Dating Services

Most things are going brilliantly for Tinder these days, but one thing most certainly is not. Whitney Wolfe, Tinder’s former vice president of marketing, slapped the company with a sexual discrimination lawsuit at the end of June.

In the suit, Wolfe claims her former boss called her a “whore” at a company event in the presence of Tinder CEO Sean Rad and that she was stripped of her status as a Tinder co-founder. When she complained about her treatment to other executives, including Rad, she says they forced her out of the company.

The story goes back to 2013, when Wolfe and chief marketing officer Justin Mateen dated for several months. After they broke up, Wolfe claims Mateen sent her a series of inappropriate text messages and e-mails filled with racist and sexist language. When she complained to Rad and Match.com CEO Sam Yagan, they allegedly ignored her repeated complaints about his behaviour.

Wolfe also contends that Mateen told her she was not listed in Tinder’s press materials as a co-founder because having “a girl founder” who was just 24-years-old (at the time) would devalue the company. Later, after Mateen allegedly called her a “whore” in front of Rad and other co-workers, Wolfe says she offered to resign in exchange for “modest severance” and the vesting of her stock options. Instead, she claims, she was fired.

John Mullan, one of Wolfe’s attorneys, said in a statement that Wolfe “lost her job simply for refusing to take the abuse any longer.” Another one of her attorneys said “IAC and Match.com, which own Tinder, allowed this culture to exist and did nothing to prevent the discrimination or harassment. IAC and Match.com need to be held responsible for their failure to supervise the executives at Tinder. There really was no ‘adult in the room.’”

In response, IAC indefinitely suspended Mateen. “Through that process, it has become clear that Mr. Mateen sent private messages to Ms. Wolfe containing inappropriate content,” the company said in a statement. “We unequivocally condemn these messages, but believe that Ms. Wolfe’s allegations with respect to Tinder and its management are unfounded.”

The story gets more complex when you try to determine who actually is a legitimate co-founder of Tinder. TechCrunch did an in-depth examination of the people involved in Tinder’s creation and it’s…convoluted, to say the least. It’s hard to see how they themselves can keep up with it all (and maybe they can't), much less anyone else.

Wolfe is seeking compensatory damages, including for lost pay and benefits, as well as punitive damages for emotional distress.

Jiayuan.com, the largest online dating site in China, surpassed the 110 million registered users mark on June 29, 2014.

Jiayuan got its start a decade ago to address the unique needs of China's rapidly growing urban singles population. The website was a pioneer in China's online dating market, and now ranks first in the country in terms of number of unique visitors, average time spent on the site per user, and average page views per user. Over the course of its 10-year history, Jiayuan has facilitated 12.3 million matches in China.

The site has become so big that, according to comScore, it accounted for more than half – 58.4% to be exact – of the total time spent on online dating in China in March 2014. It is the 60^th most visited website in the country according to Alexa.com, and the 336^th most popular website in the world.

Jiayuan.com hit the 100 million registered user accounts milestone back in January 2014, adding 10 million more users over the course of the last six months. "I am pleased to see Jiayuan's registered user accounts surpass the 110 million mark as we continue to gain momentum from our solid start to the year," commented Mr. Linguang Wu, CEO of Jiayuan, in a press release. "Passing the 110 million milestone speaks to the strength and growing popularity of our platform as we make the investments needed to increase our brand equity and solidify our leadership over our competitors. These investments include ramping up mobile monetization now that we have successfully grown our mobile platform to include 24.8 million registered user accounts and 31.2 million activated installments as of June 29, 2014."

One of Jiayuan’s recent investments is a partnership with animation firm Up Studios, whose brand Piggy in Love (which follows a pig looking for his lost love) will be featured in Jiayuan’s new mobile app. Through their licensing agreement, Jiayuan users will be able to send romantic animations and Piggy in Love emojis in their messages.

Mr. Wu concluded, "Looking to the future, we will continue to build upon this massive database of marriage minded singles by integrating it with our proprietary CRM system in an effort to consolidate the traditional matchmaking business in China which we believe is poised for a period of explosive growth. 2014 is an important year for us strategically as we make investments in our database of eligible singles to generate new revenue streams and ensure the long-term sustainability of our business."

