Shares of Match Group and its parent IAC plunged, wiping some $5 billion off their combined market values, after Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said his social media platform would develop its own dating app to rival Tinder, Match and others.
Tinder became known for users swiping right on their cellphones to indicate interest for a potential match and swiping left to reject someone.
Also Read
Spark Networks, owner of JDate and Christian Mingle, also closed 4 percent lower. Although analysts said Facebook’s initial foray would not likely be a threat to established dating sites — some of which are highly specialised to cater to specific groups — its heft and deep pockets makes it a concern over the long term to the smaller companies.
Atlantic Equities analyst James Cordwell said there was “significant potential for Facebook to be a big problem for Match,” but one that was dependent on execution over the long term. Facebook brings to the dating table a treasure trove of data on its active users, which are over 2 billion strong. That could potentially allow it to match people more effectively than rival sites with less data at their fingertips.
But privacy concerns surrounding the technology behemoth could discourage some from embracing such a service, some analysts said.
Daniel Kurnos, an analyst at the Benchmark Company, also cited the difficulty of creating a popular dating site, cautioning that it was not an overnight project and one that requires much more than sheer machine learning.
“I think the reaction is a combination of the Facebook news along with concerns that Match was getting toppy,” or expensive, Kurnos told Reuters. “I can’t see Facebook supplanting Match any time soon — too big a moat.”
To read the full story, Subscribe Now at just Rs 249 a month
Already a subscriber? Log in
Subscribe To BS Premium
₹249
Renews automatically
₹1699₹1999
Opt for auto renewal and save Rs. 300 Renews automatically
₹1999
What you get on BS Premium?
-
Unlock 30+ premium stories daily hand-picked by our editors, across devices on browser and app.
-
Pick your 5 favourite companies, get a daily email with all news updates on them.
Full access to our intuitive epaper - clip, save, share articles from any device; newspaper archives from 2006.
Preferential invites to Business Standard events.
Curated newsletters on markets, personal finance, policy & politics, start-ups, technology, and more.
Need More Information - write to us at assist@bsmail.in