Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Online Dating Insider (in this message: 3 new items)

Online Dating Insider (in this message: 3 new items)

Whitney Wolfe, Other Former Tinder Employees To Launch Direct Competitor Called Bumble | TechCrunch

Posted: 08 Dec 2014 03:51 PM PST

bumble

A bunch of ex-Tinder staff have left to start a competing service. They may or may not have raised several million dollars. This reminds me of the mass staff exodus from JDate who left to start a competing site. That site lasted a year then faded into oblivion.

Whitney Wolfe, an early employee at Tinder who sued the company for sexual harassment and workplace discrimination, has joined up with two other early Tinder employees, Chris Gulczynski and his parnter Sarah Mick (cofounders of YayNext), to launch a direct competitor to Tinder called Bumble, sources tell TechCrunch.

The company, which is officially called Moxco Limited, lists its place of business in London, according to the privacy policy. But you can see from the Instagram accounts of Gulczynski and Mick that the team has been traveling quite a bit. There was a trip to Greece on a private plane, where they stayed in a villa, and then to Paris. Not to mention multiple trips to and from London and Los Angeles.

Sexcapades, lawyers  and private jets, I’d love to meet the people who funded Bumble, they have stomaches made of iron to deal with all of the drama.

There is little chance of this turning out well. Generic app and too many strikes against them already.

I know this in part because they state, “We suggest you read this in conjunction with our brilliant Terms and Conditions of Use.” Who does that? Signs of too cool for school indeed.

Read more at TechCrunch: Whitney Wolfe, Other Former Tinder Employees To Launch Direct Competitor Called Bumble.

Sapiosexual Seeks Same: A New Lexicon Enters Online Dating Mainstream

Posted: 08 Dec 2014 02:29 PM PST

OkCupid is adding a lot more options for gender and sexual orientation, including androgynous and genderqueer. And then there’s sapiosexual, meaning someone who’s attracted to smart people.

Source: www.npr.org

Dating App The Grade is Tinder With Report Cards

Posted: 08 Dec 2014 02:24 PM PST

The Grade dating
SNAP Interactive, creators of Are You Interested, have launched a new dating app called The Grade, which bans “failing singles.”

The Grade, which uses an algorithm to assign letter grades to users ranging from “A+” to “F,” is to create a community of high-quality daters.  By expelling low-quality users who receive an “F” grade, The Grade enables users to have a high-quality experience by viewing potential matches without sifting through hundreds of undesirable, inappropriate, and unresponsive people.

Grades are based on entirely objective criteria and are determined by a sophisticated algorithm that analyzes user behavior based on three categories – popularity, responsiveness, and message quality.  Users must maintain one of the passing dating “grades,” ranging from “A+” to “D,” while users who are undesirable or behave poorly will receive a failing “F” grade, and will be expelled from using the app.  Users are given instructions on how to improve their grades and receive a warning if they fall below a “C” grade.

The popularity grade is based on the quality of a user’s profile and incorporates how often a person is liked on the app.  The response rate grade is based on how often a user responds to messages and gets a response back.  The message quality grade is based on the content of a person’s messages and checks for spelling mistakes, use of slang, and inappropriate words.   The three categories combine to make up a user’s overall grade, which is visible for other users to see.

Dating App The Grade

 

If you are expelled from The Grade, you can appeal the decision.

“Please explain why we should reconsider your membership for The Grade. The Grade is a place for high quality people looking to meet other high quality people.  If your appeal is successfully reviewed, please visit The Grade in  5-7 days and you will be let back in.”

I’d gather that expelled people are pushed to a person somewhere like the Phillipines who then reviews their appeal, and decides whether or not to let them back on the service.

I have to say, I was not impressed that the Appeal process was driven by a mailto: link. Kind of killed the excitement of being banned and trying to get back on.

The Grade is basically Tinder with a report card. I like the direction they went in, but I think there needs to be more transparency into their algorithm that analyzes user popularity, responsiveness, and message quality. Give it a shot and let us know what you think in the comments.
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