We all know about dating app Tinder by now. It’s known less for its accuracy in matchmaking and more for its accessibility in meeting people anytime, anywhere – who are up for a brief fling or flirtatious chat. While Tinder is getting a lot of name recognition, another dating app called Hinge is slowly surfacing, city by city, taking the dating app world by storm and attracting a recent round of $4.5 million in venture capital money.

Why is Hinge getting so much attention (and money)? Because it is differentiating itself from Tinder in the most basic of ways. Hinge is focused on the quality of matches, which means instead of scrolling through endless photos and swiping left or right, the app finds a fixed number of matches for each user that they think suit you. Hinge is all about playing matchmaker. (It also doesn’t help Tinder that its CMO Justin Mateen was suspended recently for sexual harassment.)

Hinge matches people based on particular factors, namely profession, education history, and interests, as well who you’ve been interested in previously. What’s different about the dating app is that it’s not just pairing you with people from your circles with the same job or who went to the same college. Hinge looks for less obvious connections, like that Ivy League college alums like to intermingle, or that guys in finance like to date female lawyers. Plus, matches are all gained through your Facebook circles (friends of friends only), and you must have a Facebook friend who’s already on Hinge in order to join. It makes for a kind of exclusive club feeling.

Hinge started small in the D.C. area, but it’s iOS and Android userbase is up 300% this year in the nine cities it operates in: DC, Philadelphia, NYC, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and L.A.

Hinge however isn’t focused solely on the dating game. They want to move in the direction of the so-called “social discovery” app, where they match people who could be friends based on interests.

The new $4.5 million round from Founders Fund and Lowercase Capital brings Hinge to $8.6 million in total funding. Right now, Hinge is free, but in order to be profitable for its investors the company is probably looking into adding premium services for a fee, or potentially licensing its technology, according to website Tech Crunch.

For now, it’s slow-growth approach and catered matchmaking are making it a big hit, especially among the more serious and discerning female daters. It will be interesting to see where it goes next.

Usually when we talk about online dating and hook-ups, it’s to discuss what everybody’s using Tinder for. Today, it’s about a $90 million merger agreement between Fairfax Media’s RSVP dating website and Ten Network Holdings-backed Oasis Active. The two are teaming up amid growing overseas competition in the online dating market.

Prior to the merger, RSVP was wholly owned by Fairfax, while Ten controlled about 40% of Oasis and shared the registry with other investors including co-founders David Heysen and Daniel Haigh, former Star City, Engin and Solution 6 boss Neil Gamble. Although the companies have been rivals at each other’s throats for some time, they’re now putting aside their differences for a marriage of convenience (but plan to keep their maiden names and their respective management teams).

Following the transaction (which will be conducted in a combination of cash and RSVP shares), Fairfax will have a 58% stake, Ten will hold 17%, and Heysen and Haigh will hold 14% of the company. Their combined business will be managed collectively by the RSVP and Oasis executive teams.

The merger is part of a larger trend for Fairfax over the past two years. Fairfax, the publisher of Business Day, has sold a number of digital assets in that time, including online accommodation business Stayz to United States rental operator HomeAway for $220 million and New Zealand auction website Trade Me in late 2012. Fairfax purchased RSVP, Australia’s largest dating website, in 2005.

Oasis launched in 2008 and is now one of Australia's largest free online dating sites. It has an overseas presence in countries including Colombia, Chile and Mexico, but that’s not enough to take on huge international rivals like eHarmony and Tinder. RSVP and Oasis hope that, by combining forces, they can reach new markets neither company could touch individually.

"Oasis has always admired the RSVP brand in Australia and we look forward to working with a business that has been one of the major players in the Australian market for more than 15 years," Mr Heysen says. “Together we can ensure that we continue to develop our products to cater for a wider range of the Australian singles market as well as collectively develop ways to best leverage rapidly changing technology.”

