Very Social Network

The Meet Group Launches Face Verification

BUSINESSWIRE - Sep 21 - The Meet Group rolls out AI-powered face verification using FaceTec's 3D selfie technology, a human liveness check. Verification badges roll out to MeetMe member profiles this week, then Skout and Tagged within months. FaceTec's AI software confirms the user is physically present in front of the camera. As badge adoption increases, it will become a prerequisite for certain activities like sending photos in chat. Additionally, FaceTec's AI provides a 3D age estimation.

"At the beginning of this year, I set forth our commitment to safer dating in 2020, addressing key issues affecting dating apps everywhere: Authenticity, Age Estimation, Device Blocking, and Textual Screening," said Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group. "With the launch of the Profile Verification Badge on MeetMe, we are...helping to ensure authenticity and end catfishing."

Other initiatives include using URSafe so members can stay connected in an emergency, collaborating with Microsoft on Project Artemis which uses common textual patterns and an age detection engine to prevent child exploitation, the introduction of a Safer Dating Advisory Board of epidemiologists and infectious disease experts to provide advice aimed at reducing the risk of contagion while dating, and implementing DeviceCheck to block bad actors' devices. See TMG's safety overview.

See full article at Businesswire

See the top news on MeetMe

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Tagged Ditches IPO Plans

TECH CRUNCH - Oct 16 - The company has instead acquired messaging app startup Tinode and renamed itself if(we). If(we) is essentially a brand new company, now acting as a parent brand to Tagged and social gaming site Hi5. The plan is to incubate multiple social products, and the company confirmed it is already working on a messaging app as its first product.

by Sarah Buhr
See full article at Tech Crunch

How Tagged Sidestepped Facebook And Stayed Alive

TECH REPUBLIC - June 19 - Tagged boasts 300M users worldwide and 11M unique monthly users. It was an early-2000s social network alongside Myspace and Friendster. It wasn't crushed by Facebook. Tagged's revenue has grown every year since 2004. In 2007, when Facebook began its rise, Tagged had to change its model to better accommodate what its users were already doing - meeting new people.

by Conner Forrest
See full article at Tech Republic

Tagged Introduces New App - Sidewalk

TECH CRUNCH - Jan 22 - Tagged, the people discovery service with 300M registrations and 3M daily users, is stepping into offline meetups by launching standalone app Sidewalk that feeds you fun happenings in your city, as well as who you might run into where you’re hanging out. Building Sidewalk as a standalone app rather than as a feature of Tagged also protects the company. The idea is that you’ll open Sidewalk, discover something fun going on nearby, get off your butt and go there, and meet people. There are no gimmicks, forced ice breakers, or private messaging. Sidewalk also has less anonymity. The app is simply a portal to connection around real-life moments.

by Josh Constine
See full article at Tech Crunch

This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.

Tagged’s 5th Acquisition: LB Mobile Discovery App Urbantag

TECH CRUNCH - Oct 17 - Urbantag produces a mobile app for discovering and sharing different local venues. The idea was to bookmark and curate real-world places, which created a type of social recommendations system for its users. Since being launched, Urbantag users have created ~150K posts about ~90K different places in 123 countries. The teams will be looking for ways to integrate that location and affinity data in with Tagged’s own offerings. Tagged has created a social network for connecting with existing friends, while also finding ways to get to know new people. One missing piece so far has been the idea of local discovery, which is what Urbantag excels at. As part of the deal, the Urbantag co-founders have joined the Tagged team.

by Ryan Lawler
See full article at Tech Crunch

Tagged Raises $15M

TECH CRUNCH - Aug 22 - Tagged, a social network for meeting new people, has raised $15M in growth capital financing from Lighthouse Capital Partners and Comerica Bank. The company previously raised $9M in funding. Tagged was on an acquisition tear in 2011, buying hi5, Digsby, TopicMarks and WeGame. Tagged's revenue grew by 35% to~ $43M in 2011.

by Leena Rao
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Tagged: America’s Most Engaging Social Network

MASHABLE - May 6 - Tagged engages users like no other service. It was the only site to finish in the top two in both of comScore’s engagement metrics. Tagged users visited an average of 18 times each during March according to ComScore, second only to Facebook’s average of 36 visits per visitor. And each time a Tagged user visited the site, he or she stuck for 12.1 minutes — which trailed only Tumblr (14.7 minutes) and beat out Facebook (10.9 minutes). Tagged co-founder and CEO Greg Tseng says his company has been among America’s most engaging social networks for about a year now. Tagged functions mostly as a portal to meet new people online for romance or simply friendship. The site’s algorithms encourage users to connect based on shared interests, tastes and hobbies. The site has been profitable since 2008, and over the past year tripled its staff to a current count of ~170.

