Category: Outlets – Wall Street Journal

Yelp, Strava and Duolingo Are…Dating Apps?

Posted on November 27, 2023

Yelp Duolingo StravaWALL STREET JOURNAL – On the internet, every app can be a dating app. Striking up a conversation on a service where you know someone shares your interests can feel more natural than sifting through dating apps, former dating-service users say. Online dating also has become more expensive, with subscriptions that can cost more than a monthly Netflix plan. Fewer people are willing to pay up, as the companies' financial reports have shown.

by Ann-Marie Alcántara
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Mark Brooks: Dating apps help people get the tough questions out of the way right up front. Using other apps for dating is possible but can be kinda creepy and undermine the culture of those non-dating apps. Case in point, remember when Meetup banned singles events and groups in 2016!? Dating apps need to help people find commonality and harmony, get onto quick video dates, and then prep them for real dates. We can do more to help people with pre-date preparation and other services/values. There is much more value that we can unlock.

Dating Apps Need to Rekindle Romance With Wall Street

Posted on November 7, 2023

BumbleWALL STREET JOURNAL – Bumble's share price slid ~5% on Monday morning after the company said that founder Whitney Wolfe Herd is stepping down from the CEO role. She will remain as executive chair, while Lidiane Jones will take over as CEO on Jan 2. She currently heads up Slack Technologies, where she became CEO almost a year ago under the ownership of Salesforce. Shweta Khajuria of Evercore ISI wrote: "We view Whitney's departure as a near to midterm headwind for business operations and a negative for overall company morale." Investors weren't exactly hot for Bumble anyway, or Tinder owner Match for that matter. Bumble's share price was already down 35% for the year ahead of Monday's news, while Match was down 31%. The latter's stock slid more than 15% after it reported third-quarter results last week that showed a continued decline in the number of "payers" on the Tinder app.

by Dan Gallagher
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Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd Steps Down

Posted on November 6, 2023

Whitney Wolfe Herd steps down as CEO of BumbleWALL STREET JOURNAL – Whitney will become exec. chair and will be replaced by Lidiane Jones, the Slack CEO, on Jan 2. Bumble reports Q3 earnings Tuesday. Bumble Inc. comprises Bumble, Bumble for Friends, Badoo, Fruitz (for Gen Z) and Official, a newly acquired app that helps couples relationships. Jones, 44, worked for Microsoft for a decade, then Salesforce, which acquired Slack in 2021. Jones will be based in Cambridge, MA. (Bumble's HQ is in Austin, Texas). "We really want to embark big on AI," she said. "AI can play such a big role in accelerating people finding the right person, finding the right friends and the right community." Blackstone is the largest institutional shareholder in Bumble Inc. Whitney is the largest individual shareholder.

by Sara Ashley O'Brien
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Mark Brooks: Jones brings the culture of Slack and Microsoft to the dating space. Seems like a good potential match for the #2 player in the dating industry.

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Match Group Stock Tumbles After Paying Users Fall Again

Posted on November 3, 2023

Match Group stock priceWALL STREET JOURNAL – Match Group shares were down 17% at $28.87 on Wednesday, putting them on pace for a new all-time low. Match Group's Q3 results showed better-than-expected earnings and revenue. Paying users, however, declined for the fourth straight quarter, adding fuel to debates about the online dating market being saturated.

by Denny Jacob
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SciMatch – AI Dating App That Uses Facial Analysis to Find Matches

Posted on October 2, 2023

SciMatch logoWALL STREET JOURNAL – SciMatch, a dating app launched in 2022, uses AI to analyze faces to deduce personality traits and suggest compatible matches, focusing on both similarities and differences in personality. Developed by sisters with degrees in data science and compute science Yanina and Viktoryia Strylets and inspired by research, it claims over 70% accuracy in predicting big five personality traits. However, some experts question its effectiveness, emphasizing that true compatibility requires face-to-face interaction. The app, with 5K active monthly users, offers free services with optional paid extras and has facilitated several successful matches, with users vouching for its accuracy.

by Julie Jargon
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Dating Apps Put a Hefty Price Tag on Finding Love

Posted on August 28, 2023

Hinge XWALL STREET JOURNAL – Hinge recently added a plan at $50/mo, and is examining a plan for Tinder at ~$500/mo. Bumble is considering a tier above its $60/mo plan. Grindr plans to add more premium offerings. Match has made up ground, with revenue per payer rising in the past two quarters. Bumble reported paying users rose 20% to 3.6 million in its most recent quarter from a year earlier.

