MASHABLE – Dec 31 – This Sunday, Jan. 3, at 8:52PM EST is when online dating goes into hyperdrive. Match's busiest time of year are the weeks between Dec 25 and Feb 14. The site sees a 60% spike in new members, 50M messages are sent, users upload 15M new photos and go on 1M dates. Hinge also sees a 50% lift in registrations the first week in January, versus December.
by Stephanie Buck
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MASHABLE – Nov 13 – Once is a new dating app that has launched in UK. On Once, daters are chosen by human matchmakers. The app launched in France a few weeks ago and gained 150K users in less than a month.
MASHABLE – Aug 24 – At least two Ashley Madison clients have reportedly committed suicide in the wake of the website's massive hack, Toronto police said on Monday, in an appeal to both the public and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for help. Police added that there have been unspecific "hate crimes" as a result of the hack, which was rumored for weeks but confirmed last week when hackers dumped the personal information of millions of the site's users on the web after the company refused their demands to shut it down. Avid Life Media is putting up a $500K reward for information that leads to the "identification, arrest and prosecution" of the hackers who leaked its massive database last week.
by Brian Ries
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MASHABLE – Aug 18 – Clover, Whim, Pure and HowAboutWe's Tonight app offer on-demand functions which cut to the chase so users can aggressively get on each others' calendars. Clover just closed $2M in funding (bringing total investment to $4M). Close behind Clover is upstart Whim, which launched in LA in 2014. Markedly different from Whim and Clover is the unabashedly more hookup-focused Pure, which is so radical and in-the-moment in its "demand" nature, that there are actually no profiles or Facebook integration. Having raised 10 times less investment capital than Clover ($400K versus $4M), Pure is already cash-positive.
by Mandy Stadtmiller
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See all posts on Pure See all posts on Clover
See all posts on Tonight See all posts on Whim
MASHABLE – Aug 12 - Tinder is reinstating co-founder Sean Rad as CEO, five months after he was replaced by Chris Payne. Payne, a former eBay and Microsoft executive, is leaving the company, and Greg Blatt will step in as chairman.
MASHABLE – July 21 – "Geng Le," the former policeman, founded one of China’s earliest gay sites. The site, danlan.org, was repeatedly shut down by Chinese government. Every time, he'd move his server to another city and launch again. But the times have changed. Geng's site is now free to cover gay news from around the world. Three years ago, he launched a gay-dating app called Blued, which he claims is the most widely used globally, with 15M users. After receiving $30M in funding last year, Blued launched an English version of the app in Feb and set up offices in the U.S., Thailand and Taiwan. In 2013, a new gay-dating app called Zank appeared. The app has ~8M users, and received $3.2M in private funding last year. Blued and Zank have done well locally but Grindr isn't giving up. Blocked by the Chinese government until June 2011, the app’s user numbers have been steadily climbing ever since.
by Justin Bergman
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See all posts on Blued
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MASHABLE – July 21 – For many of Ashley Madison's 37M users, the site's breach could have devastating consequences on their personal lives. AM claims that it has now been able to secure its sites; at this stage, that doesn't really matter. Already, files containing emails and passwords have started to spread online. The attackers claim to have more than just login identities. Their trove purportedly includes profiles and individual messages. Being in the "discreet connection" space means security should have been AM's number one priority. Stu Sjouwerman, the CEO of security awareness platform KnowBe4, said the fact that AM's data was not encrypted "is tantamount to criminal negligence."
by Christina Warren
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MASHABLE – Apr 23 – Nearly 15 years ago, Noel Biederman launched AshleyMadison. He intends to raise ~$200M in an IPO in London later this year. The AshleyMadison IPO will likely be a litmus test for how public investors view a service on the fringes of social norms. That is part of the reason the company is choosing London over New York for its IPO. AM pursued an IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2011, but investors gave it the cold shoulder.
Q&A with Noel Biderman
Q: Why go public?
A: I’ve tried to attract world-class talent. By going public, you can attract a whole slew of talent and I think this company is worthy of that magnet effect.
Q: How do you plan to grow your business?
A: There's a huge trillion-dollar economy that gets built on the back of unfaithfulness — the hotel industry, jewelry, flowers. Maybe there's an opportunity to participate one level deeper in that economy. If you’re a public company i think they take your phone call.
Q: How much longer do you really plan to stick with it?
A: I think I am going to be tied to this thing forever.
by Seth Fiegerman
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MASHABLE – Feb 11 – Lovebook is a new matchmaking service that helps singles find dates by buying targeted Facebook ads for them. The rates range from $15 to $60, it depends on how many people the paying user hopes to reach. After PayPal payment, Lovebook creates a separate Facebook page with three photos and a brief message about what is the user looking for. Lovebook then buys ads targeted to nearby Facebook users with similar interests.
MASHABLE – Dec 23 - Zoosk analyzed 4M messages and 430K dating profiles to see what people responded to in 2014, and to predict what's coming in the new year. A full body photo increases messages received by ~203%, on average.
by Laura Vitto
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