“Oasis and RSVP are two of the strongest brands in the online dating market in Australia, and together they will be even stronger,” adds Ten Network’s Chief Digital Officer, Rebekah Horne. “The partnership of Ten Network, Fairfax, Oasis and RSVP will create a powerful business with myriad growth opportunities, here and overseas.”

Online dating is about to get a major shakeup. And when I say major, I really mean major. Spark Networks, which owns popular dating sites like JDate and Christian Mingle, has put itself up for sale and has at least one prospective suitor.

The big news comes on the heels of the company unexpectedly postponing its annual shareholder meeting in June, two days before it was scheduled. The move allowed Spark Networks to put its focus on the potential deal and to sidestep a board battle with its largest shareholder, Osmium. Things have been tense lately with Osmium, a San Francisco hedge fund that has been pushing for board seats over concerns that Spark has been neglecting to allocate sufficient funds for JDate while over-spending on Christian Mingle.

Spark has spent $120 million in direct marketing on Christian Mingle since 2011, which has helped grow Christian Mingle’s subscribers by almost 700 percent since 2010. Revenue is also up, from $45 million in 2008 to $70 million in 2013, but along with those efforts came dramatically increased costs as a percentage of revenue.

Meanwhile JDate, the most famous and lucrative site in the Spark Networks arsenal, looks to be going through a rough patch. According to Osmium, the Jewish dating site posted revenue of $6.1 million in the first quarter – its lowest level since 2006. Jewish subscribers have also declined to  2006 levels.

All of this is coming at the same time as big-time changes for the Spark Networks board. When the delayed annual shareholder meeting finally took place, four of the company’s six sitting directors were nixed, including Chairman and CEO Greg Liberman. The shareholders instead picked four directors nominated by – surprise! – Osmium. One of the two Spark directors who was re-elected, Thomas Stockham, resigned not long afterwards.

“The new board is eager to work alongside Spark employees with a renewed sense of urgency, accountability and focus, in order to drive increased shareholder value,” said Osmium’s founder and new Spark director John Lewis to the New York Post.

As for what’s happening with the sale of Spark Networks, everyone involved is remaining tight-lipped for now. The name of the prospective buyer has yet to be revealed, but the New York Post notes that “the world of online dating companies is small and currently dominated by Barry Diller’s IAC, which owns popular dating sites Match.com, OKCupid and Tinder.”

If you’re one of the largest and most successful online dating sites around, what would be your next move in the ever-changing dating market? Would you focus on growing your membership, improving your technology, or ramping up your marketing efforts?

Online dating giant Match.com has decided to focus on building its app business – since that’s where most online daters go now (instead of their laptops).

But Match.com has taken things a step further, trying to get ahead of the technology curve. They’ve announced that this month they will be launching one of the first dating apps for Android Wearables, so you can effectively “wear your heart on your wrist.”

Android Wearables are small, powerful devices worn on the body – kind of like a mobile phone worn as a wristwatch. More stylish and less intrusive than Google Glass (there’s no clandestine recording of someone as you’re watching them), Android Wearables make access to your mobile information a bit easier. For instance, you can respond to texts, instant messages and emails by voice. You can also ask for directions with its handy GPS feature, or reach fitness goals if you’re a runner or biker. It connects to your phone, so you can access the same basic information that’s on your mobile device, but it’s hands-free.

The Match app for Android Wearables will cater to busy and active singles who are already purchasing this new technology. The app offers basic features that you’d find with any online dating app, but it’s driven by voice commands, which makes it easier than typing when you’re out and about. Notifications for winks and messages from other members are sent straight to your Android wearable. With pulse notifications, you’ll know exactly when someone has reached out to you. To reply, simply swipe to read an incoming message and respond directly with the app’s voice command feature. (Make sure you are in a private place unless you want the general public to know about your dating life.)

You also receive your daily matches so you can choose who to respond to, rating with a “yes” or “no” a la Tinder. You can also find singles nearby with the handy GPS feature.

I’m not sure why it’s important to check your dating app when you’re on a bike ride or jog, but it seems that would be the point of using Android Wearables instead of just picking up your phone and silently texting your matches when you’re able. But maybe that’s just me.

The app will be available for Android Wearable users this month. For more on this service please read our Match.com review.