THE TIMES – Faye Iosotaluno, the new COO of Tinder, reflects on the evolution of the dating app that revolutionized online dating for millennials. She emphasizes that Tinder has moved beyond its early reputation as a hookup app and is now focused on creating a fun and inclusive experience for users. Iosotaluno highlights the changing dating habits of Gen Z, who are more open-minded, seek alternative styles of relationships, and approach dating with greater clarity and directness. She also addresses the disappearance of shame around casual sex and the shifting perceptions of hooking up. Despite being a married mother of two, Iosotaluno believes in the power of Tinder to connect people who might not have met otherwise and to potentially foster meaningful relationships. She also shares tips for creating an appealing Tinder profile.
Category: Outlets – The Sunday Times
The Frenchwoman Who Took on Tinder Wrote a Book About Her Experience
How Dating Apps Are Changing In The #MeToo Era
THETIMES.CO.UK – June 25 – "I think #MeToo was a turning point for dating apps, making them react to help women feel safer online," says Clémentine Lalande, the co-chief executive of Once, an app that matches users with a single suitor each day. Last month, Bumble wrote an open letter to a college swimmer after he sent a female user abusive messages. The open letters serve as a warning to people joining the app that this behaviour won't be tolerated. Tinder is considering adding a Bumble-like feature so women need only interact with men they have messaged first. Bumble is considering allowing its female users to put an initial instead of their name to protect their identities. Meanwhile Once has introduced a five-star rating system. Women can "review" men, rating conversations, offering post-date analysis and giving a verdict on the accuracy of photos. It's not just the apps: women themselves are using technology to hit back in innovative ways. The artist Anna Gensler makes naked sketches of men who have sent her crude messages, then sends them to the men and posts them on Instagram. The blogger Samantha Mawdsley replied to an unsolicited penis pic with a catalogue of photos of male genitalia.
by Rosamund Urwin
See full article at TheTimes.co.uk
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Seeking Fun, No Privacy Attached
THE SUNDAY TIMES – Dec 4 – Users of Badoo.com can now check which of their friends have joined up using their email address. Facebook users are automatically informed which of their friends are on Badoo. The site also gives a visitor the option of checking their email contacts list to see which are Badoo members. In a 2009 study Joseph Bonneau and Soren Preibusch, researchers at Cambridge University, ranked Badoo worst for privacy out of 45 social websites, with a score of only 23%. MySpace scored marginally better with 28%, while Facebook and LinkedIn scored 53% and 70% respectively. Mark Brooks, a consultant specialising in online dating, said Badoo’s relaxed approach to privacy was a sign of the times: “One of the distinguishing features of dating sites has always been privacy. But there are advantages to people knowing who you are. The best way to meet people is through friends of friends — social dating — and that’s what Badoo is trying to emulate. This is the future. “Yes, it’s an erosion of privacy, but the younger demographic don’t care so much. Badoo is for people who are a bit less concerned about privacy.”
by Jonathan Leake
See full article at The Sunday Times (the article is behind paywall)
Police Target Lonely Hearts Fraudsters
SUNDAY TIMES – Nov 28 – Romance scammers are to be targeted by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). According to Soca ~200K people have already been tricked by overseas conmen. Online dating scams have become one of the most lucrative methods. This is because online dating has itself become so successful, with 1,400 dating sites operating in Britain, including Plentyoffish, eHarmony and match.com. Mark Brooks, who runs Courtland Brooks, a consultancy specialising in the online dating industry, said: “Every site has significant problems in dealing with scammers. It is the bane of the industry.” Karl Gregory, head of match.com’s UK division, said cases of fraud were still rare. “Our advice”, he said, “is to stay within the site to build up relationships over time rather than giving out personal details, and never to give money to anyone for any reason.”
by Jonathan Leake
See full article at Sunday Times
Mark Brooks: Actually, this is far more a problem in the USA than the UK. Most sites are fighting and winning the battle against scammers, I think. But the isolated cases of date scamming are still very newsworthy and bad for the dating industry.
