Dating apps Bumble and Hinge attracted more downloads worldwide in 2021 than the previous two years. Meanwhile, Tinder outpaced them both by at least 54 million downloads—albeit 8 million fewer downloads than its lead in 2020.

Tune in to our inaugural episode of Brand Anatomy, where we get exclusive looks inside leading brands. Today, eMarketer Briefing director Jeremy Goldman sits down with JibJab CEO Paul Hanges to discuss how the company—a leader in viral content dating back to 1999—listened to customer sentiment during the pandemic, improved its product, and reinvigorated its brand.

Shake Shack is even partnering with DoorDash to create a limited-time dating site focused on how spicy users like their food. Brands are eager to digitally engage all those with love on the brain because user data relating to romance is highly valuable. Dating app profiles, for example, provide insight to a user’s location, gender, hobbies, media interests, and more.

The big takeaway: From licensed games dating back to the ‘80s to Fortnite’s lavish in-game concerts, advertising has been part of the gaming experience since the medium’s birth. But ads still aren’t baked into the medium the way they are for TV, and advertisers should be mindful of players’ wishes for a non-disruptive experience.

Dating apps also followed surprising patterns. Many dating app users pivoted fairly quickly to a new reality. “We did see dating apps were surprisingly resilient during the pandemic,” Sydow said. "That was really interesting from the perspectives of both weekly active users and time spent.”. Analyst Take.

Canela.TV’s upcoming content includes a docuseries on a perilous immigrant trip to the US to a reality dating show in which the "abuela" (grandmother) chooses her grandchild's mate.

This initiative appears to build on those earlier efforts, as well as its recent expansion of user control over ads from sensitive categories such as dating and gambling. Meanwhile, at Apple: The consumer tech giant is saying in some circumstances that aiming at consumers who don’t want to be personalized, oddly enough, could yield better results.

But the company hasn't promised to abstain from using facial recognition in other services, which could include its metaverse initiatives. 2012 suit settled: The company announced it would pay $90 million as part of a settlement into a privacy lawsuit dating back to February 2012 that accused it of tracking users even when they were not logged onto the platform.

On today's episode, we discuss the most interesting findings from Facebook's Q1 earnings, how Apple’s iOS 14.5 update might affect its business, and where it sits among the digital ad giants. We then talk about how many people are using Facebook Dating, measuring Facebook's "potential reach," and Facebook Reality Labs' upcoming smart wristband. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer principal analysts at Insider Intelligence Debra Aho Williamson and Nicole Perrin.

Dating apps are seeing an influx of new users as many continue to shelter in place. This year, we forecast there will be 26.6 million smartphone dating app users, according to our latest estimates. That’s an 18.4% increase from 2019.

On today's episode, we discuss what "going back to the office" may actually mean, the dawn of “tiered-access journalism,” video safe havens for brands, possible surges in travel plans, Facebook's new video speed dating app called Sparked, why the Rubik's Cube was invented, and more. Tune in to listen to the discussion with eMarketer principal analysts Jillian Ryan and Jeremy Goldman, and analyst at Insider Intelligence Blake Droesch.

eMarketer principal analyst Mark Dolliver, junior analyst Blake Droesch and vice president of content studio Paul Verna discuss if people are falling back in love with their TVs, if online video dating will work, why we can't (yet) trust the internet, brands building goodwill during the pandemic, the un-college movement, what the average person looks like and more.

eMarketer principal analyst Mark Dolliver and vice president of research Jennifer Pearson discuss the wonderful world of online dating. Who's on which platforms? What do people like and dislike about it? They then talk about Valentine's Day spending, "OK Boomer" age discrimination and the link between smartphones and mental health.

The pandemic accelerated mobile trends by years, and these changes should stick even as the pandemic wanes. Many people were forced to use apps for food delivery, finance, fitness, and shopping, and they’ve become accustomed to these new behaviors. Even app categories that were hurt during the pandemic, such as travel or dating apps, have been resilient. People have acclimated to new forms of mobile shopping and activities, and they’ll be more willing to try mobile interfaces for other activities going forward.

eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson and junior analyst Blake Droesch discuss TikTok's US image, whether competitors can copy it out of business and how in-app buying will affect the platform. Then they talk about the ANA Influencer Marketing Conference, why Facebook is introducing Stories to its dating service and whether Americans will miss seeing Instagram likes when they go away.

The outage also had a serious impact on Delta flights, Disney theme parks (guests could not check in online), day traders (Robinhood and Coinbase were offline), as well as dating app Tinder. A bad software update in June took out content delivery network Fastly and resulted in a global outage that took out CNN, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and Reddit.