{"id":3282,"date":"2017-02-03T14:06:31","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T14:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/outdoor-ad-firm-buys-swiss-dating-app-blinq-to-power-beacon-push.html"},"modified":"2017-02-03T14:06:31","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T14:06:31","slug":"outdoor-ad-firm-buys-swiss-dating-app-blinq-to-power-beacon-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/outdoor-ad-firm-buys-swiss-dating-app-blinq-to-power-beacon-push.html","title":{"rendered":"Outdoor ad firm buys Swiss dating app Blinq to power beacon push"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

The dating game sure is tough to maintain. Zurich-based\u00a0dating app Blinq<\/a> has been acquired by a Swiss outdoor advertising firm, APG|SGA<\/a>, with the latter coveting the team\u2019s experience\u00a0in rolling out beacon networks\u00a0for\u00a0a new division that will be developing\u00a0interactive ads to\u00a0work in conjunction with the Bluetooth comms\u00a0tech.<\/p>\n

The price of the acquisition has not been disclosed, though given Blinq\u2019s limited\u00a0traction it\u2019s unlikely to be much of a\u00a0multiple. The startup\u00a0had raised around $1M in seed funding since being founded back in 2013, including from local angel investors and the founders\u2019 own funds.<\/p>\n

The Blinq dating app \u2014 and another project the startup\u00a0developed: an algorithm to judge physical attractiveness<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 will both be closed within two weeks, according to co-founder and CTO Jan Berchtold.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are building a large scale beacon network to connect out of home and mobile media,\u201d he says of the team\u2019s new role at\u00a0APG|SGA. The Swiss ad company is 30 per cent owned by global out of home media giant, JCDecaux.<\/p>\n

The outdoor\u00a0ad company is looking for ways to expand its\u00a0digital playbook with data-targeted ads, flagging\u00a0the change in media consumption habits powered by smartphone use. \u201cMobile technologies make it possible to combine the advantages of wide-coverage\u00a0Out of Home advertising with the added value of digital content. The smartphone or tablet is thus being\u00a0established as a kind of \u201cOut of Home medium\u201d, which is also becoming more and more important for\u00a0advertising customers,\u201d it writes in\u00a0a press release<\/a> about its plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrecise location data in real time is essential in order to\u00a0usefully link Out of Home and mobile media. For this reason, APG|SGA is currently developing its own\u00a0targeting solution. In future, this should enable advertisers to display relevant advertising messages on a\u00a0person\u2019s smartphone in real time based on their location.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear how large APG|SGA\u2019s planned beacon network will be, nor when it will launch. We\u2019ve asked for more details and will update this post with any response.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also not clear how many active users Blinq\u2019s dating app has at this point \u2014 a year ago it was claiming<\/a>\u00a0200,000 monthly active users \u2014 although\u00a0Google Play lists the\u00a0Android app<\/a> as only having garnered between 100,000 and 500,000 downloads, so it\u2019s possible 200k was the\u00a0peak. (As a point of comparison, Tinder\u2019s Android app has had\u00a0between 50M and 100M downloads on Google Play.)<\/p>\n

We first covered Blinq back in December 2014<\/a> when it was hoping to stand out in the Tinder-dominated\u00a0dating space\u00a0by incorporating beacon proximity technology into the swipe-to-like mix \u2014 and kitting out select venues (such as ski resorts) with Estimote iBeacons. An in-app feature called InstaConnect then enabled Blinq users to opt in to be notified of potential dates\u00a0hanging out at\u00a0the same location.<\/p>\n

Even setting the social unease\/creepiness\u00a0factor aside, i.e. of having ambient notifications when\u00a0a stranger that\u00a0might want to pick you up is hanging\u00a0out in the same bar, the idea\u00a0looked very challenging to get off the ground,\u00a0given a double layer of network effects being\u00a0in effect.\u00a0i.e.\u00a0Blinq both needing lots of\u00a0users to power\u00a0a hyperlocal location-based dating scenario;\u00a0and\u00a0lots of venues to be kitted out with the relevant beacon tech \u2014 at least to offer anything\u00a0more than pre-packaged singles dating ski holiday novelty\u00a0(at which point beacon-based notifications would be pretty redundant anyway, as all the holidaying singles\u00a0would be in the same apr\u00e8s-ski bar\u2026 ).<\/p>\n

While their beacon-powered dating concept was clearly a stretch, the pilots Blinq\u00a0ran were\u00a0at least a\u00a0way for the team to gain\u00a0experience \u2014\u00a0which\u00a0will now be put to work for APG|SGA, rolling out a beacon network \u201cin the near future\u201d.<\/p>\n

As for the Blinq app, while there\u00a0are\u00a0positive comments about its\u00a0design, user reviews skew towards\u00a0complaints about the time it took\u00a0to get verified (its singles community was intended to be \u2018curated\u2019, rather than a free-for-all); and \u2014 for those who were finally able to access the app\u00a0\u2014 disappointment about the lack of potential dates once they got there.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you are allowed full access to the apps functionality, you realise that there\u2019s no one to do so with, except for maybe two or three people living at least 160 km away,\u201d writes\u00a0one reviewer. \u201cWhen you\u2019re done saying \u2018hi\u2019 and \u2018bye \u2018to them, the only thing that remains is you and your broken dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/ukkXEYE4NbI\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The dating game sure is tough to maintain. Zurich-based\u00a0dating app Blinq has been acquired by a Swiss outdoor advertising firm, APG|SGA, with the latter coveting the team\u2019s experience\u00a0in rolling out <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-3282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t