OPW – Feb 25 – Top grossing dating app, How much Americans spend on dates, Match.com new safety feature.
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ALLURE – Feb 24 – Lex, the text-based dating app, launched in November of 2019. The app was inspired by newspaper personals. "Language is really key in queer communities", says Lex's founder Kelly Rakowski. Instagram photos aren't loaded into Lex profiles.
NEWS12.COM – Feb 22 – Thomas Sheil created Uneepi, an online service for those on the autism spectrum to meet and communicate. Although Sheil himself is not autistic, he says he's worked with the autistic community since college, developing a game for autistic elementary school students struggling with expressing emotions. Uneepi offers coaching and guidance to users.
PR NEWSWIRE – Feb 21 – The Discreet App Icon allows users to replace the Grindr app image on their phone with another symbol. The feature was developed in collaboration with Article 19 (the London-based human rights organization), The Guardian Project, and Grindr for Equality to help protect users when there is the possibility that someone may look at their phone and recognize that they are LGBTQ.
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THEVERGE – Feb 19 – Facebook is facing a lawsuit from the US Internal Revenue Service, which claims the social network owes $9B in unpaid taxes. The lawsuit went to trial in a San Francisco court on Tuesday, and the crux of the case is a 2010 deal between Facebook and an Irish subsidiary it uses to shuffle money around internationally. The IRS alleges Facebook undervalued the intellectual property it sold to the subsidiary, thereby dodging billions in taxes. In 2016, the EU ordered Apple to pay $15.4B in back taxes to Ireland after ruling that Apple had received illegal tax benefits from the country.
PR NEWSWIRE – Feb 20 – Dating app Plenty of Fish is launching an advisory council comprised of real users. The Plenty of Fish team is for U.S. members who are passionate about sharing ideas and providing their insights on dating and the online dating experience. Members will receive early access to new products and features to test and inform product updates and will attend planning meetings with fellow members and POF executives.
THRIVE GLOBAL – Feb 20 – Justin grew up in Louisville, KY. After a few years in consulting, he attended Harvard Business School, then founded Hinge in 2011.
My vision is for Hinge to not just be a dating platform, but a trusted expert that guides our members through the process of connecting with the person best for them. Hinge Labs is launching at the beginning of 2020 to address this.
OPW – Feb 20 – Yesterday we received a take-down request for our sharing of this The Verge article (which quoted this Snopes article) with the threat of a lawsuit. Inaccurate! stated the take-down request. A few hours later I got this email from the investigative journalist and former NASA employee Alex Kasprak, author of the original Snopes article. – Mark Brooks
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I noticed you published Noosphere Ventures' lackluster response to my detailed two year investigation regarding Max Polyakov's apparent current involvement in online dating. For the record, the claims made in their "statement" that you have republished refute absolutely nothing in my reporting, including these crucial facts:
Mr. Polyakov and Mr. Watt may have an intimidating legal team and PR staff, but that does not mean they can pay for their own version of reality.
Alex Kasprak