General News

Anupam Mittal, Founder and CEO of Shaadi.com, has stepped down from his role as CEO of the company. According to reports, he will now focus on Shaadi's corporate developments, new businesses, and international expansions. Gourav Rakshit, former chief operating officer, will take over Mittal's role as CEO of Shaadi.com.

“Day to day responsibilities will now move to Gourav, while I still continue to guide the company with a focus on corporate development and acquisitions,” said Mittal.

Rakshit, who has already been looking after day to day operations of the venture, will take on full responsibility for Shaadi.com. He is an MBA alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad who has held various positions at Shaadi since October 2007. Previously, he worked at Infosys, Planetasia, and Nestle.

The change comes after a few major moves in Mittal's world. His People Group, which includes app store Mobango and mobile media firm Mauj, merged its property listing portal Makaan with online property broker Proptiger for an undisclosed sum. Makaan continues to operate as an independent entity following the deal.

In January this year, People Group acquired a 25% stake in dating app Thrill, which merged with People Group's dating website Fropper.com.

People Group hopes its next big move will be a new round of funding for Shaadi. The company is looking for at least $100 million to finance its expansion plans.

In preparation, Shaadi has hired Aditya Save, former head of Marico's global centre of excellence for digital and media, to replace Abhishek Maloo as chief marketing officer. Maloo will join Mittal in the corporate development team.

Finally, Shaadi has brought on Ketan Doshi as chief technology officer. Doshi is an IIT-Bombay and Stanford graduate, as well as the former director of product development at BMC Software. Both Save and Doshi will report to Rakshit.

Mittal started Shaadi.com in 1996 before forming People Group to look at other opportunities in the technology arena. He is an active angel investor who has contributed to over 60 startups. According to reports, Shaadi has made over 3.2 million matches as of 2013.

Curious to find out if that’s really Leo DiCaprio or Hilary Duff using Tinder? Now, you can rest assured that either it’s a fake, or yes – your favorite celebrity is really on Tinder. (And maybe there’s a chance for a mutual swipe right...)

The latest update to Tinder brings with it a much-anticipated feature: verified profiles. But the verification in its current state doesn’t extend to all users. Specifically, Tinder verifies the authenticity of well-known people who are using the service, whom Tinder describes as “notable public figures, celebrities and athletes.” Following in the steps of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, Tinder will now add the recognizable blue and white checkmark badge to all verified celebrity profiles.

Tinder has been known to have problems with spam bots and fake profiles in its database, which has raised concerns among many in terms of its cybersecurity and the potential for its users to be catfished. One example is the number of fake profiles set up by prostitutes, who offer prices for their services should you swipe right on their profile. Other red flags have been raised when some companies advertising their services began using fake profiles to entice customers, without Tinder's approval.

But the real concern among Tinder management was not the safety and security of every day users – it was the fact that celebrities weren’t getting many matches because nobody believed their profiles were real.

So, the new feature came about not because of complaints or requests from the general population of Tinder users, but at the request of celebrity clients using the service. As Rosette Pambakian, vice president of global communications and branding at Tinder, told The Huffington Post: “Many celebrities were telling us that no one believes it is really them on Tinder, so we launched verified profiles to authentic users who are notable public figures.”

So how does the verified profiles feature work? Celebrities can email verified@tinder.com to be considered for the badge, and Tinder will review requests on a case-by-case basis. If you're not a celebrity don’t try to submit one yourself, because for now, only notable public figures will be considered. But if you’re Heidi Klum or a single politician? That’s a different story.

So what does this mean for the average Tinder user? Not much has changed. While you won’t be able to tell if the average profile you are looking at is a real person or a scam, you will be able to tell if Brittany Spears or Lindsay Lohan shows up as your match. They will be marked verified.

To find out more about this service please read our review of Tinder.

