MOBILEIDWORLD – BlyssDating is using facial biometrics to make it more difficult for con artists to connect with victims on its platform. Blyss Dating is set to debut sometime in the summer, and is currently conducting a pre-registration drive for college students and young adults in the Washington, DC, area. Blyss is not the first dating platform to implement some form of identity verification. The Indian dating app Jeevansathi is onboarding new users with Onfido, while Yoti has provided identity services for Fluttr and DateID. The Meet Group has also partnered with Yoti and FaceTec to verify the ages and identities of its customers.
Category: The Meet Group
Which Dating Apps Got the Most Press Coverage Last Year?
OPW – Last year, we mentioned 281 internet dating industry brands in 1,066 posts. Although Match Group and its brands are clearly dominating this list, Bumble takes first place this time, even though only by one post. Here is the full list of companies with the most press coverage for last year.
- Bumble (131 posts)
- Tinder (130 posts)
- Match Group (96 posts)
- OkCupid (43 posts)
- Hinge (42 posts)
- Match.com (35 posts – shared)
- Grindr (35 posts – shared)
- The Meet Group (31 posts)
- Blued (23 posts)
- Spark Networks (22 posts)
Sean Lawrence – One-to-Many Video and Gamification Are an Excellent Match
OPW – Sean Lawrence, Director of Product at The Meet Group, has led the development of the company’s video and gamification projects. Integrating gamification activities into live streaming video has stimulated the growth of customer engagement on The Meet Group’s platforms. According to his experience, there are six ideals of gamification:
- Comprehension – Does the user understand the feature?
- Joy – Does the feature bring joy to the user?
- Motivation – Will the user want to use the feature again?
- Achievement – Is there a sense of accomplishment?
- Cooperation – Are the viewers and streamers connecting?
- Challenge – Does it prompt users to work towards new rewards?
The Meet Group has further leveraged virtual gifting into the gamification concept to drive engagement and monetization for streamers and audiences alike. Sean Lawrence provides intriguing insights into the application of gamification to streaming video for online dating platforms in the latest video in the LTR Conference series.
LTR stands for Love, Technology, Relationships and the online conference covers the Internet dating and Online Social Communities space. It is for members of IDEA and OSCA.
The October LTR was kindly sponsored by vPaaS by The Meet Group, RealMe, FaceTec, Women in Dating & Courtland Brooks.
ParshipMeet Group Adds Hornet as New Livestreaming Partner
BUSINESSWIRE – ParshipMeet Group, a leading provider of interactive dating solutions, has enabled the launch of livestreaming video on Hornet through its vPaaS (video Platform as a Service) solution. Hornet, known as the world's queer social network, has ~35M members.
See full article at Businesswire
See the top news on Hornet
See the top news on ParshipMeet Group
Twitch for Dating
MEDIUM – The Meet Group either owns, powers, or will soon power the Livestreaming Video & Creator Economy of 7 of the top 50 largest social apps by revenue in the world, according to App Annie data. AppAnnie recently published a report, which noted 3 out of every 4 dollars spent in the Top 25 Social Apps Worldwide are spent in Live Streaming. The Creator economy is estimated to be a $100+B market today, roughly doubling in 2020 over 2019 as the pandemic has forever changed consumer behavior. Twitch, the livestreaming video game platform, said that people watched 1 trillion minutes of video in 2020. The Meet Group is the #1 livestreaming dating platform in North America and Europe. The Meet Group reaches ~14M people a month, while its vPaaS platform reaches up to another 23M.
ParshipMeet Prepares for IPO in 2022
REUTERS – Sep 1 – Dating group ParshipMeet has started preparations for an IPO next year. ParshipMeet, which is 43% owned by buyout group General Atlantic and 53% by German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 Media, has invited banks to pitch for roles in the listing. ProSieben CEO Rainer Beaujean has publicly set his sights on floating ParshipMeet in 2022. Its e-commerce business bought The Meet Group last year for $467M and renamed it ParshipMeet Group. ParshipMeet could be worth upward of 3.5B euros ($4.1B). ParshipMeet reported H1 revenues of 280M euros, up 19% on a pro-forma basis, while EBITDA climbed to 61M euros.
by Arno Schuetze & Douglas Busvine
See full article at Reuters
Oasis Consortium Launches to Rebuild Trust in the Internet
BUSINESSWIRE – Aug 20 – The Oasis Consortium, an organization of thought leaders across social media, gaming, and dating created to accelerate the development of an ethical Internet, formally launched today. Oasis aims to redefine trust in the Internet through a Digital Sustainability Model that focuses on three key pillars: safety, privacy, and inclusion. Leaders from Agora, dentsu, Fandom, Kuaishou Technologies, The Meet Group, Pandora, Riot Games, Roblox, Wildlife Studios, and others have joined the movement. Oasis Consortium's first objective is to launch User Safety Standards by Q4 2021. Guided by the foundational O.A.S.I.S. principles – Openness, Accountability, Security, Innovation, and Sustainability – these User Safety Standards will help organizations avoid ethical pitfalls and chart a sustainable course as their businesses become more deeply involved with the web.
Yoti Pushes for More Transparency in Online Dating
MOBILEIDWORLD – July 28 – Yoti is encouraging people to use its digital identity app to protect themselves while online dating. The company is specifically seeking to address romance fraud, which increased in 2020. Romance fraud carries an estimated price tag of £18.5M since it entered the British legal code with the Fraud Act of 2006. The problem, according to Yoti, is that many of the most popular dating sites and social media apps do not conduct rigorous identity checks. That means that it is relatively easy to open a fake account for the purposes of committing fraud. The Yoti app verifies each user's identity documents when they register for an account. The Meet Group and DateID have previously used Yoti's technology to verify the ages and identities of people using their online dating platforms. The app had been downloaded 10M times as of April of 2021.
The Meet Group Partners With Spectrum Labs to Improve Livestreaming Moderation
BUSINESSWIRE – July 27 – The Meet Group, a leading provider of interactive dating solutions, and Spectrum Labs, a leading AI-based content moderation platform, have expanded their partnership to include a R&D commitment into voice moderation aimed at protecting users from online toxicity, hate speech and abuse in The Meet Group's livestreaming products. The partnership also includes algorithmic moderation of all chats sent within The Meet Group's livestreaming solution and AI private chat moderation.
New Co-CEOs at ParshipMeet Group
OPW – July 20 – After 7 years, Tim Schiffers, the incumbent CEO, is handing over the baton to Marc Schachtel and Geoff Cook. Marc Schachtel (formerly COO) and Geoff Cook (Founder/CEO, The Meet Group) are now co-CEOs of ParshipMeet Group. Henning Rönneberg is CFO.
Tim successfully completed the merger of Parship Group with The Meet Group and is moving on to new challenges outside the organization.
Marc will lead the entire matchmaking business as CEO of Parship Group: Parship, ElitePartner, eharmony, LOVOO. See Marc's Linkedin post.
Geoff will continue to be responsible for the Social Dating & Entertainment division: MeetMe, Skout, Tagged, GROWLr and the live video streaming solution vPaaS, which powers the video solution of some of the largest dating and social apps in the world. See Geoff's Linkedin post.