Month: November 2018

The Meet Group to Raise $10K for Action Against Hunger

Posted on November 15, 2018

Actionagainsthunger logoPRESS RELEASE – Nov 15 – The Meet Group's members (MeetMe, Skout and Tagged) have been successful in raising $10K for Alex's Lemonade Stand in September and $10K for Ryan's Well Foundation in August. This month, the Meet Group is partnering with Action Against Hunger. The campaign is set to launch today (Nov 15) to raise an additional $10K to fight global hunger. The company will offer a limited edition virtual gift in its MeetMe, Skout, and Tagged mobile apps. For every gift sent to broadcasters, The Meet Group will donate $0.25. Action Against Hunger has led the global fight against hunger for ~40 years. The organization is committed to doubling the number of children who receive urgent hunger care, from 3M to 6M by 2020.

See full article at The Meet Group website

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How Bumble Plans to Get Buy-In From Women in India

Posted on November 15, 2018

WALL STREET JOURNAL – Nov 15 – Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd discussed the dating app's strategy for getting women in India to buy in and the company's move to producing primetime video content. "In India, we recruit hyper, hyper local influencers – people who have a voice in a college, people the young women look up to and respect," she said. "No social platform has really been able to create major traction because they have not had the buy in from women in India. Women don't feel safe. Women are not even creating profiles for themselves because of the safety issues", she continued. "We are launching all sorts of safety features. You have to verify yourself as a user, we are letting women register without their first name, just the first initial."

See full article at Wall Street Journal

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Tinder’s Head of Product Has Left

Posted on November 15, 2018

Brian norgardTECH CRUNCH – Nov 14 – Tinder's chief product officer Brian Norgard wants to get back to his entrepreneurial roots, citing former PayPal executive-turned-venture capitalist Keith Rabois as inspiration. Norgard, who joined Tinder as part of the acquisition of his Kleiner Perkins-backed ephemeral messaging startup Tappy in 2014, has confirmed that he's left Tinder to focus on building products and investing in early-stage businesses. Tinder has not yet identified his successor, but Norgard says "it's all positive vibes" between him and the company. Norgard began as Tinder's head of revenue before being promoted to the chief product role in late 2016. Prior to joining Tinder via Tappy, he co-founded two other successful startups: Chill, a Facebook app that garnered 30M users, and adtech startup Newroo, which was acquired by FOX Interactive in 2006.

by Kate Clark
See full article at Tech Crunch

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New Pair App Brings Respect, Safety and Honesty to Dating

Posted on November 14, 2018

Pair logoBUSINESS WIRE – Nov 14 – Pair, a new app for iPhone designed to bring respect, safety and honesty to dating, is launching in US. On the app, users give each other a thumbs up or down for behavior, whether they are safe to be around, and whether their profiles are accurate. Pair then generates a safety and profile accuracy rating for each member. Members are rewarded for being responsive, behaving well and being active on the service. This reward comes in the form of prioritizing a member's profile.

See full article at Businesswire

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Shady Data Brokers Are Selling Online Dating Profiles by the Millions

Posted on November 14, 2018

Idating profiles auctionMOTHERBOARD – Nov 14 – Tactical Tech and artist Joana Moll bought one million dating profiles for $153 from the data broker USDate. The profiles came from numerous dating sites including Match, Tinder, Plenty of Fish, and OkCupid. The datasets included usernames, email addresses, gender, age, sexual orientation, interests, profession, as well as detailed physical and personality traits and 5M photos. USDate claims on its website that the profiles it's selling are "genuine and that the profiles were created and belong to real people actively dating today and looking for partners." Most of the dating app companies that Moll contacted to comment on the practice of selling users' data to third parties didn't respond, she said. USDate did speak with her, and told her it was completely legal. In the company's frequently asked questions section on its website, it states that it sells "100% legal dating profiles as we have permission from the owners. Selling fake profiles is illegal because generated fake profiles use real people's photos without their permission."

by Samantha Cole
See full article at Motherboard

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Increasing Number of People Pay Virtual Dating Assistants to Get a Date