There have been a lot of breakthroughs recently for the LGBTQ community. The Supreme Court ruled on the legality of gay marriage across America, overriding state laws that made it illegal. Caitlyn Jenner disclosed her transition from male to female in an interview with Diane Sawyer, and later showed off her new body in Vanity Fair to a public that embraced her. Celebrities like Ruby Rose and Miley Cyrus have recently stated that they identify as “gender-fluid,” or as both male and female, bringing gender identity conversations into the spotlight.

It only makes sense that in this moment of time where people feel more free than ever to live their truth – there is also a dating app that helps you find that special someone, no matter how you identify. At least, that is what OneGoodCrush aims to do.

Launched this week, OneGoodCrush aims to help people in the LGBTQ community find long-term relationships. But they aren’t limiting their potential user base. Founder Frank Mastronuzzi wants everyone to feel they can find someone special using the app, including those who identify as heterosexual, or who do not define themselves as male or female.

"We wanted to be inclusive of everyone -- even heterosexual people can use our app," he told USA Today. "Letters on LGBTQ keep adding over time, but wherever you fall on this spectrum, you have a place on this app."

OneGoodCrush connects users through their Facebook and Instagram accounts to pull photos and profile information. The app works like Tinder and other dating apps, where each user is presented with photos and profiles, allowing them to swipe left and right to reject or accept a match. But while other dating apps like Tinder and Grindr offer same-sex dating options, they are limited when it comes to allowing users to communicate their own gender identity. The big difference between OneGoodCrush and other dating apps is that its members can claim their own gender identity -- man, woman, transgender man, transgender woman, or queer -- and then choose the gender(s) they are seeking.

According to the company’s records, the app has so far attracted about 100,000 users since its soft launch three months ago. Of the users that have signed onto the app, 57% identify as gay, 37% identify as lesbian, 4% have identify as transgender, 1% identify as queer, and less than 1% identify as straight.

Having the ability to identify as a transgender seems obvious in online dating, but it hasn’t been the case. As Trish McDermott, Strategic Advisor for OneGoodCrush states: "It seems online dating is one of the last bastions separating people, and that is kind of mind blowing. I think the industry has a responsibility to invite everyone."

Life's short. Have an affair. Get hacked.

It's not Ashley Madison's new slogan, but it could be.

The biggest story in the online dating world right now is the news that the infamous dating site for adulterers has been attacked by hackers. A group calling themselves The Impact Team claims to have complete access to Ashley Madison’s database of more than 37 million members. They say they're in possession of financial records, addresses, and other personal information, and are threatening to publish it online unless the site closes.

In addition to Ashley Madison, the same group has compromised two other dating sites, Cougar Life and Established Men. All three are owned by the same parent company, Avid Life Media (ALM).

The hackers said in a statement: “Avid Life Media has been instructed to take Ashley Madison and Established Men offline permanently in all forms, or we will release all customer records, including profiles with all the customers’ secret sexual fantasies and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails. The other websites may stay online.”

The issue that prompted the attack appears to be the leavers’ fee that Ashley Madison charges users. Should a member choose to leave the service permanently, Ashley Madison offers a “full delete” of their profile and all associated data for a $19 fee.

However, The Impact Team claims no data is ever deleted. "Full Delete netted [Avid Life Media] $1.7 million in revenue in 2014. It's also a complete lie," the hackers said in their statement. "Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real names and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed."

So far Avid Life Media has defended the service and offered to stop charging for it in the future. Their own statement says: “We apologise for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information. The current business world has proven to be one in which no company’s online assets are safe from cyber-vandalism, with Avid Life Media being only the latest among many companies to have been attacked, despite investing in the latest privacy and security technologies.”

For now, ALM has positive words for concerned users. “At this time,” reads the statement, “we have been able to secure our sites, and close the unauthorised access points.” The company is working with law enforcement agencies to investigate the hack and plans to prosecute all parties responsible for what they're calling “an act of cyber-terrorism.”

For more on this developing story you can check out CNN.

