PR NEWSWIRE – Feb 20 – Dating app Plenty of Fish is launching an advisory council comprised of real users. The Plenty of Fish team is for U.S. members who are passionate about sharing ideas and providing their insights on dating and the online dating experience. Members will receive early access to new products and features to test and inform product updates and will attend planning meetings with fellow members and POF executives.
Category: POF
POF Study: 1 in 5 Singles Wish Valentine’s Day Was Canceled
PR NEWSWIRE – Jan 29 – The Pressures of Valentine's Day & Dating study from Plenty of Fish reveals that 43% of singles consider Valentine's Day to be the most pressure-filled holiday, with 1 in 5 wishing the holiday was canceled altogether. The pressure tied to Valentine's Day is stronger among younger singles, with 60% of Gen Z and 52% of Millennials feeling the heat.
Plenty of Fish Survey: Dating and Sport
ASKMEN – Jan 22 – Dating app Plenty of Fish conducted a survey of ~1,500 singles to find out just how big of a role sports play in modern dating and relationships. One-third of respondents would rather give up their smartphone than give up watching their favorite teams play. 18% of singles have pretended to know more about a sport to impress their date. 60% of all singles polled said that they would rather go on a date than go to a sporting event.
POF Was Leaking Users’ Hidden Names and Zip Codes
TECH CRUNCH – Dec 23 – The leaking data was not immediately visible to app users, and the data was scrambled to make it difficult to read. But using freely available tools designed to analyze network traffic, the security researcher found it was possible to reveal the information about users as their profiles appeared on his phone. POF has ~150M registered users.
Tinder Lets Sex Offenders Use the App
by Hillary Flynn, Keith Cousins & Elizabeth Naismith Picciani
See full article at ProPublica
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POF: 2020 Dating Trends
PR NEWSWIRE – Nov 20 – Plenty of Fish has unveiled its third annual list of dating trends for the upcoming year. 2020 Dating Trends Include:
- Cause-playing: When a casual relationship fizzles out, only to have one person later circle back with a favor to ask
- Dial-toning: Giving someone your phone number only to ignore them when they reach out
- Eclipsing: Adopting the interests or hobbies of someone you're dating and pretending you like them too
- Glamboozled: Getting fully done up for a date only to have them cancel at the last minute
- Kanye'd: When your date spends the entire time talking about themselves
- Type-casting: Exclusively dating people based on Myers-Briggs Type or "Love Language" compatibility
- White Clawing: The act of staying with someone who you find basic and boring only because you find them attractive
- Yellow Carding: When someone is called out on their poor dating behavior
Tinder’s Interactive Video Series ‘Swipe Night’ Is Going International Next Year
TECH CRUNCH – Nov 7 – Swipe Night was a success. According to Match Group, "millions" of Tinder users tuned into to watch the show's episodes during its run in October, and this drove double-digit increases in both matches and messages. As a result, Match confirmed its plans to launch Swipe Night outside the U.S. in early 2020. Swipe Night asked users to make decisions to advance a narrative that followed a group of friends in an "apocalyptic adventure." The 5-minute long episodes ran every Sunday night in October from 6 PM to midnight. Swipe Night led to a 20% to 25% increase in "likes" and a 30% increase in matches. Also importantly, the series helped boost female engagement in the app. Swipe Night isn't the only video product Match Group has in the works. Plenty of Fish and Twoo are testing live streaming broadcasts.
by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch
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Top Dating Apps Worldwide for September
REPUBLIC WORLD – Oct 6 – Tinder was the most downloaded app in the online dating category during September 2019, according to research firm Sensor Tower. Tinder had close to 5.5M installs in September, resulting in a total of 4% increase from the same period last year. Badoo was the second most installed dating app worldwide. Tantan, MeetMe, and Happn rounded out the top five most installed dating apps worldwide for the month. Here is the full list of top 10 dating apps.
Match Group Subpoenaed by DOJ
FOX BUSINESS – Sep 27 – The FTC alleged Tinder, OKCupid, and Plenty of Fish relied on "fake accounts created by fraudsters" to entice new users between 2013 and the middle of 2018. Match also "exposed consumers to the risk of fraud by providing recent subscribers access to communications that Defendant knew were likely to have been sent by persons engaging in fraud." In Nov '18, the FTC offered to resolve its potential claims via a consent judgment mandating certain changes in the company's business practices, as well as a payment in the amount of $60 million. No resolution was reached. The FTC referred the matter to the DOJ. The DOJ opted not to pursue the civil case and referred it back to the FTC who then filed a lawsuit "making completely meritless allegations supported by consciously misleading figures."
by Jason Schott
See full article at Fox Business
Mark Brooks: Scammers are sometimes tough to identify. Their activity can lead to increases in conversions. Good for short term profits. Terrible in the long term for both impacted users and the dating brand. Once a scammer has been identified at a reasonable level of confidence, the best practice is to notify users that they've been in contact with a scammer and to block the scammers device and ideally communicate their device id to other dating apps so they can be proactive in quarantining that device from gaining access to users again. Seems to me the FTC is putting a solid heal down on anything that alludes to us not being anything less than super aggressive against scammers. Will legislation follow? The DOJ kicked this back, so perhaps not…quite yet. iovation, Scamalytics, Spectrum, Threatmetrix, Kount, 41st Parameter. There's a raft of scammer id tools available for dating apps. The best dating apps make good use of automated tools and review/abuse teams to maintain the highest possible quality of real communications from real people. It's a shocker that Match is embroiled in this offense from the FTC, but important that we all take the hint and get our best game on when it comes to kicking scammers asses. (Full disclosure, iovation, Kount and Scamalytics are prior clients of Courtland Brooks)
POF Study: Pressures Faced by Singles in Today’s Dating Climate
PR NEWSWIRE – Sep 18 – Regardless of age or gender, singles feel immense pressure to be interesting (41%) on first dates, followed by being talkative (16%) and fun (12%), according to a new POF study. 50% of respondents have not been on a single date in the last year. The study also found that more than half of singles feel pressured to embellish their interests and hobbies, even over looks and appearance (45%), income and career (34%), and level of education (31%).