Outlets – Wall Street Journal – Page 12

Avid Life Rebrands Itself As Ruby Corp.

Posted on July 12, 2016

WALL STREET JOURNAL – July 12 – The renaming is "an important step in our journey to completely rebuild the company as a relevant, digital dating innovator that truly cares for our customers," said recently-named Ruby Chief Executive Rob Segal. They also plan to repositioning its Ashley Madison brand, dropping its tagline "Life is Short. Have an Affair" for "Find Your Moment." The brand's logo – a wedding ring icon and "hush" imagery—has been replaced by a "modern, discreet" wordmark. A new global digital campaign and TV advertising will take a more understated approach, with no dialogue and a cinematic feel.

by Anne Steele
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Ashley Madison Parent Appoints New CEO

Posted on July 6, 2016

WALL STREET JOURNAL – July 5 – Avid Life Media said Tuesday that it had appointed a new chief executive, Rob Segal, and President, James Millership, to lead the company as it tries to recover from its widespread data breach last year. They both joined Avid Life Media in April. Mr. Segal previously founded Segal Communications, which was later acquired by advertising firm Interpublic Group of Cos., while Mr. Millership worked as CFO and COO of online gaming platform WorldGaming, bought last year by entertainment company Cineplex. "The company is truly sorry for how people's lives and relationships may have been affected by the criminal theft of personal information," Mr. Segal said.

by Maria Armental & Austen Hufford
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ChristianMingle Opens Doors To Gay Singles Under Settlement

Posted on July 1, 2016

WSJ – July 1 – Spark Networks, the parent company of ChristianMingle.com, has agreed to let gay and lesbian users search for same-sex matches under a judge-approved settlement of discrimination claims. Two gay men filed class-actions claims against Spark Networks in 2013 alleging that ChristianMingle.com and several other sites in the company's portfolio excluded users looking to meet singles of the same sex. Spark Networks agreed to pay each plaintiff $9K and $450K in attorneys' fees to the two men's lawyers.

by Jacob Gershman & Sara Randazzo
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South Asian Dating App Dil Mil Raised $2.7M

Posted on April 1, 2016

WSJ – Mar 31 – Dil Mil Chief Executive KJ Dhaliwal realized apps like Tinder, Hinge and Coffee Meets Bagel weren't inclusive of the needs of the South Asian community, where dating can be taboo and arranged marriages still occur. Mr. Dhaliwal said 90% of South Asians marry within their own community and those users needed their own app. His matchmaking app Dil Mil has now made ~1.3M matches. The company recently raised another ~$2.7M. It has raised $3.8M in seed financing to date.

by Cat Zakrzewski
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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

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Lisdoonvarna, Tiny Irish Town, Draws Big Crowds Looking For Love

Posted on December 10, 2015

WSJ – Dec 9 – This year, ~60K singles descended on Lisdoonvarna, a former spa town, for a six-week-long matchmaking festival. Matchmaking has become a cottage industry for the town of ~700 residents, which gets an annual boost from those looking for love. People meet at the dances throughout the festival, starting at noon and often ending at 3am. Most attendees are Irish, but more English and Americans have been coming in recent years.

by Shirley S. Wang
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Baihe To Buy Chinese Dating Site Jiayuan

Posted on December 7, 2015

WSJ – Dec 7 – Jiayuan.com International, the largest online dating platform in China, agreed to be bought by Baihe for $7.56 per share in a deal that values the company at ~$250M. The deal is expected to close in Q1 of 2016. Jiayuan executive Linguang Wu will become co-executive of the new company, which will be changing its name.

by Austen Hufford
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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

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Match Group Files For IPO

Posted on October 17, 2015

WSJ – Oct 16 – Match Group, owner of Tinder, OkCupid and Match.com has filed to go public on Friday. Their shares would be listed on Nasdaq under the symbol MTCH. The preliminary filing indicated Match would raise up to $100 million. Match Group's parent company IAC will retain over 50% of voting rights after the IPO.

The company logged $888.3 million in revenue in 2014, up about 11% from the previous year, according to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Match's net income for 2014 was $148.4 million, up 18% year over year. All Match's dating properties have more than 59M MAU and approximately 4.7M paid members.

by Georgia Wells & Maria Armental
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Proper Grammar Is Really Hot On Dating Sites

Posted on October 5, 2015

WSJ – Oct 1 - Match.com asked ~5K singles what criteria they used most in assessing dates. Beyond personal hygiene, it was grammar. 88% of women and 75% of men care about grammar most, putting it ahead of a person’s confidence and teeth. The Grade, a new dating app, checks messages for typos and grammar errors and assigns each user a letter grade from A+ to F. One reason people judge grammar and spelling snafus so harshly is that they can reflect the level of effort, or lack thereof, that folks put into their bio. Certain types of typos are also associated with fraud.

by Georgia Wells
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The Ashley Madison Hacker Might Be Tweeting

Posted on August 28, 2015

WSJ – Aug 27 – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating the hack of Ashley Madison. Security blogger Brian Krebs thinks he has a clue. A self-described hacker who calls himself Thadeus Zu on Twitter appears to have had intimate knowledge of the hack, has defended the hackers and appears to be a fan of the AC/DC song, "Thunderstruck," which played a key role in the breach. "It's not uncommon for people involved in hacks to have trouble keeping their mouths shut," said Mr. Krebs.

by Danny Yadron
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Online Dating Fuels New Danger For Gays In India

Posted on July 10, 2015

WSJ – July 8 – Since India’s Supreme Court re-criminalized gay sex in 2013, homosexuals have increasingly become targets of robbery and extortion, gay men and activists say. The trend has also been fueled by the rise of Internet dating. In Dec '13, India’s Supreme Court found the law, which dates to the British colonial era, wasn’t unconstitutional and could be changed or repealed only by Parliament, effectively overturning a 2009 lower-court ruling that made consensual gay sex legal. The law is known as Section 377. Gay-dating apps and websites, including Grindr and PlanetRomeo BV, have been expanding in India. In the six months through the end of April, Grindr's users had grown by ~50% YOY. The Internet gives many men a false sense of security, and men are often blackmailed for violating Section 377.

by Gabriele Parussini
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