General News

A New York state appeals court unanimously rejected IAC/InterActiveCorp’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Tinder founders and early employees who say IAC undervalued Tinder to avoid paying them billions of dollars. This decision affirms a June 13 ruling in which New York State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla also rejected a motion to dismiss the litigation.

The lawsuit alleges that IAC and Match Group cheated the plaintiffs out of money they were owed by improperly undervaluing Tinder, which today is worth more than $20 billion, and converting their company stock options. The appeals court denied IAC’s motion to dismiss on statute-of-limitations and other grounds, and said that the plaintiffs “were not bound under their stock options agreements to what they considered artificially low valuations of their stakes.”

If you’ve ever wanted to star in your own personal dating game, you’re in luck. The Meet Group has announced the launch of NextDate, a livestreaming dating game that lets users of MeetMe and Skout take on the role of a contestant in a speed dating show.

The patent-pending dating game offers a modern twist on a familiar format. As in a classic television dating competition, the user interacts with potential matches while being watched by an audience — except the user gets to choose who their matches are and, instead of a live studio audience, the game is watched in real-time via livestream. The Meet Group’s gamified take on speed dating allows streamers to add comments, use a rating system called the Love-o-meter, and take their romantic chances with any contestant who is currently playing NextDate.

Hinge CEO Justin McLeod

Image: Hinge

Justin McLeod, the founder and CEO of dating app Hinge, has delved further into the mechanics of finding people their perfect match: this time, by launching a new dating lab.

Hinge differentiates itself from dating app Tinder, also one of Match Group’s dating apps - namely by helping people get off the app and into relationships. (Tinder on the other hand is always looking for app stickiness, recently by launching its own interactive series Swipe Night to attract younger users.) McLeod’s philosophy is different: he doesn’t use social media himself, and while he wants to provide a way for people to meet via his app, he also wants them to put their phones down and engage face-to-face.

Tinder’s hit interactive series Swipe Night proved to be a wildly successful marketing strategy. As a result, the popular dating app will be debuting the series internationally in February 2020.

According to The Daily Dot, Tinder users have been “flooding” social media during and after the game (which can be seen from 6pm – midnight every Sunday), comparing their choices and discussing what happened. Tinder has also revealed that they’ve seen a “significant uptick” in user engagement since the series debuted. CNN Business reported that total matches on the app rose 26 percent on Sunday nights. Messages between users also rose 12 percent.

As a result, Tinder decided to take the series worldwide. It debuted in the U.S.

Image: Newsweek

In today's highly competitive business environment, companies are constantly fighting for consumers’ attention and loyalty. Those that manage to secure it set themselves on a path to market domination and financial success. Those that cannot face an uphill battle. Though we’re used to hearing that “the customer is always right,” the reality is that not every company lives by that credo.

Few industries are more competitive today than the online dating industry. From the major players of Match Group and Spark Networks to countless hopeful startups, dating services around the world are locked in a fierce feud to become the go-to matchmaker of tech-savvy singles.

IAC has announced its plan to spin off its most profitable company, Match Group, to create “two independent public companies,” according to a company statement.

Match Group is a publicly traded company and owns a suite of star dating apps like Tinder, PlentyofFish, Hinge and OkCupid among others, but IAC is still Match Group’s majority owner (with 80 percent of Match Group’s holdings). According to Tech Crunch, when the spin-off occurs, IAC says it would distribute its Match Group shares to IAC stockholders, which means IAC shareholders would have shares in both companies.

The move would allow Match Group to become a fully separate, independent company.