Online Dating

How Couples have met from 1940 to 2017

Image: Spark Networks

Despite completing a $255 million acquisition of Zoosk in July, and becoming the second-largest online dating company in North America by revenue, Spark Networks has struggled this year. Shares of Spark have lost more than a third of their value thus far in 2019 and over 50 percent since the deal to acquire Zoosk closed on July 1. To address its poor stock market performance, Spark Networks has released an open letter to its shareholders.

The letter expresses disappointment at the company’s falling stock price and suggests that the losses were primarily due to “concentrated share sales by a minority of our shareholder base,” not the result of under-performance. Spark Networks speculates that the shareholders in question were primarily early stage investors in Zoosk and Affinitas who were looking for liquidity after 10 years.

Spark Networks explains in part their optimism, by pointing to recent studies that shows that the online dating industry continues to grow in leaps and bounds. In 2010 online dating was responsible for 20% of how couples met. By 2013 it had past "met through friends", and by 2017, had reached 39% with no signs of slowing down.

Greg Blatt

Former CEO of Tinder and Match Group Greg Blatt filed a defamation lawsuit this month against Tinder co-founder Sean Rad and former VP of Marketing and Communications Rosette Pambakian.

According to a report by CNN, Blatt claimed in the lawsuit that Rad offered to pay Pambakian “millions of dollars” to make “false allegations of sexual harassment against Blatt…in a brazen attempt to gain publicity.” He was referring to an earlier sexual harassment lawsuit Pambakian had filed against him, which she alleged took place at a company holiday party.

A new study by dating app Hinge shows that people are more likely to match when they have certain traits in common, rather than the old adage “opposites attract.”

According to the results of the study, people are more likely to match when they share similar backgrounds, particularly religious affiliation, education, and even their initials. The study was conducted by Jon Levy and Moran Cerf of the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, and Devin Markell of Hinge. According to an article in Business Insider, they analyzed the outcomes of more than 421 million potential matches on the app to see how similarities in certain traits affected the likelihood of people matching. This included assessing indications of users wanting to communicate outside the dating app.

In time for scary movie season, dating app Tinder has released the first official trailer for its original interactive series ‘Swipe Night.’ Tinder will release a new episode every Sunday beginning October 6^th, with its fourth and final episode dropping October 27^th.

The series will be accessed only over the Tinder app for now, and users will not only get to watch the series but will also play an active role as they make choices to see where the story leads. Swipe Night is about the apocalypse, with the central question being: how would you spend your last few hours on earth, and who would you spend them with?

Match.com released an official statement regarding the Federal Trade Commission’s allegations that the dating service exposed consumers to the risk of fraud and engaged in other deceptive and unfair business practices.

In a lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Texas, the FTC alleges that Match used fake notifications to trick users into upgrading to premium subscriptions and that the company deceived consumers by failing to provide clear disclosures and cancellation practices. Match has denied the allegations, claiming that the issues pointed out by the FTC have “either been taken grossly out of context or permanently eliminated by Match.”

Facebook Dating just launched, but privacy advocates are warning despite all the opt-in features, Facebook could be collecting more data than you realize.

Facebook Dating is reassuring potential customers by allowing them to make decisions about how visible they want to be on the app – including providing features to block certain users from appearing in your matches (like an ex) and hiding your dating profile from friends and work colleagues. Even some of the more questionable features – like “secret crush” – where you can identify someone you secretly like over the app, and if they do the same you two are matched, are only activated when users choose them.