TECH CRUNCH – May 31 – MiniDates schedules dates for members based on their schedule and suitor preferences. There is no messaging and no browsing. The date is as blind as can be, with the exception of seeing a profile picture and an age. An email will be sent to a woman with a match, both in schedule and preferences, and it’s her prerogative whether or not she accepts. Subsequently, men are notified that this or that lady has accepted a date with them. Men can’t see anything about the women until the date has been accepted, and no one will be able to connect with anyone until they’re found in real life. After the date, they’re asked to rank your potential suitor.
Category: Outlets – Tech Crunch
Badoo Hits 150 Million Users, Boosted By Mobile
TECH CRUNCH – May 4 – Where Facebook concentrated on linking up with existing friends and friends of friends, Badoo was oriented towards you meeting new people all the time, and for others to push themselves out there. That gave it an obvious flirtatious feel. Currently on 150M users, Badoo is one of the top five social networks globally according to comScore, and its growth is being significantly powered by mobile (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and WAP worldwide). In the U.S. market it’s seeing more new registrations on mobile than on Web, with 68% of new users coming to the site via mobile over the past six months. Mobile usage has grown by 100% since November 2011, and Badoo says is it more than doubling mobile revenues. Badoo has seen over 60% growth YOY with 35M active users per month worldwide, adding 150K new users a day. Badoo is still in profit and has an annual run rate of $150M.
by Mike Butcher
See full article at Tech Crunch
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
Cheek’d Is Online Dating In Reverse
TECH CRUNCH – Apr 22 – At Cheek'd website users fill out a profile and order a deck of cards, which say things like “act natural, we can get awkward later”. The cards also have a short ID code on them, with a URL for the Cheek’d website. When a suitor receives the card, the idea is that they’re so filled with curiosity that they enter the code on Cheek’d and are taken to user's profile page. Members pay $9.95 for a monthly subscription to keep their profile live. They have to pay extra for the cards which come in various sizes with corresponding pricing.
Badoo Hires Google Exec Ben Ling As New COO
TECH CRUNCH – Apr 19 – Badoo has appointed long-time Google executive Benjamin Ling as COO to help push it out across mobile and Web platforms. Ling was product management director of Search Products and Local Business Products at Google. Ling will begin his new role at Badoo in May.
by Mike Butcher
See full article at Tech Crunch
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
Coffee Meets Bagel Online Dating
TECH CRUNCH – Apr 18 - Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB) has just launched in NYC. After signing in through Facebook, CMB will match users with one person every day at noon. This person isn’t just some rando, but a friend of a friend. Users have two options: like or pass. If they pass, it’s over. If they click like they will be immediately connected through a text message sent from a private company phone line. Once they’re connected, CMB will hook them up with free gifts from dating spots in NYC for their first date. The company has plans to roll the service out in four other cities by the end of the year.
$1.22 Million Funding For TheComplete.me
TECH CRUNCH – Apr 16 – TheComplete.me launched a Facebook app in March that pulls in and analyzes data from Facebook and other social sites to figure out who you might be a good fit with. Led by Brian Bowman, the former VP of product at Match.com, it’s also announcing $1.22M seed round from Intel Capital, psuedo-rival dating site PlentyofFish, the CrunchFund, and a list of prominent angels. The app goes further than Facebook, too. Once you’re logged in, you can also connect with LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Photobucket, Flickr, Foursquare, GoodReads, and Instagram. It then pulls in unique data about you from each service to figure out even richer matches. In private beta testing so far, it has amassed ~1.5M profiles of users and their friends, which is already helping to shape recommendations. At the same time, theComplete.me preserves anonymity. Users only see each others first names initially, and nothing gets posted to Facebook for others to see (unless you manually enable it to do that).
by Eric Eldon
See full article at Tech Crunch
See all posts on theComplete.me
See all posts on POF.com
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Skout: From Deadpool’s Door To $22M Funding
TECH CRUNCH – Apr 3 – Eighteen months ago Christian Wiklund’s company Skout was down to three people after burning much of the $4.6M it had raised since being founded in 2007. Wiklund and his co-founder Niklas Lindstrom put their heads down. They changed the app to focus on young people who wanted to meet strangers and singles who wanted to flirt. Skout’s new app came at a very lucky time in the market. The app supports ~300M messages per month and it’s signing up ~1M users per month. So on the back of this turnaround, Skout is raising $22M in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. With the funding, Skout plans to find a new office that will hold 120 people.
by Kim-Mai Cutler
See full article at Tech Crunch
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Badoo Powers HotOrNot
TECH CRUNCH – Apr 2 - Badoo is now powering HotOrNot. The financial terms were not disclosed. While Badoo bills itself more as a social network than a straight dating site, and Hotornot is more of a game-like ratings site, you can see how the two might complement each other as Badoo expands out the features it offers to users.
Circl.es: The Latest Dating Site That Uses Facebook
TECH CRUNCH – Mar 29 – Circl.es users sign up with Facebook. Circles is also attempting to limit overexposure, as users are served Facebook “snapshots” of potential matches, and they can just click “yes,” “no,” or “skip.” If they click “yes,” both users are notified, Circles sends them both emails, and lets them take it from there. If they click no, they won’t see that snapshot again, and that person never sees their profile. Only the people they’re interested in get to view their profile. When they’ve browsed all the profiles, they hit a “You’ve Seen It All Page,” and that’s it. Circles gives people two weeks to meet up with an interest before the match expires, which is plenty of time to start a conversation. Expiring matches also prevent weeks of endless email reminders, notifications, and spam. Other similar new dating sites are theComplete.me and Yoke.
Grindr For Equality
TECH CRUNCH – Feb 23 – Grindr has announced that it will use its location-based app to fuel a social movement called “Grindr for Equality”. This will allow Grindr to notify and mobilize the LGBT community in specific geographic areas en masse. Grindr first took a step in this direction during the whole “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal debacle. Grindr for Equality sent out a national broadcast message during that time, welcoming closeted service members to Grindr and seeing more than 5K click-throughs to the linked Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Network’s contribution page. Grindr for Equality can launch initiatives on its own, sure, but users can bring issues that aren’t necessarily on a nationally public scale to light. Grindr is looking for on-the-ground activists all over the world that can send updates on gay rights issues in their area.