CNET NEWS – Dec 14 – 15 months after launching, Tinder has made 500M matches. During peak hours, Tinder processes 50K requests per second. Every day, there are 400M profile ratings (a swipe left or right). Tinder is also responsible for ~100 marriages, according to CEO Sean Rad. Teens have become one of Tinder's fastest growing audiences. Kids ages 13 to 17 represent ~7% of Tinder's population. Young adults (18 to 24) represent 53%.
Category: Reporters – Jennifer Van Grove
Facebook Acquires Friend.ly
MASHABLE – Oct 11 - Facebook has acquired two-year-old social question-and-answer startup Friend.ly for an undisclosed sum. The Friend.ly team will join Facebook and focus on new products for the social network, while the Friend.ly site will continue to operate as a separate service. Friend.ly, a service similar to Formspring, raised $5.5M in Series A funding.
by Jennifer Van Grove
See full article at Mashable
Mark Brooks: Friend.ly was founded by Harvard and Stanford educated Ed Baker. It's a discovery engine to help people learn more about their current friends. A 'lite' idating app, of sorts. (Full Disclosure: Friend.ly was advised by the Courtland Brooks team)
Get Daily Dates Instead Of Daily Deals With InboxCupid
MASHABLE – Apr 28 – Instead of offering email subscribers a daily deal per city, InboxCupid serves up a featured dater per city. Would-be online daters subscribe to InboxCupid in their city and specify who they’re interested in dating. Users then wait for InboxCupid to fill their inboxes with daily featured dates. If users like what they see, they hit the “Inbox Me” button to message the featured date and see if there’s a match. To make the connection, InboxCupid charges the interested dater $1. Those who want to be the featured daily date are required to create a profile and answer five questions.
by Jennifer Van Grove
See full article at Mashable
Mark Brooks: This is a handy way to generate new email signups. On Tuesday we're launching DailyDealsObserver.com to illuminate the top news in the Daily Deals (a la Groupon) business.
Gay Dating App Grindr Now On Android
MASHABLE – Mar 8 – Grindr, the popular location-based app gay guys use to find other gay males, is out today with an Android version. 1.5M male users already use the iOS and BlackBerry apps in 180 countries.