OkCupid

Match Group, the parent company of popular dating apps such as Tinder, OkCupid, and PlentyofFish, reported second quarter earnings of $421 million, exceeding industry analyst expectations.

The rise in profits was thanks to its star app Tinder, which gained an additional 300,000 subscribers in Q2 alone, and has seen a record 3.8 million subscribers to date. Match Group expects to earn $1.72 billion this year, with Tinder expected to exceed $800 million in revenue, according to Fortune Magazine. Match Group’s subscribers for all apps total about 7.7 million.

“Retention and conversion were a bit stronger than we thought they would be,” Chief Executive Mandy Ginsberg told website MarketWatch.

Are you more progressive or conservative? Turns out it makes a difference in your love life. OkCupid recently found that among its members, ACLU supporters, who are generally associated with more progressive political views, get more dates.

Talking politics on a date has historically been tricky, especially now with the U.S. so divided. Because politics is front and center in our lives today, online daters like to know where allegiances lie before they decide whether to like or pass on a person. Political beliefs do matter when it comes to dating, which is why OkCupid came up with a way for users to identify someone’s politics up front, offering badges to show what causes the user supports, like the ACLU.

Dating app OkCupid recently launched a new marketing campaign centered around the popular yet derogatory dating phrase “DTF,” but giving it new meaning in the age of #MeToo. The campaign is also a dig at Tinder, which is known for its hook-up reputation.

Instead of employing DTF with its usual meaning (which is widely seen as demeaning to women and refers to Down to F@#k), OkCupid has turned the term on its head to engage people to try the app. For instance, one campaign poster defines it as “DT Fall Head Over Heels” with a picture of one woman lovingly carrying another who is holding a rose (the symbol of romance). This nod to inclusivity for the LGBTQ community did not go unnoticed, with couples recreating the shot next to OkCupid’s campaign posters and posting them to social media.

Other campaign posters include optional endings as well, such as “DT Feel Fabulous” “DT Forget Our Baggage” or even slightly more irreverent “DT Four Twenty” or “DT Fight About the President.” (Note: OkCupid has seen a 64% increase in political terms being employed in user profiles over the last year.)

Image: OkCupid

Dating experts have long cautioned against discussing controversial subjects like politics on the first date, but a new partnership between OkCupid and the American Civil Liberties Union puts politics front and center in honor of Pride Month.

The dating service is introducing an ACLU #RightToLove profile badge to help users meet other members who support the non-profit. The badge will be displayed on the profile of every OkCupid user who publicly responds “yes” to the question “Do you support the ACLU?” For every user who receives the badge, OkCupid will donate $1 towards the ACLU (up to $50,000).

According to an OkCupid blog post, ninety percent of users who answered the question said yes — one of the highest agreement percentages across all of OkCupid’s iconic questions.

It wasn’t long ago that dating services were seen as the last refuge of the lovelorn and desperate. Today online dating hasn’t merely shed its stigma, it’s a bona fide phenomenon and business appears to be booming.

According to a report from IBISWorld, annual revenue in the online dating industry has surpassed $3 billion. Dating services employed over 9,000 people worldwide in 2017 and have collectively seen an annual growth rate of +5.3% over the past five years.

Yet hardly a week goes by without someone publishing an article condemning digital dating for butchering our ability to have real relationships, and even major players like Match Group have fallen short of analysts’ expectations.

Tinder crashed for several hours on April 4^th after Facebook implemented new privacy and security restrictions, frustrating and confusing millions using the dating app.

Facebook has been facing increased scrutiny from the U.S. government after discovering major security breaches of its members’ personal information by third parties. Most recently, Facebook faced serious accusations after it was discovered that prominent research firm Cambridge Analytica stole Facebook user information from about 87 million users, including information about their political beliefs, without their knowledge or consent.

Facebook has since taken action to correct course, implementing more restrictions on its third party advertisers and partners to limit the amount of information they can access. Facebook previously allowed apps like Tinder to request user data automatically, but now that isn’t the case. Unfortunately for Tinder, this meant its users faced login errors and weren’t able to access the app at all.