Match

We know we shouldn’t compare ourselves to what we see on social media. Everything, from the poreless skin to the sunsets over pristine beaches, is edited and carefully curated. But despite our better judgement, we can’t help feeling envious when we see travelers on picturesque getaways and fashion influencers posing in their flawlessly organized closets.

This compulsion to measure our real lives against the heavily filtered lives we see on social media now extends to our relationships. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are littered with images of #couplegoals that make it easy to draw comparisons to our own relationships and give us unrealistic perceptions of love. According to a survey from Match.com, one third of couples feel their relationship is inadequate after scrolling through snaps of seemingly-perfect partners plastered across social media.

I've been working on updating the Match review for 2019 (last major update was in 2017) and I stumbled on a statistics page Match put up for their dating service. On it they explain the breakdown of their members by age along with a few other interesting facts. I also found an article on Seeking Alpha which talks about Match Group (who owns Match.com) and what makes it an attractive buy at the moment for investors. Let’s summarize the more thought provoking of these stats.

Match has just launched a new feature called the Super Match Badge (currently in the UK only), allowing women to award men who check off all parts of Match’s profile and behavior requirements. The purpose of the badge is for women to immediately identify great candidates who they might want to meet.

Match is making an effort to appeal to women who have had to deal with less-than-tolerable behavior from men over dating apps. Many online daters have complained about ghosting and sending inappropriate messages and photos, and this is Match’s way of addressing the issue.

It’s also a good strategy for men who use dating apps – you can set yourself apart from the crowd.

These so-called Match Heroes who receive the Super Match Badge have to complete many steps in the process, including:

The online dating market is hot right now and projected to grow to $12 billion by 2020. This is in part thanks to bullish analysts targeting a price point of $66 for Match Group stock, based mostly on the incredible revenue growth of Tinder.

This projection by Nomura Instinet came on the heels of a downward market in early October. Match Group stock was projected to be 28% higher than what it was worth on Thursday October 11^th before the announcement. The $66 valuation gave Match Group a bump on Friday.

Facebook’s entry into the online dating market could have an effect on these projections, though Nomura Instinet analysts say the valuation is based on Match Group’s effective strategy of buying competitors before they scale. Most particularly, Match Group was very successful in its purchase of dating app darling Tinder, which has seen unexpected revenue growth since launching its paid premium service Tinder Gold.

Match Group, the parent company of popular dating apps such as Tinder, OkCupid, and PlentyofFish, reported second quarter earnings of $421 million, exceeding industry analyst expectations.

The rise in profits was thanks to its star app Tinder, which gained an additional 300,000 subscribers in Q2 alone, and has seen a record 3.8 million subscribers to date. Match Group expects to earn $1.72 billion this year, with Tinder expected to exceed $800 million in revenue, according to Fortune Magazine. Match Group’s subscribers for all apps total about 7.7 million.

“Retention and conversion were a bit stronger than we thought they would be,” Chief Executive Mandy Ginsberg told website MarketWatch.

Summer: the season of swimsuits, sunscreen, ice cream, state fairs, outdoor movies, park picnics, umbrella drinks, bonfires, BBQ, trashy beach reads, and road trips.

This year, Match.com celebrated summer by teaming up with travel planning platform Roadtrippers for a one-of-a-kind survey on the perks, perils, and pet peeves of road tripping with a romantic partner. Over 1,500 singles shared their insights on making it work (and the turn-offs that guarantee your automotive adventure will be a wreck).

Nearly a third of singles (33%) agree that a road trip is a very significant milestone in a new relationship. But not all singles take it so seriously - an impressive 60% think it’s ok to attempt a road trip after just one month of dating a new partner.