BOSTON GLOBE – Privacy concerns, 'swiping fatigue,' and a desire to lock down a serious relationship are pushing people to seek one-on-one help. "The matchmaking business as a whole has been on fire," said Vandor, a matchmaker with LunchDates, who said she has seen a ~25% bump in business compared to pre-pandemic figures. Match's most recent Singles in America study, released in Nov, found that 48% of singles say they are now "more eager" to find a partner. Whereas dating apps gave rise to "hookup culture," the pandemic spurred a push toward "conscious dating." And conscious dating just so happens to be matchmakers' specialty. Three Day Rule has seen a 75% increase in business from pre-pandemic figures. Matchmaking rates vary by service but typically cost thousands of dollars. But what some clients are paying for is safety. Susie MacDowell, who runs Susie Q Matchmaking, said privacy is the "number one reason clients seek out her services.
Category: Outlets – Boston Globe
Smile App Matches Users Based on What They Find Funny
BOSTON GLOBE – Boston College alumna Melissa Mullen wanted a dating app for people who 'value humor in a relationship.' So she made one. When users log onto the Smile dating app, they won't be greeted by profiles to swipe through. Instead, they'll find a long stream of videos from TikTok. If they find the clip funny, they tap on a heart button. Not funny – the heart with a slash through it. The app's algorithm uses this data to identify the user's "humor profile", and offers up matches who have similar makeups.
Filteroff to Host Speed Dating Event for Boston Marathon Runners and Fans
BOSTON GLOBE – Filteroff, a video speed dating app, is hosting an April 11 event for people attending the Boston Marathon as runners, friends, family, or fans. Users will be matched with up to "eight people, based on their preferences. The dates will last ~3 minutes," explained Zach Schleien, co-founder of the Filteroff. Filteroff launched in February of 2020 – a complicated time to start a dating business. But Schleien said the pandemic changed people's perceptions of video dates. "We've hosted ~13K virtual speed dating events."
Harvard Grad’s New Dating App Is ‘Something More’
BOSTON GLOBE – Feb 14 – Harvard grad Adam Cohen-Aslatei, who'd been in the dating business for almost 12 years (he was the managing director of Bumble's gay dating app, Chappy, and had also worked for The Meet Group), went on to develop S'More, short for "Something More," an app that technically gives users less until they earn it. Users can't see people's faces as they swipe; everyone looks blurry to start. Cohen-Aslatei's launched the app in Boston at the end of December, giving a first look to students at Harvard. Now S'More is in three cities (also Washington D.C. and New York) with a pool of thousands in each location.
When Dating Apps Fail, There Are Always Matchmakers
BOSTON GLOBE – Mar 20 – "If you've ever used dating apps, you know that it can be like a full-time job," says Hannah Orenstein, whose experience as a matchmaker in New York City serves as the inspiration for her upcoming novel, "Playing With Matches." What matchmakers offer is convenience – handling everything from identifying dates to vetting dates to scheduling where and when two people will meet. "I tell people I'm kind of like a headhunter for their love life," says Jill Vandor, a longtime matchmaker at Boston-based LunchDates who says that firm has seen an influx of clients looking for a more personal touch. Some matchmakers even hit the dating apps so their clients don't have to.
by Dugan Arnett
The full article was originally published at Boston Globe, but is no longer available.
The League Launches In Boston
BOSTON GLOBE – Oct 17 – The app officially debuts in Boston on Oct 26 but has already accepted 2K local founding members, a diverse group of singles from businesses, academia, the medical field, and the nonprofit sector. An Ivy League degree isn't necessary to get in, but it helps. The free app's algorithm screens applicants' Facebook and LinkedIn profiles to identify their university degrees, title and employer, preferences, size of their network, and other relevant variables.
AshleyMadison.com Seeks IPO In London
BOSTON GLOBE – Apr 15 - AshleyMadison.com wants to pursue an IPO in London this year. Avid Life Media, the site’s parent company, which failed with a previous IPO attempt in Canada, said it is looking to raise ~ $200M. The company wants the new funds for marketing and international expansion. AshleyMadison has 36M members in 46 countries. While the US accounts for ~50% of its business, Europe is the only region where the company has a real chance of doing an IPO because of its more liberal attitude towards adultery. The company has also set a target that 50 – 60% of its sales will come from Asia by 2020, including Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.
by Kristen Schweizer
See full article at Boston Globe
Tinder Co-Founders Invested In College Social App WiGo
BOSTON GLOBE – Nov 17 – WiGo, a college-only app based in Boston that helps students coordinate their social plans, has received an investment from Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, the co-founders of Tinder. The size of the investment was not disclosed, but TechCrunch reported that it totaled ~$700K. WiGo (short for “who is going out”) was launched in January 2014.
by Jack Newsham
See full article at Boston Globe
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
Dating Sites Remake The Introductions
BOSTON GLOBE – Jan 29 – Tawkify, a blind-date matchmaking site, bills itself as “the new old way to date.” It is one of several matchmaking start-ups tailored to millennials who seek companionship, but who have no interest in enduring a string of traditional one-on-one dates to find it. “Social club” is how Grouper is billed. Grouper uses members’ Facebook profiles to set up a date between two people — who each invite two friends along, increasing the odds of clicking with someone. MeetCute sends potential matches to a location but doesn’t reveal them to each other, forcing participants to connect with their MeetCute match or with a total stranger. OkCupid just launched Crazy Blind Date, an app that lets users pick a location and a day, then sit back and get paired up someone to go out with. Such casual or creative meet-ups may offer more “guaranteed fun” than the typical dinner or drinks. Making online meet-ups as relaxed as possible could be the way to keep young people on the Web dating scene, said a Northwestern University psychology professor, Eli Finkel, who studies romantic relationships.
by Rachel Zarrell
See full article at Boston Globe
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Love In The Technology Era
BOSTON GLOBE – Jan 13 – Finding a date by computer is commonplace today. Not so in 1965, when two student-run companies at Harvard rushed to usher in a new era of mating. Jeff Tarr decided he was fed up with coming home alone from mixers with Radcliffe, the women’s college across the way. Tarr raised $1,250 and recruited classmate Vaughan Morrill. He wrote a questionnaire that asked students to answer 75 questions about themselves and another 75 about their “ideal date.” He paid a friend $100 to program an IBM 1401 that would match questionnaires with similar responses. Tarr and Morrill distributed the questionnaire to Boston-area colleges. Students filled it out and returned it with a $3 subscription fee. Within days the student would receive a computer printout with the names, phone numbers, addresses, and graduating years of six people. By the fall of ’65, six months after the launch, ~90K Operation Match questionnaires had been received, amounting to $270K in gross profits. It didn’t take long before Operation Match met its first competitor. In the summer of 1965, David Dewan, an MIT grad, was preparing to enter Harvard Business School. Over the summer he drafted his own dating questionnaire and taught himself how to write code for the Honeywell 200, a car-sized contraption that, at around 3 in the morning, could be rented for $30 an hour from a small Boston mutual-fund company called Fidelity. He borrowed $10K from his grandfather to start his business. He called the service Eros and its parent company Contact Inc. He charged $4. In one distribution of questionnaires, he drew 11K responses at $4 each, or $44K in gross profits, more than $250,000 in today’s dollars. Things got ugly, fast. On September 29, 1965, campus police collared Dewan for the dubious crime of “distributing questionnaires without a permit.” The next day the Crimson splashed the news across its front page: “University Police Eject Man From Winthrop House.”