General News

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.

You swipe right on someone special on a dating app. You start communicating, and soon they want to move the conversation off the app to email or phone calls. The relationship progresses. You can feel yourself falling for them. They tell you they love you. But they live far away — as close as you think you’ve become, you’ve never actually met in person.

Then they ask you for money. They say it’s for a family emergency. Or an unexpected medical expense. Or a plane ticket to finally visit you. Their scam is almost complete.

Millions of men and women turn to online dating services to meet someone. But instead of finding the love of their life, many find a scammer trying to dupe them out of money. In 2018, people reported losing $143 million to romance scams — a higher total than for any other type of scam reported to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network, an online database of millions of consumer complaints.

Blackstone Acquires Majority Stake in MagicLab

Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev is ending his relationship with MagicLab, the company that owns Bumble, Badoo, Chappy and Lumen. Andreev is set to sell his majority stake in MagicLab to Blackstone in a deal that values the company at $3 billion. As part of the transaction, Andreev will step away from the business and Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd will take over as CEO.

In a prepared statement, Andreev said:

Blackstone presented MagicLab with a great opportunity to further develop the brands and platform, and I am confident Blackstone will take MagicLab to the next level in terms of growth and expansion. I am incredibly proud of the company, and of how we have connected millions of people around the world. At MagicLab, I have had the pleasure of working with some of the best and most talented entrepreneurs. My aim now is to ensure a smooth and successful transition before I embark on a new business venture in search of innovative leaders with new and exciting ideas. I am grateful for all the support of my partners and employees over the years as we couldn’t have gotten to this point without them. I wish MagicLab and Blackstone every success.