Month: June 2018

India Has Lots Of Single Women, But Not On Tinder

Posted on June 26, 2018

Trulymadly screenshot mobileWALL STREET JOURNAL – June 25 – Tinder's biggest challenge in India appears to be getting enough women to sign on. In many parts of India, arranged marriages remain the norm, and dating in any form still carries a stigma, particularly for women. Indian women who have dabbled with dating apps complain they get overwhelmed by all the attention that comes with the surplus of men. Tinder doesn't disclose a gender breakdown, but among the app's members in India, men far outnumber women. The dating app TrulyMadly, which says women make up ~20% of its users, is trying to introduce women to the concept of "boy browsing" through a YouTube video. Another competitor, Woo, allows women on its app free but charges men, and lets women use initials rather than full names.

by Georgia Wells & Eric Bellman
See full article at Wall Street Journal

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Hinge CEO On Online Dating Business

Posted on June 26, 2018

Hinge justin mcleod linkedinCNBC – June 25 – Justin McLeod, Hinge founder and CEO, discusses the Hinge app as well as his thoughts on the dating app landscape.

Q: How is Hinge different?
A: We have a product team that really focuses on helping our users get out on first dates. Users have to fill out a deeper profile. Because people use the app much more interactively, we can learn their taste much better and match them up with people they are really going to like.

Q: How much do you charge?
A: $8 per month for premium subscription, but there is a free option as well.

Q: What is the difference between free and paid?
A: Premium members can send unlimited number of likes and are able to filter by religion, etc.

Q: What is the % of free vs paid users?
A: Free 85%, 15% paid.

Q: What do you think about Facebook dating?
A: Our demographic (millennials) are using Facebook less and less so Facebook is not a thread to our business.

See full article at CNBC

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AI Matchmaker, CoupleNet, Could Mine Twitter To Find A Perfect Match

Posted on June 26, 2018

Couplenet schemeFAST COMPANY – June 25 – A new deep learning algorithm called CoupleNet analyzes the tweets of two users and estimates how compatible the duo would be. To train the algorithm, the team behind CoupleNet created a dataset of ~2M tweets pulled from ~4,600 likely couples. The "couples" were found by identifying public accounts who sent messages like "good night baby love you :-*" to each other. After training, CoupleNet could identify real couples in the testing data better than other recommendation tools that were given the same data. The algorithm was able to spot what mutual interests between users it thought suggested a good match, like tweets about K-pop bands. But it's more than just word matching. CoupleNet could find pairs correctly even when there are no obvious matching signals.

by Jackie Snow
See full article at Fast Company

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Tinder Takes On Coffee Meets Bagel With Test Of Tinder Picks

Posted on June 26, 2018

Tinder picksTECH CRUNCH – June 22 – Tinder will begin testing a new feature aimed at helping people find more matches who fit their particular interests across areas like education, job type, hobbies and other details. "Tinder Picks," as the new feature is being called, will be available only to Tinder Gold users. Tinder uses will organize users into groupings. For example, a "foodie" might earn that tag because they work in a restaurant, went to a top culinary school, or mentions food in their bio. Users will see their daily Picks by tapping the diamond on the top of the Discovery screen. Tinder Picks refresh every 24 hours, but Tinder Gold users can opt to buy more at any time, the company says. Tinder says Picks is live now in the U.K., Germany, Brazil, France, Canada, Turkey, Mexico, Sweden, Russia and the Netherlands. It will see how users respond over the next few days, then evaluate whether to roll out the feature more broadly.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Morad Adjaoud Joins Once From Tinder As CMO

Posted on June 26, 2018

Once morad adjaoudNEW-BUSINESS.DE – June 22 – Slow dating app Once wants to expand its presence in Germany. The app has hired Morad Adjaoud, the former Head of International Growth of Tinder. Adjaoud joins Once as Chief Marketing Officer. Adjaoud will be responsible for worldwide marketing, but will pay special attention to the German market. Once launched in France in 2015; claims 2.1M French users and 1.5M German users.

