Online Dating

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Tinder co-founder Sean Rad “irrelevant” back in 2014, but still gave him special access to user data, according to leaked emails reported by Forbes.

Zuckerberg had considered entering the online dating industry as far back as 2014, but ultimately put the decision on hold and granted the founder of Tinder, now one of the most popular dating apps in the world, special access to user data. Facebook colleagues suggested he meet with Rad, but Zuckerberg rejected the suggestion, saying in the emails, “I don’t think he’s that relevant. He probably just wants to make sure we won’t turn off their API.”

Dating app users find those who have typos and grammatical errors in their profiles to be less attractive, according to a new study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

Interestingly, only 33.5 percent of participants noticed the errors and called attention to them, so most participants didn’t catch the mistakes. But those who did notice rated the grammatically incorrect profiles as less attractive than those profiles without errors.

This is a continuation of our articles about Plenty of Fishes popular single events which are hosted by members. We initially looked at the POF Single Events App (which has since been removed) and the closure of the POF Forums where these events first was support.

These events first got started by users posting in the POF forum many years ago. Plenty of Fish took notice and added event specific categories to the forums and eventually added event features that allowed hosts to create an event and have members join those events. By 2017 POF wanted to move away from the forum (as it was becoming extremely difficult to moderate) and released a separate app that allowed members to find and host events. While the app initially worked well it was not supported much by the development team and was dropped from the app store within 2 years. It also didn't help that the forum continued to support the original POF events which we believe was separate from the POF Single Events App. This meant users looking for single events never really migrated from using the forums to the new app. Also, having 2 separate apps, 1 for dating and 1 for single events made it harder for new POF users to even know that single events hosted by POF members was even a thing.

The Meet Group, a leading provider of mobile apps and services with a focus on livestreaming, has released financial results for its third quarter of 2019. The Meet Group’s portfolio of dating and social networking brands includes MeetMe, LOVOO, Skout, Tagged and Growlr.

For the third quarter 2019, The Meet Group reported the following financial highlights:

• Total revenue of $52.6 million, up 15% from the prior year quarter
• GAAP net income of $3 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, compared to a GAAP net income of $1.3 million or $0.02 per diluted share in the prior year quarter
• Adjusted EBITDA of $11 million, compared to Adjusted EBITDA of $8.7 million in the prior year quarter
• Non-GAAP net income of $10.1 million, or $0.13 per diluted share, compared to $7.6 million, or $0.10 per diluted share, in the prior year quarter

A revealing new study of digital sharing revealed that over one quarter of Americans continue to log in to an ex’s social media accounts after a break-up.

Cyber security company SpecopsSoft.com surveyed 2,568 participants from across the country and found that we still like to know what’s going on with our exes online. The most common account that respondents admitted logging into is Instagram, with 69 percent saying they have done so within the last week. Fifty-eight percent of respondents have logged into an ex’s Facebook account in the same time period.

Goodbye dating, hello good deeds. Tinder co-founder and former CEO Sean Rad announced his newest venture at the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit: Good Today, a nonprofit service that makes it easy to support charitable organizations through small daily donations. Rad has joined the company as a founding board member alongside several other notable figures from the business, tech and entrepreneurship worlds.

Good Today users sign up and select a recurring giving plan — 25¢, 50¢ or $1 a day, paid in monthly or yearly installments. Each morning, they receive an email highlighting the cause of the day and two relevant charities to choose from. They can elect to pick the charity that will receive that day’s donation or opt to have their donation roll over to the next day. Good Today is a 501(c)3 organization, as are all the charities it features, and subscriptions are tax deductible.