OPW – Jan 28 – Match Group's new safety features, Grindr's new potential owner, Grant moves on, IDEA SUMMIT.
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NASDAQ – Jan 24 – Nick Sciple talks with Dan McMurtrie and Alex Draime of Tyro Partners about the bull case paper they recently wrote on online dating. Some topics discussed:
by Nick Sciple
See full article at Nasdaq
TECH CRUNCH – Jan 23 – Match Group has invested in and partnered with connected safety platform Noonlight to roll out a series of new safety features to its dating apps. The tools include emergency assistance, location tracking, photo verification, and an updated in-app Safety Center. Match Group didn't disclose the size of the investment, but did say it was joining Noonlight's Board of Directors. Noonlight, which has been operating for five years, today partners with Uber, Lyft, Alexa, Google Home, Fitbit, Canary, SmartThings and others. It has handled ~100K emergencies to date and runs 3 monitoring centers. One key addition to Tinder, powered by Noonlight, will allow U.S. users to share details about upcoming dates via Noonlight's Timeline technology. Tinder users will be able to share who they are meeting, where and when by adding the date to their timeline. Another new feature will allow users to easily and discreetly trigger emergency services via the Noonlight app, if they're feeling uneasy or in need of assistance.
by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch
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MEDIA POST – Jan 7 – The "If Commitment Is Your Thing" campaign, developed with Publicis Groupe's Marcel, uses one overarching message that opens with what is thought of as a romantic moment before revealing two individuals who are actually engaged in mundane activities, such as hanging a picture on a wall or dancing with a baby. Each snippet is designed to appeal to a core membership target, including single parents as well as same-sex and interracial couples. "In a society that values casual dating and one-night stands, it feels good to tell the world that more serious relationships and commitment are as cool and sexy," stated Youri Guerassimov and Gaetan du Peloux, executive creative directors at Marcel Worldwide. The campaign will roll out in France, UK, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Norway, airing across TV, radio, social and digital.
OPW – Jan 7 – Online dating peak season, Facebook Dating survey, Match Group spin-off.
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FORTUNE – Dec 19 – Shares of IAC finished the day up 7%, trading at $237.54. Match Group shares also spiked 7%, closing at $76.76. IAC owns an 80.4% stake in Match, according to a June regulatory filing. Ivan Feinseth, chief investment officer and director of research at Tigress Financial Partners, says Match had simply outgrown the relationship.
PR NEWSWIRE – Dec 19 – IAC and Match Group have entered into a definitive agreement providing for the full separation of Match Group from the remaining businesses of IAC. The agreement has been approved by the Board of Directors of each of IAC and Match Group. The transaction is expected to close in the Q2 of 2020 and it will give IAC shareholders direct ownership of Match Group.
BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK – Dec 5 – Levin was a junior investment banker at Credit Suisse First Boston when Barry Diller brought him over to IAC/Interactive Corp. in 2003; 12 years later, he succeeded him as CEO. IAC is spinning off the Match Group so the market can more easily value smaller IAC businesses, such as video platform Vimeo. In July, Levin invested $250M in Turo, which lets people rent out their cars when they're not driving them.
Q: What's the secret to competing with Big Tech, as you do with Facebook in dating?
A: They'll always have distribution and cost advantages. We can have a better product. We've got a group of people who eat, breathe, sleep, and live dating. Their product is free. Some of our products are not free. That's a signal of a commitment.
Q: Why spin off businesses like Match Group? Why not become an Internet conglomerate?
A: We're not empire builders. If we're going to keep building new businesses, we've got to focus. Eliminating the thing that starts to make life easy and focusing on the hard things is how you build them up.
Q: What's the one thing you learned from Diller that continues to shape IAC?
A: Thinking bigger. "Why aim for $20M in revenue? Why not $200M? Why not $2B?"
MASHABLE – Dec 3 – Hinge, which at one point called itself "the relationship app," is one of the many apps now owned by the Match Group but still strives to set itself apart. Its founder, Justin McLeod, set out to make an app less shallow than Tinder – but with a younger demographic than eHarmony and Match. Hinge ditched swiping in 2016 and charged seven dollars for the app to weed out non-serious users. By 2017, the mandated membership fee was gone, but they did not go back to the swipe model. After being acquired by Match Group, Hinge went through another rebrand that included a design makeover and a new tag line, "Designed to be deleted." Hinge has been fine-tuning their algorithm and figuring out what leads to better matches. Using data to help users get into relationships is partially the inspiration behind Hinge Lab, the app's new data department. Hinge Lab is like personal trainers at the gym.