INDIAN TELEVISION – Apr 4 – Tinder and BuzzFeed India present GirlsFeed, a six episode variety show featuring a diverse group of women discussing the struggles, joys, highs and lows of being a woman in India.
Month: April 2019
Badoo, Owner of Bumble, Pays Women 33% Less Than Men
BLOOMBERG – Apr 4 – One year after U.K.-based businesses were forced to report their gender pay gap, there has been some change from tech companies, but not all of it in the right direction. Facebook is now paying female staff less on average, but has hired more women in senior positions. Amazon.com, which still employs about the same number of men and women in top jobs, has improved the gap in average pay, while Uber and WeWork both revealed a sizable pay gaps. Dating app maker Badoo, which also operates the female-focused Bumble service, pays women 33% less than men, and women occupy 14% of top jobs at the company.
Veil, a Matchmaking App for Muslims
THE NATIONAL – Apr 4 – Since the matrimonial app for Muslims, Veil, launched on March 18, co-founder Adam Ward admits he's been amazed by the response it has received. At least 100 new users sign up every day. Veil is very discreet and respectful, with images of users kept anonymous until they match with the intention of getting married. There are at least two other apps created solely for Muslims, Muzmatch, which has close to one million users, and Minder. However, while Muzmatch gives users the option to hide or display images, Veil is the first app to introduce what Ward calls a "digital veil", an opaque filter that's applied to all profile pictures to hide the identity of users until a match is mutually made. It's also the first app of its kind to be based in Dubai, with a second office in London.
by Yvonne Kerr
See full article at The National
See all posts on Minder
See all posts on Muzmatch
See all posts on Veil
Grindr Employees Fear That China Wanted to Access User Data Via HIV Research
NBC NEWS – Apr 4 – The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., an interagency group led by the Treasury Department that oversees foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies, began investigating Grindr in July 2018 because of concerns about the security of sensitive user data collected by the app, which included the HIV status. Grindr, which has ~3M daily users, was wholly acquired by China's Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. in Jan 2018. The deal immediately caused concern among national security experts who worried that China could harvest sensitive private data from the app for espionage purposes. Kunlun is now trying to sell Grindr under pressure from the Treasury's foreign investment committee over national security concerns. A spokesperson for Grindr declined to comment on the federal committee's investigation and said that the company "never disclosed any user data to the Chinese government nor do they intend to. Scott Chen was named Grindr's CTO shortly after the app's sale to Kunlun. He is currently president of Grindr. On July 3, 2018, Chen informed three Grindr employees that Yiming Shao, an HIV researcher for China's equivalent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was interested in working with Grindr. To facilitate this project, Chen wrote an email to the employees that suggested putting a full-time "intern" in Grindr's West Hollywood, California, headquarters to do research and work on a paper about HIV prevention that would be co-published with the company. "They are attracted by our brand, reach and data," Chen wrote in the email. "We need to be extremely careful about their data request. Yiming is head of HIV prevention in China CDC. We can't let people say this is about 'sharing user data with the Chinese government." Company employees believed that putting a person from Shao's team in Grindr's headquarters would put user data at risk.
One in Five Men Admit to Snooping on a Loved One’s Smartphone
DAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Apr 3 – Experts from the University of South Wales surveyed 2K people in the UK. One in five men said they waited until their partner was asleep to use their fingerprint to unlock their phone. More than half of those who snooped on their partner discovered something that led them to believe they had cheated. Almost six in ten indicated that sexting should be considered cheating while 40% felt it was not.
by Victoria Bell
See full article at DailyMail.co.uk
RIP Google+
TECH CRUNCH – Apr 3 – Google has now started deleting Google+ user accounts and their data.
Dating Startups Aim For Disruption, But Good Ideas Can’t Buy Them Love From Investors
by Savannah Dowling
See full article at Tech Crunch
See all posts on Wingman
See all posts on Ship
See all posts on Hinge
Pickable: New Dating App That Emphasizes Women’s Privacy
LEAD – Apr 2 – Pickable is a new dating app where women do not have to register and create a profile. Founder Clémentine Lalande (also a co-CEO of French dating app Once) sees a great potential in her new concept, especially in Germany.
Q: Why do we need another dating app?
A: We need a new dating app because singles are tired of the swiping culture. Some users, mostly men, use bots to swipe right in order to get more matches. Women get too many messages at the best, investing too much lifetime.
Q: And in the worst case?
A: Aggressive messages or obscene pictures.
Q: What's Pickable doing differently than Tinder?
A: I chose a very radical approach and gave women 100% of control. They are completely anonymous and do not have to reveal any information. Women pick out the men on Pickable and decide for themselves what they want to share with them.
Q: Why do you see a great potential in Germany?
A: Our studies have shown that German women find swiping a lot more stressful than others. 25% of women feel uncomfortable, but in France or Italy, for example, only 10% of women feel uncomfortable about swiping. That's why I have high hopes for the German market.
Tinder Hires a New Chief Product Officer to Keep College Kids on the App
THE VERGE – Apr 1 – Ravi Mehta comes to Tinder from Facebook where he was the product director for youth engagement and helped develop Lasso, Facebook's TikTok competitor. Tinder says Mehta has "spearheaded efforts to understand how Gen Z (users between ages 18 and 22) spends their time online and identified key product opportunities for this demographic." Last year, Tinder released Tinder U, its college student-only service that requires users to have an active .edu email address and be on campus. This year, it also developed its Spring Break Mode that lets Tinder U users select their spring break vacation spot and then swipe on potential matches ahead of arriving.
Grindr’s Chinese Owner Says No Deal With US Yet on Sale
SCMP – Apr 1 – Beijing-based Kunlun, which has owned gay dating app Grindr since 2016, say it is communicating with the US regarding its ownership. It has yet to reach any agreement with US authorities (the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US – CFIUS) in response to reports that the firm has been forced to sell Grindr amid concerns that its ownership constitutes a national security risk. In August, Kunlun started preparations for an IPO. The CFIUS intervention, however, would put an end to that process.