Industry

The Right Stuff, a dating app for conservatives that is backed by Peter Thiel, will launch in September of this year.

The announcement came from the company’s social media platforms, with a video promotion starring Ryann McEnany, sister of former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, touting the app’s features. "The Right Stuff is all about getting into the right dating pool with people who share the same values and beliefs as you," she says in the video. She also notes that the app is “invite only,” aiming to model itself after exclusive dating apps like The League.

Thiel invested $1.5 million in the app, which Axios said is being created by a company run by former Trump political aide John McEntee. Former Trump White House advisor Daniel Huff is a co-founder of the app.

New dating app Desti puts TikTok-style videos front and center, with a focus on local places to meet up IRL.

Desti is short for “destination,” and the app gives users a chance to match with others based on preferred date destinations. When scrolling through the app, users see videos of venues with the poster’s profile in the corner, according to Tech Crunch.

“We decided to bet on short-form video being the future,” Nick Dominguez, COO and lead designer/developer of Desti said in an interview with TechCrunch.

Match Group is making changes to its executive team and pausing its metaverse plans on the heels of a disappointing second quarter earnings report. Its stock fell 20 percent after the earnings call with investors.

According to reports, Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg is exiting after less than a year at the helm of the app. Bernard Kim, the new Match Group CEO following Shar Dubey’s exit two months ago, wrote this as explanation in his letter to shareholders: “Tinder’s current revenue growth expectations for the second half of the year are below our original expectations as a result of disappointing execution. We need to do more to excite our user base.”

Kim also announced a new COO, chief product officer, chief marketing officer, and chief technology officer according to Gizmodo, promoted from other parts of the company.

Revenue growth for dating conglomerate Match Group has fallen in a disappointing second quarter for the company. The market responded and the company’s stock fell more than twenty percent, bringing its stock price down 42 percent of its value since the beginning of the year.

Match Group held its earnings call with investors, reporting revenue of $795 million compared to $804 million that analysts expected. In addition to this, Match Group lowered revenue forecasts for Q3 from $800 to $790 million according to CNBC News, which includes the impact from foreign exchange rates falling compared to the dollar. To complicate things for Match Group, it also means that there would be no growth at all between the quarters.

There were some hopeful signs despite the news. The company pointed out that overall revenue grew twelve percent compared to this time last year. In addition, the number of paid users increased 10 percent to 16.4 million according to the shareholder report, and revenue per paid user rose three percent to $15.86.

A Russian court recently fined Match Group 2 million roubles ($33,280 USD) for its failure to store user data in Russian territory. Match Group owns the popular dating app Tinder, among others.

According to Reuters, Russia is taking action against American companies for refusing to store user data within the country, including against Meta’s WhatsApp, Expedia Group, and Snap Inc. Last month, the court fined Google’s parent company Alphabet for 15 million roubles because it was storing user information outside of Russia.

The move seems to be part of a larger strategy to penalize U.S. tech companies for controlling the data of its citizens in the wake of Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Meta announced it will be shutting down Tuned, its app designed for couples, in mid-September. As of the end of July, it is no longer allowing new users to sign up for the service.

Tuned was launched in April 2020 when Covid lockdowns were taking place around the world. It was positioned as a dating app to help couples better communicate by giving them a platform to exchange notes, photos, voice messages and videos, as well as share music via a Spotify integration. Tuned also let users set their moods and supplied a “check-in” feature with prompts so they could have a starting point to talk about their feelings.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to connect with couples. Tech Crunch pointed out that the platform was removed from Facebook Dating and other Meta platforms, which could have impacted its success.