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Month: August 2019
Momo’s Q2 Financial Results
PRESS RELEASE – Aug 27 – Net revenues increased by 32% YOY to RMB4,152.6M ($605M) in the Q2'19. Net income slightly decreased to RMB731.8M ($106.6M). Monthly Active Users on Momo app were 113.5M in June 2019, compared to 108M in June 2018. Total paying users of the company's live video service and value-added service, including 3.2M paying users of Tantan, were 11.8M, up from 11.6M in Q2'18.
Facebook Snagged Dating-related Patent This Month
SILICON VALLEY BUSINESS JOURNAL – Aug 26 – Facebook has secured a patent called "Systems And Methods For Providing a Community-Based Dating Service For a Social Networking System". Facebook is going to launch its Dating feature in the U.S this year. The patent, which Facebook filed April 29, lays out ways that the service would work. Facebook users would be able to unlock dating features associated with groups and events of which they are already members, allowing them to communicate with other members.
by Allison Levitsky
See full article at Silicon Valley Business Journal
Lumen Sheds Light on Late-life Love
POSTMEDIA NEWS – Aug 26 – Lumen, a dating app for the 50-plus crowd, is a runaway success. The app launched in the UK last fall by co-founders Antoine Argouges (ex-Bumble) and Charly Lester, and has 1.2M users worldwide. The app uses AI to ensure users are who they claim to be (promising 100% photo verification); the opening salvo has to be longer than 50 characters. "Working for Lumen has made me realize how 'old' people think 50 is, and how untrue that perception is," said Charly Lester. "When someone pictures a 50-year-old in their head, most of the time the image they are thinking of is a 70-year-old. We need to shake up these perceptions because they are wrong, and damaging."
International Online Dating Scam Busted in California
CNN WIRE – Aug 26 – In March 2016, a man claiming to be a US Army captain stationed in Syria reached out to a Japanese woman on an international site for digital pen pals. Over 10 months, she sent him a total of $200K that she borrowed from friends, her ex-husband and other relatives. But he did not exist. It was all an international online scam run by two Nigerian men in the Los Angeles area with the help of associates in their home country and other nations, federal officials say. And Thursday, US prosecutors charged 80 people (mostly Nigerians) in the widespread conspiracy that defrauded at least $6M from businesses and vulnerable, elderly women. Of those, 17 people have been arrested in the US so far and federal investigators are trying to track down the rest in Nigeria and other nations.
Singapore Rent-a-date Services
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST – Aug 24 – In many Asian cities, where the cost of living is high and careers often come first, it's hard for people to find a partner. In Singapore, men and even some women are choosing to rent a date instead of looking for long-term love. Maybe.sg provides male and female dates, with its prices ranging from S$80 ($58) to S$380 ($274) for a minimum of two hours. SG VIP Escorts was set up in 2017. The company's rates range from S$600 ($430) to S$1,400 ($1000) for an hour, and can go up to S$10,000 ($7200) for "special events", such as public events lasting four hours.
Ashley Madison Has Signed 30 Million Cheating Spouses
FORBES – Aug 24 – More people have signed up to Ashley Madison since the 2015 hack than before. And that is extraordinary. As things stand today, Ashley Madison has amassed ~32M new users since the hack. Back in 2015, the company was active in some 50 countries, directly marketing in more than 20. Now the focus is only North America. Ashley Madison brought in Ernst and Young in 2018 to go through all the systems, inch by inch. They verified all the automated fembots were gone.
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S’pore Dating App Paktor Launches 15-Sec Voice Bios
by Alanna Tan
See full article at Vulcan Post
Russian Web Activists Joust With Kremlin to Keep Internet Free
WALL STREET JOURNAL – Aug 22 – As Vladimir Putin's Russia increasingly cracks down on Internet freedoms, a band of self-styled pirates is fighting back. The group of fewer than a dozen lawyers and techies calling themselves Roskomsvoboda (Russian Communications Freedom) has unblocked banned websites, mounted legal cases and recently revealed that Moscow had ordered dating app Tinder to share user information with security services, setting off fresh debate over Moscow's tightening grip on the Internet. Roskomsvoboda's main objective now is to prevent Mr. Putin's government from advancing plans to install a "kill switch" that would allow Russia to firewall itself from the rest of the Internet, much as China does. Russia has banned ~200K sites, and bloggers are now required to register as media, which subjects them to greater government pressure. The new kill switch is scheduled to go live in November.