Category: Outlets – Fortune Magazine

Match CEO Mandy Ginsberg Admires Bumble Despite Their Legal Dispute

Posted on October 8, 2018

FORTUNE – Oct 5 – Executives from two companies suing each other took the stage one after the other at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, Calif., last week. Match CEO Mandy Ginsberg said that she respects Bumble and its founder Whitney Wolfe Herd despite the two companies' ongoing legal drama. "I've really admired Whitney and what she's built," Ginsberg said. "I've had a great personal relationship with her even through all this."

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OKCupid’s Founder Shares 3 Innovation Tips

Posted on September 26, 2018

Sam yagan2FORTUNE – Sep 26 – In his seven-year tenure as CEO of Match Group, Sam Yagan learned a few things about innovation. The first lesson Yagan shared in a presentation at Fortune's Brainstorm Reinvent conference in Chicago was to "build a culture of failure and reward it." Match Group was the first company Yagan had helmed that was the market leader rather than the disruptor. His executives were experiencing accomplishment and success; none of them had ever failed. To foster the innovation, failure had to be a part of the recipe. So, he incentivized failure, asking executives in their reviews to share a failure from the year prior. If their mistakes hadn't cost the company money, they wouldn't get their bonus.

Yagan's second lesson was to throw conventional wisdom out the window. This allowed Tinder to get off the ground. Yagan knew when Tinder was pitched to him that it went against all of the rules in the industry like keeping dating separate from social media and needing a national marketing campaign to succeed. But Yagan said he suspended his disbelief and took a risk by okaying the idea.

Third tip for innovators: "Protect your baby from your own organization." As Tinder became wildly successful, executives within Match Group began feeling threatened, Yagan said. He could have sold the business or caved to pressure from others, but Yagan stood strong in support of Tinder.

by McKenna Moore
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Match Group CEO: Facebook Is No Threat To Us

Posted on July 20, 2018

Match group mandy ginsberg july 18FORTUNE – July 19 – Mandy Ginsberg has had an interesting first year as CEO of Match Group. She recalled the moment she learned that Facebook had entered the dating arena. She had just finished preparing remarks for an earnings call, when her phone began blowing up with the news. "The stock started dropping a dollar a minute," she recalled. "I just threw all my prepared remarks away and started over." Ginsberg feels confident that the mostly young love-seekers don't want to be dating on the same platform where their parents hang out.

by Ellen McGirt
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Can Match Fend Off Facebook And Bumble?

Posted on June 29, 2018

Match group website screenshot 2018FORTUNE – June 27 – Globally, there are 600M singles online – a number that's expected to jump to 700M by 2020 – yet the industry's biggest player by far, Match Group, is estimated to claim just 10% of that. If Match Group wants to stay No. 1, it will need to defend its turf. Those who know Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg say she is likely to be up to the task. She knows the industry inside and out, and she takes Match's mission almost as a personal responsibility. The company's biggest competitors include eHarmony, Spark Networks, Badoo and Bumble. Bumble claims 34M total registered users. Of its active users, roughly 10% are paid; last year the company is said to have pulled in $100M in subscription revenue. It has a Goliath-size backer: Wolfe Herd created Bumble with the help of Andrey Andreev, the founder of Badoo. Andreev owns 79%, Wolfe Herd 20% (the remaining 1% is split between two additional employees). For a few years, Tinder and Bumble coexisted but things recently turned testy. In March, Match filed its suit against Bumble, accusing it of patent infringement and stealing trade secrets. Four days later, Bumble fired back with an angry letter. A few days after that, it filed its own suit against Match, claiming Match had fraudulently obtained sensitive information during acquisition talks. But both companies were hit with a much bigger tsunami of news on May 8, when Zuckerberg made his announcement. Match Group is working on new female-friendly features, like a Gentleman's Badge, a designation recently added into its European Meetic brand that men earn through certain behaviors, such as filling out an entire profile or engaging in lengthy email correspondence; men with the badge get 33% more attention from women.

by Leigh Gallagher
The full article was originally published at Fortune Magazine, but is no longer available.

