by Hillary Flynn, Keith Cousins & Elizabeth Naismith Picciani
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USA TODAY – Nov 21 – Swiping to find a date came into the cultural lexicon when Tinder launched in 2012 and revolutionized the online dating scene. "It's a game, it's fire and it's fun," said online dating consultant Mark Brooks about Tinder. Brooks said the app can skew toward audiences looking for a "casual" encounter, whereas other apps, like Hinge, tend to build more "meaningful" relationships. "Since Match Group bought Hinge, they positioned Hinge as 'long-term' and Tinder as 'casual'," Brooks says. "I always regret going on a date from Tinder," said 28-year-old Justyna Kedra, a frequent user of Hinge, Bumble and, sometimes, Tinder. "I feel that people are very transactional. There's no depth." Hinge's approach tends to focus more on getting to know someone based on their politics and religion. According to Hinge's global head of communications Jean-Marie McGrath, 99% of the app's users are college-educated. The app gained recognition when 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg publicly said that he met his partner on Hinge.
by Coral Murphy
See full article at USA Today
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FORBES INDIA – Nov 18 – Barry Diller, the former Hollywood mogul has ground his way to a $4.2B technology fortune. At IAC he has built and spun off ten publicly traded companies, including Ticketmaster, travel giant Expedia and Match Group, Tinder's parent company, worth a combined $70B. "Spinning off Match is a process of renewal in that IAC gets to start inventing again. We are shrinking in order to grow again… shrinking with $5B of cash," he says. Former Diller lieutenant Dara Khosrowshahi, now the CEO of Uber Technologies, says, "Barry's like a shark. If he stops swimming, he dies. So he just keeps going." Diller's current hand looks challenging. Match shares were falling after Facebook said it would redouble its online dating efforts. There are also lawsuits. The co-founders of Tinder, Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, claim they were deprived of billions when the app was consolidated by Match. Diller responds sharply: "Sean Rad is a blowhard and a bad actor." Facebook, Diller adds, has yet to register as a threat to Match. "I'm not overly worried," he quips, then brings up the possibility of regulation. "I think that there are real issues," he says, turning his attention to Google. "It's okay to take our money as advertisers. It's not fine, in my opinion, to then try and get our customers."
OPW – Nov 12 – Match Results, Magic Lab Acquisition, The Meet Group, Facebook & Tinder whitelisting.
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WALL STREET JOURNAL – Nov 7 – Match Group offers attractive potential for growth, analysts say. Shares slid late Wednesday after its outlook for the current fiscal quarter left investors disappointed. But after a string of bullish analyst notes, the stock rebounded – finishing Thursday up 4%, compared with the S&P 500, which rose 0.3%. IAC which has an 81% stake in Match, climbed 3.8%. Competitors also took a leg higher: The Meet Group, which owns a live-streaming dating game called NextDate, added 9.4%.
TECH CRUNCH – Nov 7 – Swipe Night was a success. According to Match Group, "millions" of Tinder users tuned into to watch the show's episodes during its run in October, and this drove double-digit increases in both matches and messages. As a result, Match confirmed its plans to launch Swipe Night outside the U.S. in early 2020. Swipe Night asked users to make decisions to advance a narrative that followed a group of friends in an "apocalyptic adventure." The 5-minute long episodes ran every Sunday night in October from 6 PM to midnight. Swipe Night led to a 20% to 25% increase in "likes" and a 30% increase in matches. Also importantly, the series helped boost female engagement in the app. Swipe Night isn't the only video product Match Group has in the works. Plenty of Fish and Twoo are testing live streaming broadcasts.
by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch
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WSJ – Nov 6 – In Q3, Match Group's profit rose to $151.5M, from $130M in Q3 '18. The revenue rose 22% YOY to $541.5M, topping analysts' expectations of $540.7M. Yet total operating costs and expenses jumped 20% in the quarter as selling and marketing, product development, amortization and general operating expenses nudged higher. Overall average subscribers rose to 9.6M in the latest quarter, up from 8.1M in the year-ago period. Shares of Match Group dropped 16% after the company's financial targets for the current quarter came in below analysts' estimates. Match Group said it expects total revenue for the Q4 to be $545M – $555M, falling below analysts' estimates of $559M in revenue. Match also projected adjusted EBITDA in the range of $205M to $210M, behind analysts'target of $228M, and also said it expects to spend ~$25M in long-term investments and incremental legal costs in the Q4. Match Group is involved in several legal tussles, most recently with the Federal Trade Commission over claims that it induced nonpaying users to subscribe to its Match.com app based on "fake profiles." Match is also involved in an intellectual-property battle with Bumble, as well as multiple suits against a Tinder co-founder.
OPW – Nov 5 – IAC/Match, M17/Paktor, & 'too broke to date'.
For the top weekly dating industry news in ~2 minutes subscribe to OPW's Two Minute Tuesdays (TMT) podcast on Breaker, Google podcasts, Spotify, Anchor.
FOX BUSINESS – Oct 16 – IAC Chairman Barry Diller said that investor pushback over the spinoff of Match Group is inevitable but will ultimately get "solved." Last week IAC/InterActiveCorp announced plans to spin off all of its shares in Match to IAC stockholders. The company owns ~80% of Match. "Match is a cash flow machine. So we would not cause indebtedness at Match to be beyond any kind of rational threshold," he said.
FOX BUSINESS – Oct 16 – Facebook is not the place to go for online dating, according to IAC and Expedia chairman and senior executive Barry Diller. He said that if a company focuses on one thing, it will tend to do it better than others who are "dabbling." "The truth is we have not yet seen competition from Facebook," Diller said. "It's our business. For them, it's a little side business."
by Catie Perry
See full article at Fox Business