Category: Reporters – Sara Ashley O’Brien

Match Group CEO Bernard Kim Pushes for Innovation and Premium Experiences in Dating Apps

Posted on July 22, 2024

Match Group Bernard KimWALL STREET JURNAL – Match Group CEO Bernard Kim, known as "GamerBK" on social media, has a background in mobile gaming and is now leading Match Group. Kim aims to convince users that paying for premium experiences on dating apps is worthwhile. Despite a challenging environment with complaints about scams and user dissatisfaction, activist investors are pushing for change, including innovation at Tinder. Kim's creativity and gaming experience are seen as assets. He previously helped turn around Zynga and has introduced weekly subscriptions and a $500-a-month plan on Tinder. Under his leadership, Match Group launched the gay dating app Archer and aims to improve Tinder through product innovation and cost cuts. Kim defends the effectiveness of dating apps and is focused on growing Tinder and expanding Hinge.

by Sara Ashley O'Brien
See full article at Wall Street Journal

See the top news on Tinder                      See the top news on Hinge
See the top news on Match Group            See the top news on Archer

Dating Apps Once Ran on Novelty. For Some Users, the Fun Is Over

Posted on June 24, 2024

The League Be a GoalDiggerWALL STREET JOURNAL – As dating apps seek to attract new users, their marketing efforts are increasingly backfiring. Ads from Bumble, The League, and Hinge have drawn criticism for various reasons, reflecting broader frustrations with online dating. Bumble apologized for ads joking about celibacy, which users found insensitive. The League was criticized for "cringy" campaigns, yet insists its bold approach resonates with its target audience. Hinge continues to refresh its "Designed to Be Deleted" campaign but faces user dissatisfaction. Growth in online dating is slowing. Half of online daters report negative experiences, driven by issues like ghosting and unsolicited messages, according to Pew. Companies are now focusing on enhancing user trust and improving the overall dating experience.

by Sara Ashley O'Brian & Katie Deighton
See full article at Wall Street Journal

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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
See full article at Wall Street Journal

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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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
See full article at Wall Street Journal

Whitney Wolfe Herd: the CEO of a $3 Billion Dating Empire

Posted on December 16, 2019

MagicLab Whitney Wolfe HerdCNN – Dec 13 – Whitney Wolfe Herd launched Bumble, the female-focused dating app, in 2014. Wolfe Herd's vision – that the app would empower women to make their own choices, rather than burden them with it – caught on. Last year, she made a strategic decision to push Bumble into India. "The most traditional, the most misogynistic mindsets globally – those markets for us are completely wide-open prairies," she said. Now, Wolfe Herd is preparing for one of her biggest challenges yet: Taking over the CEO seat of Bumble's parent company MagicLab four months after former owner Andrey Andreev was accused of racism and sexism, allegations that he has denied. Investment firm Blackstone bought the company from the Russian billionaire last month, in a deal that valued it at $3B. On top of growing Bumble and shifting cultural norms, Wolfe Herd is set on changing laws in 2020. Earlier this year, she and Bumble successfully advocated for a new Texas law outlawing digital sexual harassment. The company is now working with Senator Ling Ling Chang in California to get a similar law passed in that state. Wolfe Herd said the hope is to get a federal law passed, something the company is "fiercely committed to."

by Sara Ashley O'Brien
See full article at CNN

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The Legal Battles Between Former Tinder Executives Keep Getting Messier

Posted on October 7, 2019

Legal battleCNN – Oct 7 – Former Tinder and Match Group CEO Greg Blatt has filed a lawsuit, accusing Tinder co-founder Sean Rad and former VP of marketing and communications Rosette Pambakian of defaming him. Blatt says they made public accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against him last year. Rad, Pambakian and eight other early employees of Tinder kicked off a whirlwind of legal battles when they sued Match Group and IAC for $2B in August 2018 alleging that the company manipulated the valuation of Tinder to deny them billions of dollars they were owed. Included in that suit was Pambakian's claim that she was allegedly groped and sexually harassed by Blatt at a 2016 holiday party. In his suit, Blatt alleges that Rad, internally, made a false accusation of the alleged sexual assault incident without Pambakian's support, and she was ultimately convinced by Rad to join his valuation suit and bring her claims against Blatt. Blatt is seeking a minimum of $50M in damages in his defamation suit.

by Sara Ashley O'Brien
See full article at CNN

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81-Year-Old eHarmony Founder On Gay Marriage And Tinder

Posted on February 13, 2016

Eharmony-neil-warren-780x439CNN.COM – Feb 12 – After 16 years in the business, Dr. Neil Clark Warren is still committed to helping people find love. Warren is the 81-year-old co-founder and current CEO of eHarmony. In 2005, the company was sued for discrimination of same-sex couples. To settle a lawsuit, eHarmony launched Compatible Partners, a site for gay and lesbian singles. 350K of its members fled eHarmony out of principle. The company originally started as a Christian dating site. "We didn't want to pretend to be experts on gay and lesbian couples," said Warren. "We're not anti-gay at all… It's a different match." "We've had quite a number of same-sex marriages," he said. Warren doesn't see dating apps as threats to his business. "We don't discourage people from Tinder," he said, adding that apps like Tinder are primarily used for dating and hooking up – not marriage.

by Sara Ashley O'Brien
See full article at CNN.com

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Online Dating Assistants

Posted on February 9, 2015

Livedatingadvice screenshotCNN MONEY – Feb 9 – "People on dating sites need a lot of help", said Scott Valdez, founder of Virtual Dating Assistants. Valdez was an active Match.com and POF user himself. "I found a writer on Craigslist and paid him to send my messages for me," he said. Soon, friends and family were begging to use his assistant too. So in 2009, he launched Virtual Dating Assistants. The business offers profile writing for $200 or communication, which runs about $23 an hour. Tinder packages run a bit more, $25 to $30 per hour. Writer Lisa Hoehn also became an online dating coach. Her "Profile Polish" offers three packages, which range from $48 for a "Tinder special" with photo insight and editing help, to a $98 profile analysis, to $198 for the "whole shebang." LiveDatingAdvice.com launched this month with $250K in funding from the founding team, friends and family. The founders — dating coaches Hunt Ethridge, Antonia Geno and Israel Irensteing — plan to make dating assistants virtually accessible to the masses. They are offering its services on pre-sale now for $49 a month, which will give clients live advice, daily access to a trained dating adviser, and a free profile review.

by Sara Ashley O'Brien
The full article was originally published at WPTV, but is no longer available.

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Summarized by Courtland Brooks Internet Dating Marketing Consulting

Tinder Swiping Web-browsing Suitors

Posted on July 17, 2013

Tinder logoNY POST – July 14 – According to comScore, in May 2013 ~58% of those who accessed apps through their mobile devices visited a game app, but only 5% visited a dating app. Apps that incorporate game-like interactions seek to lure consumers into spending more time in the app. Tinder is the fast-growing mobile "Hot or Not" based dating app that uses GPS technology to locate potential mates nearby. Tinder was launched last December by Hatch Labs, the incubator owned by IAC. Sam Yagan, CEO of Match, says he’s “not worried” about monetizing the app, instead concentrating on acquiring more users. Mobile dating is expected to be 12.4% of total industry revenue in 2013, according to IBISWorld.

by Sara Ashley O'Brien
See full article at NY Post

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