis: Who’s Growing And Who’s Firing
OPW – Apr 5 – According to Linkedin Match.com is showing no growth over the last two years, with 598 employees. Tinder is the big growth story with 320 employees and 116% growth over the last 2 years. PlentyofFish is also broken out from Match, and is up 15% over the last 2 years with 94 employees. Meanwhile, OKCupid are have been quite stable at 64 employees.
Zoosk is stable at 170 employees. They dipped to 158 employees but actually show 1% employee growth over the past 2 years.
eHarmony has leveled off to 239 employees in the last 6 months but is down 27% over the last 2 years.
See full article at Courtland Brooks blog.
Post by Mark Brooks, CEO IDEA
Tinder Users Locked Out Following Facebook Restrictions Changes
by Jack Morse
See full article at Mashable
Update from CNBC: Tinder acknowledged the issue but did not cite Facebook as the cause. The error appears to be fixed.
Why Ashley Madison Still Isn’t Dead
MASHABLE – Apr 3 – Ashley Madison now claims 191k daily active users. The company is also armed with an audit from accounting firm Ernst & Young, which verified 5,673,024 real accounts were registered in 2017 and that the ratio of active paid users male to female was 1 to 1.13. "~60% of our traffic is organic," said Ruben Buell, president and CTO of Ashley Madison's parent company Ruby Life. The company hired a new chief privacy officer and chief security officer who have been in charge of building a new cybersecurity framework. The site is introducing two-factor authentication in the coming months. The company has made more of an effort to cater to women, such as through marketing campaigns glorifying female users rather than male. The company currently has 153 employees in their offices in Toronto and Cyprus and plans to reach 173 by the end of the year.
by Kerry Flynn
See full article at Mashable
Tinder Begins Testing Its First Video Feature, Tinder Loops
Grindr Changes Its Policy Of Sharing Users’ HIV Status With Outside Vendors
LOS ANGELES TIMES – Apr 3 – Grindr will stop sharing users' HIV statuses with third parties after a report disclosed that the company passed the information on to two vendors. Grindr's vendors, Apptimize and Localytics, were fed user data that includes HIV statuses, GPS data, phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
Furry Dating Site Shuts Down Because Of FOSTA
Grindr Sends HIV Status To Third Parties, And Some Personal Data Unencrypted
TECH CRUNCH – Apr 2 – Grindr is under fire again for inappropriate sharing of HIV status with advertisers and inadequate security on other personal data transmission. Norwegian research outfit SINTEF analyzed the app's traffic and found that HIV status, which users can choose to include in their profile, is included in packets sent to Apptimize and Localytics, services for testing and improving mobile apps. The company's CTO said that "the limited information shared with these platforms is done under strict contractual terms that provide for the highest level of confidentiality, data security, and user privacy." Also, the SINTEF researchers found that precise GPS position, gender, age, ethnicity, relationship status, language and others are sent over HTTP to a variety of advertising companies.