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The Science Of Online Dating
TIMES ONLINE – Apr 11 - Relationship science is an increasingly respectable field of academic study. Dr Gian Gonzaga and his team at the eHarmony Labs promises to match its customers using its patented 29 dimensions of compatibility, including sexual passion, anger management, appearance, intellect, obstreperousness, spirituality and emotional health. Other dating sites also employ complex algorithms based on psychometric testing, such as PerfectMatch, Chemistry, Plentyoffish, True, Parship and Matchaffinity. They all like to dismiss each other’s compatibility models. Plentyoffish, for example, thinks people should be matched on their differences. The exception is OKCupid, which is strongly against psychometric testing because, according to Sam Yagan, one of the Harvard mathematicians who founded it, “eHarmony’s patronising belief is that they know what’s best and you need help. We believe you know what you’re looking for and put the power in the user’s hands”. The industry analyst Mark Brooks sees psychological testing as an important part of their increasing credibility and market growth. “Internet dating services will get amazing,” he says. “The science will develop.” Brooks believes personality profiling is the future of matchmaking, and agrees with the eHarmony line: “People don’t know what they want. They need help.” FULL ARTICLE @ TIMES ONLINE
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Match, eHarmony And PlentyofFish Target UK Dating Market
TIMES ONLINE UK – Feb 14 – Facing a stagnant US online dating market, the top US dating sites are focusing more efforts in the UK. Comscore has reported a 1% drop in the global dating market, but the UK is showing a strong 16% growth. Match.com and eHarmony.com, each with a reported 20 million members, dominate the estimated £1 billion a year matchmaking business in the paid site space. PlentyofFish.com holds the crown for the free dating space, attracting 933,000 visitors in Britain last month alone. Kate Bilenki at Plentyoffish said the site appeared to be picking up business that would otherwise have gone to the paid sites. “If you are on Match then you may find that the same people are also on eHarmony. So a lot of people are signing up with us as well because we are free,” she said. eHarmony added 130,000 new UK members in January, bringing their subscriber base to 800,000. Match.com has long been established in the UK and boasts roughly 6.5 million members. FULL ARTICLE @ TIMES ONLINE
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How I Made It: Ross Williams, Founder of Whitelabeldating.com
THE SUNDAY TIMES – Nov 1 - The desire to have his own business came early for Ross Williams. He proved his business sense by buying magazines in bulk at the local market and selling them at a big mark-up in the playground. As a teenager Williams started Rawnet, which built websites. By the time Rawnet was employing 20 people, it had revenues of £2M but was still not making any profit. In 2003 he set up a side venture, called Global Personals. Williams and his fellow directors loaded their credit cards, borrowing a total of £30K. His gamble soon began paying off. While Global Personals had grown to £250K/month and was making 20% profit. At this point he decided to concentrate on the dating business. He decided to offer his dating website system to other businesses, allowing them to create their own dating brand while he took half the proceeds from sales. This “white labelling” approach had several advantages over running and marketing a single conventional dating service, said Williams. Last financial year, one of the main parts of which is Whitelabeldating.com, made a profit of £1.5M on sales of £12M, though Williams expects that by the end of this financial year the profit will have risen to £3M on sales of £20M.
by Andrew Stone
See full article at Times Online
Dating Sites Offering No-strings Sex
TIMES ONLINE – Oct 29 - Forget Dinner is one of three dating sites — the others are called Marital Affair and Simply Adult — that describe themselves as for broad-minded adults wanting “fun” to meet. Almost all members are married and say that they are not getting enough excitement at home and feel that time is running out. “If you go through your forties without having an affair or even getting close, that’s extraordinary,” says Susanna Abse, a clinical psychotherapist. 115,200 divorces were granted in the UK in 2008. Adulterous behaviour accounted for 29% of all cases. 24% of married men, asked if they would cheat on their partner if there were no possibility of being found out, said yes and only 9% of married women said that they would consider an affair. FULL ARTICLE @ TIMES ONLINE
DNA Dating
SUNDAY TIMES — May 24 – Dr Tamara Brown, a Croatian geneticist, has been investigating what creates that initial “spark” between two people, and she believes that the answer lies in smell. Her company, GenePartner, charges clients $99 for a genetic match. “We don’t claim to provide the ideal partner based purely on DNA,” Brown says. She adds that people also need to match on a social level — to have similar life goals, ideals and education levels. GenePartner is not the first company to use DNA testing. ScientificMatch started in December last year, about the same time as GenePartner, offering DNA matching for a lifetime membership fee of $1,995. As the testing is unregulated, there are fears of serious risk to privacy, that customers’ DNA results might be sold to insurance companies, for instance. In the U.S., the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (Gina), signed by President Bush last May, makes it illegal for employers and health insurers to use their employees’ or customers’ genetic information to discriminate against them. The states of California and New York have taken action against DTC companies, ruling that since genetic tests are medical tests, they can only be ordered by a medical doctor.
The full article was originally published at Times Online, but is no longer available.
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