OPW INTERVIEW – Apr 4 –
Post by Mark Brooks @ Courtland Brooks.
Category: Hinge
How To Score Funding
by Yessi Bello Perez
The full article was originally published at TechCityNews, but is no longer available.
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Dating App Hinge Offers A $99-a-month Personal Assistant
Hinge To Speak At iDate, Miami
WEBWIRE – Jan 16 – Justin McLeod, founder & CEO at Hinge is this year's iDate special guest. He will be interviewed by Mark Brooks from Online Personals Watch & Courtland Brooks. iDate, the Internet dating conference, is taking place in Miami at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden on January 24-26, 2017.
Hinge Adds Photo Captions
Online Dating Will Blow Up On January 1
BUSTLE – Dec 28 – Several dating apps report a huge increase in users on January 1. For instance, on POF, signups are expected to reach 110k, which is a 48% increase above the average daily rate in 2016. They believe signups will peak at 2 p.m. PST on January 1. New Year's Day will be the biggest dating day of the year for Hinge, too. The app usually sees a 50% lift in registrations the Sunday after New Year's. Match saw a 60% increase in new singles coming to their site last year.
by Natalia Lusinski
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The Internet Dating Conference Agenda :: My Top Three Picks!
OPW – Dec 22 – iDate Miami is happening January 25-26. Are you going? The top people in the dating business will be there. Marc tells me there's a great representation from senior management this year. That's good. So here's my top picks from the agenda. Here's the sessions I'll definitely be sitting in on and taking notes on.
- Geoff Cook, the CEO of publicly traded company MeetMe is speaking first on the 25th. His company is doing well, and they bought the hallmark early mobile dating service Skout this year. Amazing. Got to see that. They're going from strength to strength and their stock is way up. Doubled this year!
- The marketing director for Zoosk is giving us his thoughts on marketing to a relationship on mobile. Great! Zoosk gets 20 million hits a month on their website, and way more on mobile. They're doing well again. Why? How? What's next? Let's find out.
- I'm interviewing the CEO of Hinge. Justin McLeod is going to give us insights on mobile dating for the people looking for meaningful relationships. i.e., the other end of the market to Tinder. Does it work? How's he doing it? I'll also be visiting Justin's office in NYC the week prior. Watch OPW. I'll run a video review on OPW prior to my iDate interview with Justin.
Also, Brandon Wade is speaking. He's talking about how he went from niche to mainstream. We're talking SeekingArrangement here. Highly controversial of course. What's inside this man's brain? What's he going to do next? I certainly will be listening in and asking some tough questions.
So there we have it, and here's the agenda in full. Hope to see you there. This will be the 41st iDate that I'm speaking at! Prices go up December 23rd so best to pick up your tix now, so you can write them off in this tax year. ;-)
Post by Mark Brooks @ Courtland Brooks.
Hinge Not Ready For A Serious Relationship
WASHINGTON POST – Nov 8 – Distancing itself from casual hookups, Hinge now identifies as the go-to "relationship app," targeting "people who are looking for meaningful connections." New Hinge profiles include photos, basic information, and tidbits about users' personalities and interests. Rather than swiping, users interact by "liking" or commenting on photos, or answering icebreaker questions. One major flaw stood out though: Not one of Hinge's icebreaker prompts or questions encourages users to directly explain what they seek in a partner — romantically, sexually or personally. More important, Hinge's sample answers are nearly all indirect, if not trite. If Hinge's goal is to build meaningful connections and committed relationships, then why are their icebreakers so trivial? Comparatively, "older" sites such as OkCupid use direct questions about users' romantic and sexual preferences to build matches based on direct indicators of compatibility.
Tinder’s Competitors Are Banking On Its Sleazy Image
BUSINESS INSIDER – Nov 5 – When Tinder launched in 2012, every match felt like an adrenaline rush. But those matches are no longer quite as exciting. A 2016 study looked at the user reviews of 97 dating apps and analyzed how their quality scores have changed over the past year. Tinder experienced the largest YOY decline. In a 2016 survey by Consumers' Research, 13% of Tinder users reported relationships lasting longer than one month. Its photo-based interface probably contributed to its hookup image. Apps like Bumble, Hinge, Happn, Coffee Meets Bagel, Siren, Her are not heavily photo-based. Bumble has a similar interface as Tinder, but doesn't have the reputation of being a hookup app. That's because only women can message their matches first on Bumble. Men seem to like the app because women seem to take more initiative in starting a conversation. Siren, which launched in late 2015, abandons the swipe interface entirely. It features a daily question and a feed that displays users' answers.
It Looks Like Hinge Is Going Back To Freemium Model
BUSINESS INSIDER – Nov 4 – In October, Hinge launched a totally new app focused on relationships (versus hookups). After a free trial everyone on Hinge was supposed to pay $7 per month. Hinge's CEO was shunning the freemium model. He said the people who pay tended to be "power users" of swiping apps. Now it seems that he has changed his mind and is not going to force everyone to pay. This is what the app sent to its users today: "As an Early Member, you've helped create a community of people who want more. To thank you, we'd like to give you Hinge free, forever." What Hinge is offering is a "Basic Membership" with limited features.