TECH CRUNCH – May 9 – One study suggests that the Internet is responsible for boosting holy matrimony 14% among 21-30-year-olds. Of regions with similar composition in race, socioeconomic status, population density, unemployment, and age, the author finds the Internet is associated with 13-30% boost in first-time marriages. A 2005 Pew Poll which found that 5% of all marriages began online.
Category: Outlets – Tech Crunch
Loveflutter Is A Google Freebase-Powered Dating Site
TECH CRUNCH – Apr 23 – Loveflutter is a new dating site powered by Freebase, the 37-million strong open database of people, places and things acquired by Google in 2010 and now part of the search giant's Knowledge Graph. The site connects people based on shared interests. Loveflutter shows you matches who like the same kinds of music, books, movies, TV shows, and sports. Loveflutter can suggest places to go on a date, based on local venues it pulls in from Foursquare. Other features include "Verified Profiles".
Tastebuds Scores $600K
TECH CRUNCH – Apr 21 – Tastebuds, the startup that matches people based on their musical tastes, is announcing a $600K seed round from Black Ocean, which will be used to launch mobile apps, grow its developer team, as well as formally launching in the U.S. Last May Tastebuds launched a Spotify app, which essentially embeds the service inside of the streaming music site. Tastebuds is free to join, although the company has experimented with a number of premium micro-features, such as “Incognito mode”, which hides your online status and enables you to browse profiles anonymously. It isn’t ruling out a more standard recurring subscription model in the future.
by Steve O'Hear
See full article at Tech Crunch
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Tallygram, OkCupid’s Foray Into Friend Finding On Facebook, Hits The Deadpool
MeetMe Introduces In-Feed Advertising With Flurry Partnership
TECH CRUNCH – Mar 29 – MeetMe new ads, which are being introduced through a partnership with Flurry, will appear in the Live Stream, offering a more “native” approach, said CEO Geoff Cook. “This is the first time we are placing ads within the context of the application itself, where the user encounters advertising while scrolling. The ads look and feel more like content with social cues like ratings and comments surfaced.”
Social Discovery App Sonar Gets New Investment
TECH CRUNCH – Feb 28 – Sonar, a social discovery service that was among the top apps at last year’s SXSW in Austin, is announcing new investment from Bing Fund. This angel fund and incubator program from Microsoft was publicly revealed this summer, allowing Microsoft to partner with entrepreneurs, which can then receive subsidies to use Bing APIs in their apps, as well as access the technologies developed by Microsoft Research. Sonar’s app uses check-ins on Facebook and Foursquare, plus geo-tagged tweets, to show you lists of nearby people, ranking them first by friends you know, then showing you other relevant people nearby.
by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch and InternetDatingInvestments.
Apple, Facebook: Marriage Equality Is A ‘Business Imperative’
TECH CRUNCH – Feb 27 – Dozens of major U.S. companies have come out in support of marriage equality, including Apple, Facebook, eBay, and Intel. In Proposition 8, which made same-sex marriage unconstitutional, the companies argue that “recognizing the rights of same-sex couples to marry is more than a constitutional issue. It is a business imperative.” This is not the first time that tech giants have come out in support of marriage equality. Google, for instance, setup an online campaign, with a heartwarming video, to support same-sex marriage laws in the 2012 election.
by Gregory Ferenstein
See full article at Tech Crunch
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
HowAboutWe Launches New Ad
TECH CRUNCH – Feb 26 - HowAboutWe has launched a new commercial alongside a new site landing page with options for both singles and couples. HowAboutWe begins its transition from a traditional dating site to a lifestyle brand for relationships in all stages. Singles pay anywhere between $8 to $35 per month. Meanwhile, couples pay a monthly membership fee of $22 to receive access and discounts on cool dates. The new landing page has shown a 20% bump in conversion rates during its testing period, which was preceded by January. January saw 2x more HowAboutWe couples subscriptions than the previous five months combined.
Science Shows Dating Sites Aren’t Better At Finding You Love
TECH CRUNCH – Feb 14 – Dating sites basically claim to predict the future, arguing that they have a crystal ball with a higher probability of users ending up in romantic utopia. It’s a funny assumption, because even the bleeding edge of social science, which arguably has access to a lot more accurate data than eHarmony, is really quite bad at predicting human behavior. Individuals, in general, are terrible at knowing what they want in a significant other. The browsing process can cause users to objectify potential partners, commoditizing them as options available in a marketplace of profiles. Social scientists see this as a perfect case of the ‘paradox of choice,’ when increasing options decreases satisfaction. Online communication shuts out the most informative pathway of communication by completely obscuring body and intonation. It’s very easy to lie online. Dating is entirely a numbers game, and the search method is largely irrelevant.
Pair Buys UK’s Cupple And Rebrands As Couple
TECH CRUNCH – Feb 3 – Tenthbit, the mobile app studio behind the couples app Pair, has bought Cupple, a UK-based rival mobile app for two people only, and has rebranded itself as Couple. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Tenthbit raised a seed round of $4.2M in May 2012. Cupple will, for now, remain as a standalone app, but users will have the ability to migrate their data to Couple from Cupple if they choose. Cupple did not disclose current usage figures, downloads or geographical reach. Pair meanwhile notes 1.25M messages sent every day, 160m messages between couples to date and 800K downloads.