Dating Services

Match Group is expected to lay off up to 200 employees, or about 8 percent of its workforce (currently around 2400 employees before the cut) after sharing a disappointing outlook for the first half of 2023 in its latest earnings call.

According to Reuters, the company blamed “significant” poor product execution at Tinder, in addition to dealing with a tough economy and a strong dollar. CEO Bernard Kim brought in a new management team and is in the process of rebranding Match Group’s star app.

The layoffs were primarily in recruiting, with CFO Gary Swidler noting that the company is restricting its hiring to Hinge and other growth businesses, with notable cuts to Tinder staff.

Representatives from dating app companies alongside ministers, victim-survivors, government officials and technology companies attended a roundtable in Sydney to discuss safety measures needed for dating apps. They discussed adding background checks and ID verification requirements, as well as increasing transparency and sharing of data between dating app companies.

According to The Guardian, Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said that “there’s no one law that’s going to fix this issue,” placing the burden of responsibility on dating app companies.

The talks were led by federal communications minister, Michelle Rowland and included representatives for popular dating apps such as Bumble and Tinder. She noted the talks were an “important first step,” according to The Guardian. The roundtable was convened after a report from the Australian Institute of Criminology found that three quarters of survey respondents had been subjected to sexual violence on dating apps in the last five years.

Image: Bumble & Netflix

Dating app Bumble has teamed up with leading streaming service Netflix to launch a game that is themed around some of its most popular shows, including Emily in Paris, Squid Game, Selling Sunset, and Stranger Things, among others.

According to Netflix’s blog post, the new game called Netflix Nights In will challenge matches to find out how deep their knowledge goes about their favorite shows by answering questions like: “How much was Davina’s infamous listing in Selling Sunset?” In a twist, the game requires matches to answer the question before responses are revealed, and both will be able to see their compatibility based on their answers.

Stars from fan favorites like Ashley Park from Emily in Paris or Jonathan Daviss from Outer Banks will present new questions each week in the app, according to Netflix.

Match Group has named new key executives, including its first CTO and a new President and CFO, as well as a new focus on four key businesses – Tinder, Hinge, Asia and Evergreen & Emerging.

According to the company’s press release, Gary Swindler was named to the top position of Match Group as President and CFO, and Will Wu joins as chief technology officer, a newly created position, to oversee product innovation across all apps. Swindler was promoted from his position as CFO and COO and Wu joins from Snap Inc., where he oversaw the commercialization of Snap’s developer platforms and spearheaded the creation of its most famous features like “Discover” and the “Chat” messaging feature, as well as Snap’s social gaming feature. 

Match Group is betting big on Wu, who brings an impressive background with developing one of the earliest revenue streams for Snap, as well as developing Snap’s primary social engagement driver.

Image: OkCupid

A new study by OkCupid found that 87 percent of its female users are pro-choice, and about half (49%) said that a date’s differing opinion on abortion would make them think twice about dating them. The company noted that more than one million users added the “I’m Pro-Choice” badge to their profiles.

OkCupid also found that views on abortion were more polarizing than competing views on politics (where 30% said they would think twice about dating someone with different views). And last year, 72 percent of women said they would not move to a state where abortion was illegal, and 37 percent said they would move out of their state if abortion became illegal there.

The new study comes as the landmark ruling of Roe v Wade would have turned 50 this year. It was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in June of last year, which removed federal protections for those receiving and providing abortions. Since then, many states have opted to place severe restrictions on who can access abortion care, with some banning the practice outright. Texas enacted some of the most extreme anti-abortion laws, rewarding people for turning in to authorities anyone who assists a woman in getting an abortion.

Dating app Hinge has introduced a $60 per month subscription plan for “highly motivated daters,” offering the app’s most premium service for a hefty price tag.

The new plan will offer subscribers more exposure and better recommendations for potential matches, according to Bloomberg who broke the story. For example, top-tier subscriber “likes” will be seen before others’ likes, giving them quicker access to people who interest them.

The new tier pricing almost doubles the cost of the existing premium service of $35 per month, but is still well below matchmaking rates, which run thousands of dollars per month. The new plan was mentioned in an earnings call in November, and while the company confirms it will be launching, it has not been officially announced.