AXIOS – Mar 6 – Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg made an intriguing disclosure during Q4 earnings call: "On the product front, Tinder has been on the cutting edge of innovation since its inception in 2012, inventing the swipe gesture, which has since become this cultural phenomenon of 'swipe right' and 'swipe left' and that is often imitated on mobile products. Tinder also invented the 'double blind opt-in' whereby two users need to 'like' each other before they can message. In fact, these features are so innovative that Tinder was granted a patent in the dating category by the US Patent & Trademark office." The patent application is dated October 21, 2013.
Category: Match Group
A Day At The iDate Conference
VICE – Feb 26 – Vice spent a day at the iDate European Internet dating conference that took place last October in London. Over 40 CEOs, CTOs, COOs and CFOs attended the event. Like a lot of things that have the Internet as their bedrock, the online dating market is increasingly winner-takes all. A handful of companies control the roadway. Everyone else is hanging on. "It's one of those industries where the monkeys all mistake themselves for future gorillas," one attendee explains. "In any business, you have monkeys, chimps and gorillas. Gorillas are the market leaders. In online dating, it's The Match Group. They spend the most on marketing and product design, they get the numbers, they win the game. Now, there's still enough space in the market for copycats to take a bit off the gorillas – the monkeys – provided they simply copy and don't spend on R&D or marketing. Chimps are businesses that invested heavily in becoming the gorillas, but lost the race. So their best strategy is to find a niche – become their own gorilla in a smaller sub-market. There's a niche for everyone. But you've got to recognise which category you are, or else you'll invest too much, or too little. The amazing thing is that, despite all the cheap gags and easy scorn, it seems to be working. Last year, a UK study reported that half of all respondents had only ever asked someone out online, never face-to-face. In the States, 13% of dating survey respondents said they'd got engaged or married from an app. Those numbers will only rise.
Online Personals Watch PR Rankings – The Sites That Got The Most Press In 2017
#1 Tinder (123 posts published on OPW last year)
#2 Bumble (48 posts)
#3 eHarmony (42)
#4 Match Group (41)
#5 Match (37)
#6 OKCupid (37)
#7 Grindr (34)
#8 Happn (22)
#9 The League (21)
#10 Matrimony.com (17)
Other companies that did well and got a solid press coverage last year were Hinge, The Meet Group, Zoosk, Hater, Matchpoool and Chappy.
New Match Group CEO Wants To Make Online Dating Friendlier For Women
MARKETWATCH – Feb 14 – Tinder will soon roll out a feature that lets women choose who makes the first move on that app. She also pointed to other efforts that the company hopes will make its online-dating platforms more female-friendly, such as a new campaign for OkCupid that emphasizes shared hobbies over hookups.
Q: What does the change at Tinder reflect about Match's efforts to appeal more to women?
A: Every time we talk about product, we talk about the female experience. On Tinder, women can choose if they want to start the conversation first or if they want someone else to start. For OkCupid, we started a campaign called "DT____," so "down to farmer's market," "down to fiesta," etc. The idea is that women don't want "DTF".
Q: Is there concern that if you make the product too good, people will quickly find love and stop paying?
A: On Tinder, people are younger. When you're 19, you're not going to find the love of your life – you might, but that doesn't always happen. If you've had a success, you're going to come back and start another one. And then the best marketing in the world is from people who have seen success.
by Emily Bary
See full article at MarketWatch
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Young Japanese Are Less Hesitant When It Comes To Online Dating
THE JAPAN TIMES – Feb 14 – According to Hirokazu Nakamura, chief product officer and chief marketing officer of Tokyo-based startup Eureka, young people are not losing interest in love. "They have been placed in a situation where finding love is too difficult. They just have too many things that they want to prioritize," said Nakamura. Eureka, owned by Match Group, developed dating app Pairs that claims 7M registered users with 4K relationships being made every month. 80% of its users are 20-30 years old. But there is still a negative image in Japan about meeting someone online, as some shady deai-kei online dating services have been hotbeds for child prostitution and other crimes. But young people seem to be less hesitant in pursuing a relationship online as more well-known companies are entering the dating app market, such as matchmaking service Tapple Tanjo or e-commerce giant Rakuten which operates Rakuten O-net, a service designed for people who are serious. The dating app market in Japan is expected to more than double to ¥57.7B ($542M) by 2022 from ¥20.8B ($195M) in 2017, according to MatchingAgent.
Credit Score Is Important When It Comes To Dating
BUSINESS INSIDER – Feb 13 – The majority of online daters would prefer a partner with a good credit score than a nice car. A good credit score is perceived to be a sign of responsibility, trustworthiness, and intelligence, according to Discover and Match Group survey of 2,000 American adults. "Money talks, but your credit score can speak more about who you are as a person, and singles agree that those with good credit tend to be conscientious and reliable," says Dr. Helen Fisher, chief scientific advisor for Match.com.
Tinder Is Launching A New Location-based Feature Set This Year
TECH CRUNCH – Feb 8 – Tinder will launch a series of new features based on location in 2018. Match Group has been fairly vague on what these new features will entail, having only described them as something that will blur the "distinction between digital and real-life dating, and dating and simply engaging in your social life." Tinder remains one of the biggest drivers of revenue for Match Group, accounting for ~30% of its parent company's revenue in 2017.
How Dating Sites Spy On Users
AXIOS – Feb 8 – Dating app users provide sensitive information like drug usage habits and sexual preferences. How online dating services use and share that data worries users, according to an Axios-SurveyMonkey poll. OkCupid runs 10 advertising trackers during the search and profile stages of using its site, while Match.com runs 63, according to online privacy company Ghostery. The trackers could pick up where users click or where they look, says Ghostery product analyst Molly Hanson. A spokesperson for Match Group says in a statement said that data collected by its companies "enables us to make product improvements, deliver relevant advertisements and continually innovate and optimize the user experience. Data collected by ad trackers and third parties is 100% anonymized.
Match Group Q4 Financial Results, Revenue Up 28%, Loss $9M
PRESS RELEASE – Feb 7 – Match Group now has ~7M subscribers across its businesses and 3M at Tinder alone. Total Revenue grew 28% YOY to $379M, driven by 24% growth in Average Subscribers to 7M and a 4% increase in ARPU. Operating income was $128M, an increase of 13% YOY, while Adjusted EBITDA increased 20% over the prior year quarter to $153 million. Net loss of $9M, driven by the inclusion of $92M of discrete tax charges related to U.S. tax reform. Excluding these discrete tax charges, Match Group would have reported net income of $83M.
Match Group Appoints Ariel Charytan New CEO Of OkCupid
PR NEWSWIRE – Jan 29 – Charytan suceeds Elie Seidman, who was recently named CEO of Tinder. He comes to Match Group from Audible, an Amazon company, where he served as SVP. Prior to Amazon, he was a co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Oyster.com, which was acquired by TripAdvisor in 2013.
See full article at PR Newswire