Have you been to a music festival like Coachella or Firefly and wondered who that hot guy was standing ten feet away, singing along to every word of your favorite band’s favorite song? Maybe you chose not to go up and introduce yourself. But perhaps you pulled out your Tinder app and swiped left through a bunch of potential matches trying to locate his photo.

If you felt frustrated at not being able to hook up, or your nerves got the best of you, don’t worry. A Dutch-based company has created an event-based dating app for the festival-attendee market – so you can meet those people you spotted in person but didn’t actually get a chance to chat with.

Glance is the latest gimmick-driven dating app to hit the test market, and is currently in beta only in the Netherlands. However, the company has its sights set on worldwide release.

Glance allows you not only to locate people you might be attracted to at festivals, but if you plan on going, it can hook you up over the app in advance, so you can arrange to meet and hang out in person when you get there.

Hendrik van Benthem, founder of Glance, calls this “event­-driven dating.” In a statement he explains: “We live in a society in which users of products and services demand relevance. Why would you adjust your plans to a date that will probably turn into nothing, if your date can also come the place where you’ll be anyway, surrounded by people you feel comfortable with?”

Glance is not just for festival-goers. The app aims to get people introduced who plan to be at the same night club at the same time, too.

Glance launched in May 2015 in Amsterdam together with “leading partners from the event and entertainment industry.” The entrepreneurs behind Glance did not have any start-up investors, and are funding the company themselves. Says van Benthem: “We talked to different VC’s from the States and the Netherlands. Really cool to talk with those people. They operate on a different level and we learned a lot. The best experience was a meeting in the private jet of Dan Bilzerian. Crazy. But there never was a match...”

Glance is available in the App store for iOS and Play Store for Android, and information is available on its website. It is currently only available for events in the Netherlands but the company plans to launch internationally shortly.

On Tuesday Match Group which is a subsidiary of IAC/InterActiveCorp purchased PlentyofFish Media for $575 million in cash. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. Markus Frind which is the founder and sole owner of POF started PlentyofFish.com way back in 2003. It was a side project for him to learn a new programming language. It quickly exploded and by 2008 he was earning $10 million a year from the dating site with only a couple of employees. Early this year POF.com reach a milestone and hit 100 million users. The company also predicted it would earn $100 million for the year 2015. On its newly launch responsive mobile site POF currently reports the following statistics:

• 3.5 million singles log into POF.com daily (through the website and dating apps)
• Those same singles generate more than 9 million conversation every day
• From those conversations 1 million relationships are created every year

In the past two years I have heard several rumors about Match being interested in purchasing POF.com. I had heard around $300 million was offered at one point, but it was turned down. For a site earning $100 million in a year with no debt and it’s only real expense is it’s 75 employees that was a pretty low offer (if it is true). Obviously there was some negotiations going on which resulted in Markus walking away with over half a billion dollars. Funny enough, the general rule of thumb in purchasing a website (now these are much smaller sites [smilely: ;]]), is that it is worth about 4 years’ worth of the income it generates. I guess from using this purchase as an example, that the rule is not too far off!

The Match Group has purchased a number of dating services over the past 6 years:

• In 2014 Match purchased How About We
• In 2012 Match buys DateHookup.com
• In 2011 OkCupid was bought by Match.com for $50 Million
• In 2009 People Media was acquired for $72 Million

Combining all of these sites along with Tinder (which Match had funded pretty early on) and adding POF to the mix, this will make the Match Group the undisputed power house in dating online and on our phones for years to come. Acquiring POF will also make the Match Group’s proposed IPO that much more enticing to investors when it happens, which is most likely near the end of the year.

POF is currently a free dating site that offers a paid subscription for an upgraded membership. This upgraded membership offers a number of features like no ads, viewing extended profiles and seeing who has viewed your emails. I am curious to see if the Match Group plans any tweaks to this formula. If they change POF to a completely paid dating site like Match.com (which I highly doubt by the way), then I am sure POF users would be up in arms. I have a feeling they will leave POF.com pretty much the same for now and let it continue as is, in the same way Match Group let OkCupid continue to operate.