Month: May 2018

Seeking Examples – Does Your Dating Site Use Behavioral Science?

Posted on May 25, 2018

Nudgestock 2018OPW – May 25 – I'm speaking at Nudgestock on June 8th in UK about how the dating industry are using, and might use behavioral economics in the future. The audience is made up of 900 thought leaders, academics, and business people. Does your dating app look at user-behavior and use observations from behavior patterns to improve the user experience? Probably, in some way. How are you adapting the user experience based on how you see users using it? Are you using actual behavior to infer character traits and matchmake against them? Are you using search preferences in-the-moment to inform match recommendations?

I'm looking for some specific and current examples to use in my presentation, and would appreciate you sharing your example. I can mention the name of your company if you like, or not. Your call. Please email me at mark@courtlandbrooks.com, if you'd like to share. I'm proud to be showing off our little industry at Nudgestock, and would certainly appreciate your contributions. Thanks.

Post by Mark Brooks, CEO IDEA

Foursquare To Power Tinder’s Places

Posted on May 25, 2018

Tinder foursquare logosMEDIUM.COM – May 24 – Foursquare is powering a brand-new feature in the Tinder app that helps people find the right match based on favorite places they may share in common. Tinder Places is built on Foursquare's proprietary Pilgrim technology, and delivers new potential matches through the lens of location.

by Peter Krasniqi
See full article at Medium

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Nudgestock2018: The Psychology Behind Online Dating

Posted on May 25, 2018

Two-heartsOGILVY.CO.UK – May 24 – Internet dating can be a total minefield at times. From how to represent ourselves in a bio to getting that first date. Ogilvy caught up with online dating expert Mark Brooks, CEO at Internet Dating Excellence Association, to find out more about the psychology behind Internet dating, ahead of his talk at Nudgestock 2018.

Q: If your Nudgestock talk were a Tinder bio, what would it say?
A: Virgin Industry Seeks Virgin Science – Relatively young and boisterous industry with big promise and big attitude seeks calming, sensible but sexy, not-quite-so-young-companion in new science.

Q: How can we use behavioural science to optimize our online dating profiles?
A: Context matters in behavioral science. Change the context, and you may well see different behaviors.

Q: What is the one thing anyone who is using online dating should be doing in terms of psychology?
A: Keep in mind the 'halo effect.' If you write a short-ish profile, and include a few things that you're super passionate about, you'll probably be optimizing your profile quite well for halo effect. People viewing your profile will see the things you like, and if they like them as well, will tend to mentally favorably 'fill in the gaps' on missing parts of your profile. If you write a long and detailed profile, and people see a couple things they don't like, they'll be less forgiving, and more likely to pass you over.

Q: Are there any trends we should be watching out for this year in this field?
A: Watch out for Facebook Dating. If you're attending Nudgestock this year, come to see my talk and learn why…

Final tickets are available for Nudgestock 2018, Ogilvy's annual festival of behavioural science, taking place on June 8th.

See full article at Ogilvy.co.uk

Summarized by the IDEA team

Meet Lasting, The ‘Dating App’ For Couples

Posted on May 25, 2018

Lasting iconABC NEWS – May 24 – Entrepreneur Steve Dziedzic created Lasting for couples looking to seek judgement-free, do-it-yourself counseling. He has read ~250 studies about marriage, and teamed up with a therapist, who helped him comb through the research and create an app based on the studies that were widely replicated and pointed to patterns in marriage behavior. The app's counseling costs $11.99 per month. To start, couples take a marriage health quiz which takes only five minutes. Then Lasting suggests areas where they could work on their relationship. Many people also use Lasting alone. But Dziedzic suggests that Lasting works best when both users join.

by Joi-Marie McKenzie
See full article at ABC News

Summarized by the IDEA team

SeekingArrangement Is Now One Of The Most Downloaded Apps In China

Posted on May 25, 2018

Seekingarrangement china screenshotQUARTZ – May 24 - SeekingArrangement has taken over the top spot for free social networking apps in China's iOS App Store, according to App Annie. The service provides pay-to-play relationships usually between older, wealthier men, and young women. It claims to have ~10M active users worldwide, with a sugar-daddy-to-baby ratio of 1:4.

by Zheping Huang
See full article at Quartz

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Tinder Places Tracks Users’ Location To Help Them Find Matches

Posted on May 25, 2018

Tinder places screenshot1TECH CRUNCH – May 24 – Tinder will now help users find matches with those people they may cross paths with in their day-to-day life. Starting today, Tinder Places is formally being announced as a public beta test that's underway in three cities: Sydney and Brisbane, Australia and Santiago, Chile. (It was being tested privately in these markets prior to now.) The plan is to collect user feedback from the public trials, and tweak the product before it launches to all users worldwide, the company says. Places has a number of safeguards built-in to make users feel more comfortable, and to limit the feature's ability to be used for stalking. It leverages Mapbox and Foursquare's Pilgrim SDK to identify and categorize places users go, and it only shares those places Foursquare deems "social." Tinder has no plans to delete its own records of users' jaunts around town. They can't push a button to clear their data, for instance. If they want it gone, they'll need to delete their account entirely. The company says users haven't asked for this sort of functionality during tests. Rather, they've opted in to the feature in full force, with very few qualms about their personal data or its usage, it seems. That seems to contradict the shift in user sentiment around personal data collection in the wake of the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal. Tinder doesn't believe there's much for users to be concerned about, though. That's because Tinder's main business isn't ads – it's subscriptions to its premium service.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Match Group Hit With Patent Infringement Lawsuit

Posted on May 24, 2018

Match group logo jan 2017REUTERS – May 23 – NetSoc LLC sued Match in U.S. District Court in Marshall, Texas, alleging infringement of a patent relating to "a social network to facilitate people in life issues." More info here.

by Jan Wolfe
See full article at Reuters

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LGBT Foundation Appoints Sean Howell Its First CEO

Posted on May 24, 2018

Hornet sean howellHORNET BLOG – May 23 – The LGBT Foundation, the world's only token and blockchain initiative aimed at empowering the LGBT+ community, has appointed its first CEO, Sean Howell. Howell currently serves as President of Hornet, the gay social network, where he has spent the last six years helping the company grow its user base to 25M. At Hornet, Howell also oversaw the company's corporate responsibility efforts under Hornet Impact, organizing thousands of social justice and health related activations annually, all over the world.

See full article at Hornet Blog

Summarized by the IDEA team

Facebook Has A Patent On “Social Dating”

Posted on May 23, 2018

Facebook logo se stinemEFF.ORG – May 22 – Facebook applied for a patent on "social dating" back in 2013, and earlier this year, the Patent Office granted the application. The first claim of Facebook's US Patent No. 9,609,072 describes maintaining a "social graph" of user connections, then allowing one to request "introductions" to friends-of-friends. Subsequent claims are variations on the theme, like allowing users to include "preferences" and rank their possible matches.

by Joe Mullin
See full article at Eff.org

See all posts on Facebook Dating

Summarized by the IDEA team

Tinder Has Registered Trademark For “Places”

Posted on May 23, 2018

TrademarkGRATISDATINGTIPS.NL – May 22 – Match Group has registered a trademark protection for "Places" along with the logo. Places is a new Tinder feature that functions similarly to the dating app Happn. Users can view places they've visited and then see other people who have been there.

See full article at GratisDatingTips.nl

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Summarized by the IDEA team