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Why Millennials Will Swipe Left on Facebook’s New Dating Service

Posted on May 19, 2018

Online dating pic1FORTUNE – May 18 – Like we've seen in other media industries, online dating is going through its fragmentation and diversification phase. New technologies typically do not replace old technologies – at least not immediately. People tend to adopt new media while continuing to use their favorite "old" media. The same goes for the online dating marketplace. Online daters can choose to use both Facebook and Tinder. The average online dater belongs to 2.4 dating sites or apps, according to the research firm ReportLinker. "This is going to be for building real, long-term relationships, not just hookups," Zuckerberg explained at F8. More than a third of online daters aren't looking for love. The same ReportLinker survey found that 34% of them are just hoping for a hookup.

by Chelsea Reynolds
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OKCupid Backtracks On Its Real Names-Only Policy For Users

Posted on December 27, 2017

Okcupid tweet real namesFORTUNE – Dec 23 – Earlier this month, OKCupid announced it would ask users go by their real names. It was a move meant to control harassment and promote community on the platform, but not everyone was excited about the idea. Some users think that the change will have the opposite effect and make it easier for men, in particular, to harass women and find them off of the platform. It's also problematic for trans individuals and other marginalized groups. After a bit of backlash for the OKCupid community, this week the site backtracked, saying that users don't have to use their legal name, and instead could use the name, nickname, or initials they want to be known as on OKCupid.

by Emily Price
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How eHarmony Uses Machine Learning To Help People Find Love

Posted on February 16, 2017

Eharmony logo new may 13FORTUNE – Feb 14 – Over the years, eHarmony has added photos and made its clunky interface easier to navigate. That, however, hasn't stopped Tinder and Bumble from stealing users away. "People do end up on those sites looking for relationships, and we see that as our challenge," says eHarmony CEO Grant Langston. Langston says users like the "swipe friendly" dating apps because they are "cheap and easy." But they don't have 16 years worth of rich data. eHarmony collects demographic data, psychographic data (likes, interests and habits), and behavioral data (actions taken on the site). eHarmony's research team also conducts research on couples who met through the site. eHarmony's in-house psychologists and data scientists feed that information into machine learning algorithms that help match compatible users. "That data lets us optimize the site and the process for a number of variables," Langston says.

by Polina Marinova
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How Tinder Used Greek Life For More Than Just Hookups

Posted on August 10, 2016

Fraternity boysFORTUNE.COM – Aug 9 – For many companies, fraternities and sororities were the keys to early success. When Tinder started, Justin Mateen hosted a huge party at his parents' California home in September 2012 and invited popular sorority sisters and fraternity brothers from several colleges in the area. The ticket to the party was a Tinder download. A 2014 Gallup poll found that being involved in a fraternity or sorority may boost one's interest in entrepreneurship. Of the 30k college graduates surveyed, those who had participated in Greek life were more likely to start their own businesses than those who hadn't. The entrepreneurs behind companies such as Uber, Snapchat, Dropbox, Lyft, Blue Apron, EventBrite, and Warby Parker all pledged fraternities in college. So did the founders of Fortune 500 companies like Nike, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot.

by Polina Marinova
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80% Of Millennial Singles Have Been Victims Of ‘Ghosting’

Posted on March 30, 2016

GhostingFORTUNE – Mar 28 – A new survey released by dating site POF finds that 78% of single Millennials have been "ghosted" at least once. The term "ghosting" refers to a situation where one person ceases communication with the other with no explanation.

by Valentina Zarya
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Tinder Is In Trouble Over Its ‘Unfair’ User Terms In EU

Posted on March 7, 2016

Tinder logo higher resolutionFORTUNE – Mar 3 – Tinder's terms and conditions are illegal under Norwegian and EU consumer and privacy law. Tinder is breaking rules with terms that grant the app sweeping ownership rights and control over users' data, let it change its terms without notifying users, and allow it to delete users' accounts without justification. Slovenian and Dutch organisations joined the complaint and are in talks with other groups that are considering filing a complaint in more member states.

by David Meyer
See full article at Fortune

Also read at EuroActiv.com

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