NJ – June 30 – A South Jersey couple was charged this week in an international romance scam that used bogus profiles on dating sites to woo unsuspecting victims into giving up ~$6M. The married couple and their conspirators, including some in Nigeria, carried out the con from October 2016 through last month. In all, federal investigators identified 33 victims who were scammed around the country. One victim, after exhausting her savings, liquidating her retirement account, borrowing from friends and family, taking out a personal loan, and maxing out her credit cards, began embezzling money from her employer. In all, the victim funneled $4M to the scammer from her employer, according to the document. She pleaded guilty in a local court for embezzling from her job.
Month: July 2020
Global App Revenue Jumps to $50B in the H1 2020
TECH CRUNCH – June 30 – Consumer spending on mobile apps grew significantly during H1 2020, in part due to the COVID-19, according to Sensor Tower. In H1, consumers spent $50B worldwide across the App Store and Google Play, up 23.4% from the H1of 2019. In addition, first-time app installs were up 26.1% YOY to reach 71.5B downloads. During the H1 2020, Tinder generated ~$433M in spending across both app stores, combined. However, this number does represent a decrease of ~19% YOY. It's unclear how much that decline is related to consumers' changing behavior and spending habits during the pandemic. TikTok was the most-downloaded app, the No. 2 and No. 3 apps were WhatsApp and Zoom, respectively.
CEO of The League: “We’ll Find More Connection Online”
QUARTZ – June 30 – To envision a future altered by coronavirus, Quartz asked dozens of experts for their best predictions on how the world will be different in five years. Below is an answer from Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO of online dating site The League. Covid-19 has certainly changed the way we interact and connect. In times of crisis, people are clearly looking for contact and support, and they're finding it on dating apps like The League. "We've updated our app to include a live video function. We've added an extra session of our video speed dating event, League Live, each week, giving users double the chance of connecting with a new face over video. Since March we've seen a huge increase in our League Live sessions and a 41% increase in video chat usage."
Match Group Completes Separation From IAC
TECH CRUNCH – July 2 – Previously, Match Group was a publicly-traded company, with digital holding company IAC as its majority shareholder. Last year, the companies announced a plan that would see IAC's ownership of Match distributed to IAC's shareholders – a plan that is now completed. The separation also involves a leadership change, with Mark Stein and Gregg Winiarski stepping down from the Match Group board. The company has four new board members: ExecOnline CEO Stephen Bailey, the NBA's executive president for digital media Melissa Brenner, investor and entrepreneur Wendi Murdoch and actor Ryan Reynolds. Shar Dubey will continue to serve as Match Group's CEO, a position she took at the beginning of this year, while Joey Levin remains a both IAC's CEO and Match Group's executive chairman.
Dating Apps Pivot to Video
WALL STREET JOURNAL – July 1 – With social distancing recommendations and laws in effect across the country, meeting people online and developing relationships virtually has never been more popular. Georgia Wells, WSJ's technology reporter and Mark Brooks, CEO of the Courtland Brooks consultancy-agency explore what this shift means for the future of online dating.
IAC and Match Group Complete Business Separation
SEEKING ALPHA – July 1 – That means today, "new" IAC will trade under the IAC symbol, and "new" Match Group under its MTCH symbol. Match Group's dual-class voting structure has been eliminated, and the interest in Match Group that used to be held by IAC is now held directly by IAC shareholders. Specifically, IAC shareholders received one share of "new" IAC common stock and 2.1584 shares of "new" Match Group for each share of IAC common stock held. And IAC received $838M of cash, representing $3/share of Match Group stock previously held. IAC expects to receive an additional $1.4B from the sale of shares of New Match, set to close later today.
IDEA’s Project 0d8 Helps Dating Services Improve
OPW – July 1 – Project 0d8 is an IDEA (Internet Dating Excellence Association) project. We're opening up access to a team of amazing top tier professors in the fields of Behavioral Science and Evolutionary Psychology to help you improve your game. Please see 0d8.com for more information. They want the ability to run surveys, do randomized control tests and look at aggregate data to test hypotheses that can help you improve your dating apps and understand user behavior more profoundly. Email mark@idea.gp if you'd like to help further the science behind Internet dating.