Match which will roll out a superpremium tier on Tinder in the fall. "If you actually take a small fraction of our payers at higher price points, you actually get a number that's in the tens of millions of dollars on an annual basis," CEO Bernard Kim said.

Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd sees premium services delivering new opportunities. "We see that there's a lot of runway to expand there."

Even if uptake is slow, there is precedent behind the move to raise prices. Mark Brooks, CEO of Courtland Brooks, which helps online dating companies grow, said that other brands, such as eHarmony and Tawkify, have for years priced their premium services above what Tinder, Hinge and Bumble charged. The stakes are high in showing users that paying is worth it, Brooks said. Otherwise, they could defect to competing platforms. "They've got to actually really deliver on it, because they'll get crucified if they don't," said Brooks.

by Denny Jacob
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Job Hunting on Dating Apps

Posted on August 22, 2023

Job hunting on dating appsWALL STREET JOURNAL – Professionals are turning to dating apps to network and explore job opportunities. "I've definitely heard of it in passing, and my views are, where you can network, you should network," says Eliana Goldstein, a New York-based career coach who works with young professionals. She says she's going to start urging her clients to use dating apps as they search for jobs. About a quarter of Grindr's users are there to network, according to the company, from young workers to seasoned professionals. On Tinder, the community guidelines advise users to "make personal connections, not biz ones." Earlier this year, the company began removing social-media handles from bios to stop people from using the app to build their followings or sell things.

by Ethan M. Steinberg
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How a Whisper Network for Online Dating Turned Divisive

Posted on July 21, 2023

Warning groupsWALL STREET JOURNAL – "Are We Dating the Same Guy" groups started appearing on Facebook a little over a year ago. They described themselves as safe spaces for women, meant for sounding the alarm on men "who might be liars, cheaters, abusers or toxic. The first group, founded in Mar 2022 in NYC, now has 113K members. Another, in Dallas-Fort Worth, has 120K. There are ~150 "Are We Dating the Same Guy" groups around the world. However, as these groups have grown, some members use them mainly for gossip, while others argue they have become sources of fear and controversy. Men are filing takedown requests with Meta, claiming misuse of their images and information. Some men have also created similar groups to discuss women they've dated. In 2005, Tasha Cunningham started an online forum called DontDateHimGirl.com. Members shared stories about men they’d met in bars, through friends and on early dating sites like Match.com and JDate. At its peak, DontDateHimGirl.com drew ~1M members, Cunningham said, but she decided to shutter it in 2010. There were legal threats from men, and she was trying to focus on a separate business venture.

by Sara Ashley O'Brien
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Geoff Cook Steps in as New CEO of Noom

Posted on July 19, 2023

Geoff CookWALL STREET JOURNAL – Digital-health platform Noom has appointed veteran tech executive Geoff Cook as its new CEO, replacing co-founder Saeju Jeong, who will transition to executive chairman. Cook was previously the co-founder and CEO of The Meet Group, a company operating online dating and social media apps. Founded in 2008, Noom is known for its online coaching and health plans for weight management and chronic conditions.

by Chip Cutter
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Podcast: The Price of Dating Apps

Posted on February 16, 2023

Match GroupWALL STREET JOURNAL – Dating apps are asking users to pay more for features and access to matches as a way to counter slowing growth. WSJ's Heard on the Street columnist Laura Forman talks about the pressure on Match Group.

by Laura Forman
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