by Sam Laird
See full article at Mashable

Tagged Begins Transformation Of Acquisition hi5

TECH CRUNCH – Jan 26 – Following December’s announcement of its acquisition of struggling social network hi5, Tagged now says it’s ready to begin the transformation to “a Tagged.com experience with a hi5 wrapper.” Though the changes are still another six to eight weeks away, hi5 users will begin receiving emails later today notifying them about the plans. The biggest impending change will be the removal of the platform’s third-party game developers and replacing it with games developed in-house by Tagged. For the foreseeable future, Tagged has no intention of merging the two sites but intends to keep them as separate but similar entities.

by Anthony Ha
See full article at Tech Crunch

Tagged Claims “Largest”, Forgets About Badoo

TECH CRUNCH – Jan 19 – Recently, Tagged VP of Sales and Marketing Steve Sarner claimed that other companies are only just catching on to 'social discovery' sites like Tagged and his site is "by far the largest" in that sector. Author Mike Butcher threw some numbers out to argue that while Tagged has been growing, Badoo has been around just as long and is boasting larger revenues. Tagged shows a revenue growth of 35% to more than $43M and through a roll up of companies such as Digsby, WeGame, Topicmarks and hi5, now has a registered user base of 330M with active users at 20M. London-based Badoo has 35M+ active monthly users, claims annual revenue of $150M+ and has been profitable for the last 24 months after 64% year on year growth.

by Mike Butcher
See full article at Tech Crunch

Tagged Acquires hi5

TECH CRUNCH - Dec 14 - Social network Tagged has acquired the social game network hi5, doubling Tagged’s monthly active users to 20M. The combination will also increase the total number of registered users to 330M, up from 100M. The deal’s terms were not disclosed, but include the hi5 website and user base.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

Tagged Launches Social Game Studio

MASHABLE - May 17 - Social network Tagged has hired a former Electronic Arts VP Andrew Pedersen to run its in-house social game studio. Tagged has more than 100 million users and several popular social games, with its most popular game, Pets, having 375,000 unique daily active users. Tagged's social games currently generate $1 million per month in revenue.

by Ben Parr
See full article at Mashable

Tagged Buys Social/Instant Messaging Client Digsby

TECH CRUNCH - Apr 19 - Tagged, the San Francisco-based social network that is most notable because of its ability to grow profitably during the Facebook era, has closed its first acquisition. dotSyntax, the corporation that created the popular Digsby instant messaging and social client, is now part of Tagged. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but all seven dotSyntax employees will join Tagged.

by Michael Arrington
See full article at Tech Crunch

How Tagged.com Found Space In Social Networking

FAST COMPANY - Feb 2 - Tagged was founded in the same year as Facebook. The idea behind Tagged is that the Internet should enable you to meet new people, to forge new connections, rather than simply replicating an existing social structure online. Games are popular on Tagged--but not the same sorts of games that are popular on Facebook. Farming games aren't huge on Tagged; rather, the most popular game is one called Pets. Not everyone loves Tagged, though. Its email promotion practices brought it under fire in recent years. Users who signed up for the site occasionally found themselves inadvertently spamming their entire contacts list. FULL ARTICLE @ FAST COMPANY

Dating SNS: Tagged Hits 100 Million Users

TECH CRUNCH - Sep 3 - Back in 2005 Tagged was a teenager-only social network. By 2007 they were profitable and worth ~$100M. Facebook started letting high school students in, and then everyone else. Tagged responded by opening up to everyone and became just another social network. CEO Greg Tseng decided to reach out to users and ask them what they wanted. “People were using our site to meet new people.” Dating is obviously a big part of this. Facebook doesn’t have dating profiles. Going to Tagged is like going to a bar with friends. Going to Match.com is like going to a singles event, and there’s a stigma with that.”  Users definitely agree. In 2007 Tagged had 20M active users. Today they’ve hit 100M. 1/3 to 1/4 visit the site each month and the site has 5 billion monthly page views. Revenue has grown to $30+ M. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Tagged.Com Flagged for Child Porn

CBS NEWS - June 14 - Tagged.com is under fire from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who says child pornography was allowed to remain on the site for nearly two months after undercover investigators reported the content to Tagged administrators. Cuomo's office notified Tagged.com that it would sue the site if the problems were not resolved within 5 days. FULL ARTICLE @ CBS NEWS