GIZMODO – June 29 – Jack'd parent company, Online Buddies, did not properly secure photos uploaded using Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (S3), leaving the images and other data vulnerable. New York Attorney General Letitia James said that the company knew of the issue and "didn't do anything about it for a full year." Jack'd is used by ~6M men worldwide. Investigators estimated that of the app's ~7K active New York users on Jack'd between Feb 2018 and Feb 2019, ~1,900 users could have uploaded nude images. Online Buddies will pay $240K to New York as part of the settlement, which also requires a significant overhaul of its security measures. "We apologize to our users for this flaw," said a spokesperson for Online Buddies. "We worked closely with, and cooperated fully with, the New York Attorney General's office in their investigation of this matter."
Category: OnlineBuddies
Dating App Jack’d To Remain Free Contrary To Recent Reports
ABO
UT-ONLINE – Oct 27 – Contrary to a recent Bloomberg report that dating apps are switching over to pay models, Jack'd, a hook-up gay app, says it will remain free. "Our research continues to show that our targeted demographic does not pay for music, games, movies, or dating," stated Phil Henricks, VP of Strategy and Business Development at Online Buddies, the parent company of Jack'd. Jack'd's monetization is through selling ads to corporations. ~60% of Jack'd's revenue comes from Fortune 500 companies, clothing retailers, and the tourism industry, all of whom have run banners on the app in recent weeks.
Mobile Dating Apps Spur HIV Among Asia’s Teenagers
THE GUARDIAN – Nov 30 – United Nations research has found the growing use of mobile dating apps by young gay men is a major factor in a new HIV epidemic among teenagers in Asia. While global HIV infections are falling, the number of adolescents aged 10-19 officially living with HIV in Asia has grown to ~220K. Grindr runs in-app announcements encouraging testing at local clinics. Online Buddies, the parent company of the gay dating app Jack'd, set up a research institute focusing on gay sexual health.
by Oliver Holmes
See full article at The Guardian
Online Buddies Has A New CEO
OPW – Nov 23 – Online Buddies has appointed Hector Camacho as their new CEO. Hector worked with Online Buddies for 5 years as their Director of Advertising from 2007 thru 2012. Now he’s back as their CEO, after the CEO of 8 years Adam Segel left the company in April. Online Buddies runs Manhunt, and the gay dating apps Jack’d and Dandy.
Full Disclosure: Online Buddies is a prior client of Courtland Brooks.
See all posts on Online Buddies
Post by Mark Brooks @ Courtland Brooks.
Jack’d – First Gay App On The Apple Watch
NEWNOWNEXT – Apr 23 – Online Buddies, Jack'd's parent company, has launched the Apple Watch app extension. The new Jack'd Apple Watch app features default responses and emojis for quick responses, bookmarked favorites, and full profile options with multiple public and private photos. Online Buddies also owns Manhunt, and a new dating app – Dandy.
by Dan Avery
See full article at NewNowNext
See all posts on Online Buddies
See all posts on Jack'd
This post also appears on Wearable.ai.
Online Buddies Launches “Dandy”, A Tinder-Style App
RECODE.NET – Sep 16 - Online Buddies is launching Dandy, a newly acquired German dating app along the lines of Tinder’s “hot-or-not” swiping style. Dandy joins Online Buddies’ portfolio of companies, including the newish Jack’d and Manhunt.
by Nellie Bowles
See full article at Recode.net
Jack’d CEO Adam Segel About Changing Times
NEXT MAGAZINE – Aug 29 – Jack’d has polled its 5M users recently. 80% of their users are ages 18 to 25. 40% of them are actively looking for long-term relationships, according to the poll. “What we found was surprising”, said Adam Segel, CEO of Jack’d. “I’m 42, and when I was growing up, you couldn’t think about getting married. We were meeting in bars where all the windows were blacked over.” He noted that people write a lot about themselves on Jack’d. They write about concerts, books they’ve read, musicians they’ve liked. It then leads to entirely different opening lines.
by Benjamin Lindsay
The full article was originally published at The Next Magazine, but is no longer available.
Online Buddies Bought Gay App Dandy
WINDY CITY TIMES – Sep 10 – Online Buddies, parent company of gay dating site Manhunt.net and social-dating app Jack'd, announced the acquisition of the gay mobile app Dandy.
by Andrew Davis
See full article at Windy City Times
See all posts on Online Buddies
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Great Insights On Manhunt’s Acquisition Of Jack’d
OPW – Nov 25 – I talked with the Chairman of Manhunt to find out more about Manhunt's acquisition of Jack'd, announced last week. Here's the summary of insights Jonathan Crutchley was kind enough to share.
Jack'd was started in early 2010 by Yosuke Matsuda, a young Japanese engineering student who was working on his master's degree at Cornell University. Yosuke programmed Jack'd from his dorm room while at school and launched it with the Apple and Google stores as a hobby. Yosuke now works for a company in Seattle, Washington. He decided to sell Jack'd to Online Buddies, Inc. when his hobby (Jack'd) made overwhelming demands on his time. He was the sole employee of Jack'd, and he just didn't have time to run the app as well as keep up with the demands of his daytime job.
- As far as financials and numbers go, Jack'd is a very new product. Its best days are ahead.
- Manhunt signed the acquisition deal about 6 months ago, when Jack'd had over 2 million active accounts and about 1 million daily unique users.
- ~Half of Jack'd daily users are in Mainland China, and those numbers are growing fast.
- Jack'd was bought for its traffic rather than its revenue.
See all posts on Manhunt
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Internet Dating Industry Weekly News 2 Oct 2009 – 3 mins
This is the news for the week of September 26th through October 2nd, 2009. We hope you enjoy the new weekly news format. Here is the news we covered for this week:
- comScore numbers from iDate London as the first bullet point
- CourgarLife versus ABC’s “Cougar Town”
- Men’s Health and Cosmopolitan magazines teaming up to launch dating sites
- Online Buddies acquires DList.com
- Interview with Michael Norton of Harvard Business School