CNBC – July 29 – In June, Bumble gave all its workers the same week off in an effort to combat burnout. Bumble said it was making the company-wide week-long vacation a permanent benefit to its 700 employees twice a year. In addition, its employees would now have unlimited paid vacation days with uniform minimums. But critics say it can backfire, with staff actually taking less holiday as a result.
Month: July 2021
Tinder Sees 1,850% Increase in Users Passporting Themselves Into Tokyo’s Olympic Village
DAILYMAIL.CO.UK – July 29 – People using Tinder have changed their location to the Olympic village in a bid to snag an athlete for a date. Tinder has a passport feature which is available by paying for a premium account and allows users to search for cities and pinpoint an exact location.
CEO of Happn Steps Down and Karima Steps up
OPW – July 30 – The CEO of Happn, Didier Rappaport has stepped down. Didier co-founded Happn in 2013. He is also co-founder of the popular French video sharing service Daily Motion. Karima ben Abdelmalek is now President. Karima has been at Happn since 2017 and was General Counsel & Secretary. Official announcement in September.
The Meet Group’s Director of Product to Speak at LTR Edition 10 on Wed 4th Aug
OPW – July 30 –
TOPIC: How The Meet Group Made Video Fun With Gamification
Sean is one of the people behind rolling out video at The Meet Group. Of course, The Meet Group is known for its great success with one to many video, and making video fun.
He was Senior Product Manager from 2017-2019 and leads the video monetization and gamification teams for all of The Meet Group's mobile apps.
Now he is Director of Product at The Meet Group. In the past he was Product Lead and Game Master at Kabam, working with studios such as Marvel, WB and Paramount to develop franchises such as the Godfather and the Hobbit into immersive free-to-play games.
Sean is deep into game design and video, and will help us get a better sense of how to get video right, and how it might evolve in our contexts, in his presentation.
LTR Edition 10 is on Wed 4th August starting 11:30am EST (New York). If you hold a full time leadership role at an Internet dating company then you are welcome to join IDEA for free, and welcome to join LTR events for free. See the LTR Edition 10 overview, speakers and invite page here. Email mark@courtlandbrooks.com to RSVP for LTR. There are 80 places only.
LTR is kindly sponsored by RealMe, vPaaS by Meet Group, and Courtland Brooks
Google Is Kicking ‘Sugar Dating’ Apps out of the Play Store
THE VERGE – July 29 – A new policy prohibits apps focused on 'compensated sexual relationships' as of Sep 1st. Other changes coming to the platform include a new crackdown on inactive developer accounts, Google says. Google's Play Store policies already prohibit apps that promote "services that may be interpreted as providing sexual acts in exchange for compensation." But the updated wording expands this definition to explicitly include "compensated dating or sexual arrangements where one participant is expected or implied to provide money, gifts or financial support to another participant ('sugar dating')."
Dating Group Acquires Cupid Media for $51M
MOBILE MARKETING MAGAZINE – July 28 – Dating Group has acquired Cupid Media, an international dating company with 33 websites and a global presence for $51M (£36.77M). Cupid Media's portfolio consists of 11 core sites, including AsianDating, LatinAmericanCupid, Muslima, FilipinoCupid, ThaiCupid, and InternationalCupid. Together, the sites will boast an average of 7M monthly active users. Dating Group expects to increase its revenue to $300M.
by Gabby Fernie
See full article at Mobile Marketing Magazine
See the top news on Social Discovery Group
See the top news on Cupid Media
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com
Anbe, a Vernacular Dating app by Aisle, is Aimed at Tamil Speakers
THE HINDU – July 28 – Anbe (meaning dear in Tamil), launched last week by Aisle, focuses on the global Tamil community. It comes four months after Arike, the Malayalam dating app from the same brand. While Aisle overall has 6.5M users, 180K out of them are users of the vernacular apps.
BlueCity’s He Health Launches Online Consultations
PR NEWSWIRE – July 27 – He Health, BlueCity's health service platform for men, has officially launched its online consultation services with tens of doctors from China's top hospitals available during the launch phase. He Health focuses on male sexual health, STDs, and everyday health and nutrition. The online consultation function will enable users to access a full range of digital health services, including doctor consultations, medical guidance, testing and health report analysis, and health management.
Yoti Pushes for More Transparency in Online Dating
MOBILEIDWORLD – July 28 – Yoti is encouraging people to use its digital identity app to protect themselves while online dating. The company is specifically seeking to address romance fraud, which increased in 2020. Romance fraud carries an estimated price tag of £18.5M since it entered the British legal code with the Fraud Act of 2006. The problem, according to Yoti, is that many of the most popular dating sites and social media apps do not conduct rigorous identity checks. That means that it is relatively easy to open a fake account for the purposes of committing fraud. The Yoti app verifies each user's identity documents when they register for an account. The Meet Group and DateID have previously used Yoti's technology to verify the ages and identities of people using their online dating platforms. The app had been downloaded 10M times as of April of 2021.
How COVID-19 Transformed Match Group’s Online Dating Empire
TEXAS MONTHLY – July 27 – Match Group adapted well to the pandemic. The company garnered $2.39B in 2020, up 17% YOY. It reintroduced video dates, and 40% of Tinder users plan to continue using video dates even after the pandemic eventually ends. That expectation led Match to purchase Hyperconnect, a South Korean social-media company, for $1.73B. Hyperconnect's technology, which is expected to be incorporated into all Match apps, can translate text and voice messages across 20 languages, and its live-streaming app, Hakuna, allows users to create their own video streams. It's similar to Plenty of Fish Live! which allows users to create their own communities around themselves and whatever they choose to broadcast. "Match has just won every battle, and the war….. They are the behemoth of the industry, and they've had a very good acquisition strategy," says industry analyst and former Plenty of Fish advisor Mark Brooks. Some of Match's success, Brooks says, can be attributed to the consistency of its leadership. Thombre has been at Match Group for over a decade, and Sharmistha Dubey, who was named its CEO last year, joined the company in 2006. "They come from a supply-chain background, both of them, and they're the two leaders," Brooks said. "Shar is very pragmatic . . . a smart operator." Mark Brooks says that the future for Match Group lies in expanding its reach to other countries, and not getting usurped by aggressive newer players like Bumble. "Match will only be unseated in the next major media shift, which is augmented reality," Brooks says, adding that it will be "exceedingly creepy and hugely challenging from a legal perspective, but absolutely transformational." Brooks suggests that there's also room in the industry for more of a human touch in dating, such as personalized matchmaking as a premium service. "At some stage, certain people will pay more to have help and feedback and a bit of sugarcoating on that feedback from people who know how to communicate," he says.