Posted on November 14, 2018

Vida logo 2018GQ MAGAZINE – Nov 14 – For people too busy to swipe themselves, there's a new generation of cyber-cupids to help them hook up, break up and everything in between – from polishing profiles, to messaging potential dates. With a budget of £15K, Scott Valdez used Craigslist to hire two freelance writers and a PR manager, then founded Virtual Dating Assistants (styled Vida) in 2009. Since then, the business has grown exponentially. Vida has hundreds of clients. In the last year alone, it has seen a 50% increase in sign-ups and almost a third of its customers are women. The team has grown from a staff of three to 80, with matchmakers, profile writers, photo analysts and app swipers joining the ghostwriters. With pay-as-you-go monthly packages ranging from £400 (20 hours of dating assistance and an expected two-to-four dates per month) to £2k (100 hours, and eight to 20 dates per month), Vida already has a seven-figure revenue stream, and it's just getting started. Vida says that 99.6% of clients get dates, 63% of which turn into serious relationships, usually after 12 dates within three and a half months. After Vida obtains a phone number from a potential date, the client is sent an email with the full transcript of the conversation to read over and memorise (they are then expected to takeover via SMS).

by Eleanor Halls
See full article at GQ Magazine

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Badoo Finds a Dramatic Increase in Matches During ‘Cuffing Season’

Posted on November 14, 2018

Cuffing-seasonCNET – Nov 12 – Cuffing season refers to that "the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful" period when singles are typically more eager to be "cuffed," or shackled, to a significant other. Badoo found that matches increased by 105% for women and 67% for men in the winter, compared to in the summer. Badoo surveyed 2K of its users, and 71% of respondents admitted they search for a soulmate in the winter because it's the most romantic season to date.

by Joshua Rotter
See full article at CNet

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Personals, a New Instagram Dating Community for LGBT, to Launch as a Dating App

Posted on November 14, 2018

Personals screenshotFORBES – Nov 14 – Kelly Rakowski didn't intend to start a dating service, especially not one based on the seemingly antiquated personal ad. With her upcoming app, Personals, however, Rakowski is demonstrating that personal ads may be far from obsolete. It started with an accidental discovery. For four years, Rakowski had been running the popular Instagram account, @h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y, which showcases lesbian culture throughout history, when she found a group of personal ads written in the back of some 80s and 90s lesbian magazines. After a while, she asked the @h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y community to submit personal ads of their own. As she posted the submitted ads, people began using them to connect. There were so many submissions that Rakowski had to start a separate Instagram account, which she has run for the past two years. Now, there are even too many submissions for that account to sustain. That's where the dating app comes in. Personals will resemble the feel of Instagram and is designed for the LBTQ community. For now, it is not available to cisgender gay men because Rakowski feels there are already many options for them. "It's important for us to take our space first," she says.

by Molly Sprayregen
See full article at Forbes

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Q&A With Alexandra Tweten, Creator of Bye Felipe Instagram

Posted on November 14, 2018

Byefelipe iconMAGENTA MAGAZINE – Nov 14 – Alexandra Tweten started Instagram account, Bye Felipe, that outs creeps for their bad online-dating behaviors. She posts screenshots submitted by women who have been harassed by men on dating apps. Since Bye Felipe's creation four years ago, Tweten has amassed 500K followers. She also wrote a book Bye Felipe.

Q: Where did you originally get the idea for Bye Felipe?
A: It was October 2014, and I was in a Facebook group for women in L.A. One woman posted a screenshot of a message she had received on OkCupid. I started the Instagram as a joke just for me and my friends to make fun of these guys. Two weeks later, Olga Khazan at the Atlantic found it and asked to interview me. After her article came out, it blew up from there.

Q: Have you ever found success in online dating, personally?
A: Yes, I've met a lot of really great guys; I was in a relationship with someone I met on OkCupid for 2 ½ years. The point of Bye Felipe has never been to encourage women not to do online dating.

Q: How did you approach creating a book from an Instagram account?
A: I got the idea for the book pretty shortly after the Instagram took off. It took me two years to finish the proposal, and then another year to write and publish it.

Q: What did you want your big takeaway for women to be when they finished reading?
A: Don't take online dating too seriously. Have fun, and let it go.

The full article was originally published at Magneta Magazine, but is no longer available.

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Tinder to Roll Out Expanded Set of Gender Options in India

Posted on November 13, 2018

Tinder gender options2TECH CRUNCH – Nov 13 – These same options have been live in the U.S. since November 2016, when Tinder added options for transgender and gender non-conforming people. Tinder says it's expanding its support team and educating its staff about the issues that these communities face in India. Additionally, Tinder is inviting back users who were banned after being unfairly reported by others due to their gender. They will be able to email the company with a link to their Facebook profile in order to have their request reviewed by Tinder's team, in order to be let back in.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

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