See full article at New-Business.de

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Match Group’s Latest Acquisition Might Be A Response To Facebook Dating

Posted on June 26, 2018

Match group logo smallMARKETWATCH – June 22 – Hinge has grown popular among young adults because of its focus on "thoughtful" dating. The company brands itself as a relationship app at a time when many young daters are frustrated by the casualness of swipe-driven apps like Tinder. Hinge's product "is highly relevant particularly among urban, educated millennial women looking for relationships," said Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg. Facebook, meanwhile, has said that its forthcoming dating products will be about not just hookups, but "relationships too."

by Emily Bary
See full article at Marketwatch

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Dodgy Japanese Dating Sites Use Tax Haven Overseas To Slip By Police

Posted on June 26, 2018

Dodgy dating sites use tax haven overseas to slip by policeASAHI SHIMBUN – June 21 – The latest analysis of thousands of documents of the Panama Papers revealed that more than 10 companies set up in Anguilla were used as operators of online dating services in Japan. With their headquarters in Anguilla, the operators of the dating sites could more easily conceal their identities if customers in Japan demanded refunds from the dating services. The headquarters were set up under the names of several Japanese men and women, who said they had no idea they were company heads or exactly how their passport information was leaked. The operators of the online dating services with overseas headquarters use a shady method to turn a profit. Before customers can exchange messages with potential date partners, they must purchase points through the use of their credit cards over the Internet. Such sites will shut down if complaints and negative reviews start circulating about them. But the operator will simply open another site under a different name.

by Sho Okano & Ei Takada
See full article at Asahi Shimbun

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Does The Future Of Dating Hinge On Facebook

Posted on June 25, 2018

Facebook dating conversation startersFORBES – June 23 – Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, recently sent a small shockwave through the online dating industry when he announced Facebook's plans to roll out dating features; shares in Match Group immediately plummeted by 16% but recovered very quickly. For Facebook, the move was arguably an inevitable development. Online dating is not only a multi-billion dollar industry showing healthy growth but is also home to some of today's stickiest mobile apps. A recent study claims that millennials spend 10 hours a week on dating apps. In reality, it seems unlikely that Facebook will initially be able to woo those millennials who are leaving Facebook in their droves, especially after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Where it may see traction, however, is with the younger 'post-Tinder' demographic as well as the over 40s who feel fatigued by some of the more outdated long-term relationship sites.

by Jack Rogers
See full article at Forbes

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Coffee Meets Bagel Co-founder Found Her Partner On The App By Using A Few ‘Cheesy’ Lines

Posted on June 25, 2018

Coffeemeetsbagel dawoon kang's profileBUSINESS INSIDER – June 23 – Coffee Meets Bagel cofounder and co-CEO Dawoon Kang met her current partner on the app several years ago. In her profile, she mentioned that she was "in pursuit of my personal legend" and was looking for someone who "aspires to be a contribution to the world." Kang was not interested in being cool when she put together her Coffee Meets Bagel profile. And whatever she did clearly worked, because she's still dating the person she met on the app. In May, the app raised $12M, meaning it has raised a total of ~$20M since launching in 2012.

by Shana Lebowitz
See full article at Business Insider

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Does Facebook Know Enough About Us To Play Cupid?

Posted on June 25, 2018

Facebook datingTHE NEXT WEB – June 25 – The sheer amount of information Facebook has on us could make it a great place to find a partner. As well as knowing our friends, family and others, it also knows how much we interact with those users, the ones we talk to and who we tag the most. Arguably, it knows who we like more objectively than we do. Even though we are prone to lying in our status updates and Instagram feeds, there's still a lot Facebook can tell about us that may help in its quest to match us up. In a study of how people's 'likes' could form a view of their personality, it only took a computer looking at 10 likes to understand a person better than their colleagues, 70 to outperform a friend and 150 to beat a close family member. Facebook data can create more realistic pictures of someone's personality than self-reporting surveys.

by William Hanmer-Lloyd
See full article at The Next Web

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