Marketing

Dating.com Group is expanding its suite of dating apps by acquiring Dil Mil, a San Francisco-based dating app that is popular among ex-pats from India and South Asian countries, according to Tech Crunch.

South Asian ex-pats are less interested in arranged marriages, and have turned to dating apps to help find love in the U.S. However, most popular American dating apps like Tinder and OkCupid aren’t culturally appealing to this group of daters, who are more conservative and traditional in their approach to dating.

Shares of Match Group fell 15 percent after the company announced it will miss revenue goals for the fourth quarter. Shares of IAC also fell by 11 percent, according to Reuters.

The company expects fourth quarter revenue to be between $545 and $555 million, short of the $559.3 million goal according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

This news comes on the heels of a complaint filed by the U.S. Federal Trading Commission that Match Group offered fake profiles to entice customers to purchase paid subscriptions to its services, among other “deceptive and unfair practices,” as said in the lawsuit. Match Group is also facing legal entanglements with former Tinder employees, including founder Sean Rad, who said the company cheated him out of rightful payment after undervaluing his stock options.

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.

Badoo and Mel B Partners with a Podcast

Badoo is the latest dating service to venture into the world of podcasting with a new show that takes an honest look at the highs and lows of modern romance. “The Truth Flirts” is an eight-episode series hosted by Melanie Brown, aka Mel B or the Spice Girl formerly known as Scary.

Speaking to the British newspaper The Independent, Brown revealed that she doesn’t currently use dating apps because she is “perfectly happily single” but that she finds the concept “fascinating.”

“I was on a dating app a couple of years ago but that was because my friend set my profile up as a joke,” she said. “It was a picture of me and my friend and I would scroll through it on a Thursday or Friday night and see how people reacted. It was fun at the time. I understand why people find it quite addictive.”

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?

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.