NEW HOPE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Meet Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: MEET), a leading provider of interactive livestreaming solutions, today announced the launch of NextDate™, a new livestreaming dating game, to users of its popular MeetMe and Skout mobile applications.
NextDate allows users to star in their own dating game. “NextDate is like speed dating, except that there’s an audience and the contestant gets to choose the specific people they’d like to connect with,” said Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group. “We’ve gamified speed dating to add comments and a rating system called the Love-o-meter, while also enabling viewers to take their chances to date any streamer who is currently playing NextDate.”
In NextDate a streamer has 90 seconds to tap “Next,” which ends the current pairing and skips to the next contestant in the queue, or “Date,” which reciprocates the contestant’s interest and enables the two users to connect by 1:1 video chat in the future. NextDate provides hundreds of prompts to help the streamer get to know the contestant and evaluate their compatibility. The launch also includes a new “Date” tab within the Live section to make it easy to find nearby and trending people playing the game, and to filter by age, gender, and location. The game is monetized today via the same virtual gifting engine that has enabled The Meet Group to grow Live to an $80+ million annualized video business within two years.
The patent-pending dating game provides a livestreaming twist on a common format: the television dating game. Added Cook, “We believe more and more linear programming experiences will have a livestreaming analog, and we don’t believe anyone has yet cracked the code on the livestreaming dating game. We see NextDate as a way to further grow our video audience with a new type of content that resonates with our biggest segment: users interested in dating.
"As we conducted user research prior to building the game, we found that 95% of surveyed users would be willing to meet in real life with someone they first met through a livestreaming dating game. We also found that many of our users are interested in dating a streamer. We believe NextDate will help us expand the reach of our video products to our most dating-oriented users.
"We remain committed to achieving our goal of increasing our video audience by 20% by the first quarter of next year. While early, we are heartened that in the UK, where NextDate has been in beta-test mode, daily video viewers expanded by 20% when comparing the 21-day beta period to the average of the month of September.
"We have activated multiple initiatives designed to drive video usage, and to further that, we expect to launch NextDate on our other apps, Tagged and LOVOO, in the coming months, while also improving the game with a ‘blind date’ function as well as a new method of monetization that enables contestants to pay to skip the line and try to date a popular streamer more quickly.”
NextDate is available today on the MeetMe and Skout apps to English-language users to join as a contestant and to top streamers to join as the star. Within the coming weeks, the feature will be available to everyone to join as either the star or the contestant.
About The Meet Group
The Meet Group (NASDAQ: MEET) is a leading provider of interactive livestreaming solutions designed to meet the universal need for human connection. Our ecosystem of livestreaming apps enables users around the world to interact through one-to-many livestreaming broadcasts and text-based conversations. Our top apps, MeetMe®, LOVOO®, Skout®, Tagged® and Growlr®, deliver live interactions and meaningful connections to millions of users daily. Headquartered in New Hope, PA, we have offices in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dresden, and Berlin. The Meet Group is committed to safety. You can find a description of current safety practices here: https://www.themeetgroup.com/safety-practices/. For more information, visit themeetgroup.com, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including whether a patent will issue for NextDate, whether more and more linear programming experiences will have a livestreaming analog; whether anyone has cracked the code on the livestreaming dating game; whether NextDate enable us to further grow our video audience with a new type of content that resonates with users interested in dating; whether NextDate will help us expand the reach of our video products to our most dating-oriented users; whether we will achieve our goal of increasing our video audience by 20% by Q1 of next year; whether our early tests of NextDate are indicative of future performance in terms of daily video viewers; whether our initiatives will drive video usage; whether we will launch NextDate on Tagged and LOVOO in the coming months, while also improving the game with a ‘blind date’ function as well as a new method of monetization that enables contestants to pay to skip the line and try to date a popular streamer more quickly. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained herein are forward-looking statements. The words “believe,” “may,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “should,” “plan,” “could,” “target,” “potential,” “project,” “outlook,” “is likely,” “expect” and similar expressions, as they relate to us, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from those in the forward-looking statements include the risk that our applications will not function easily or otherwise as anticipated, the risk that we will not launch additional features and upgrades as anticipated, the risk that unanticipated events affect the functionality of our applications with popular mobile operating systems, any changes in such operating systems that degrade our mobile applications’ functionality and other unexpected issues which could adversely affect usage on mobile devices. Further information on our risk factors is contained in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including the Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018 filed with the SEC on March 8, 2019. Any forward-looking statement made by us herein speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as may be required by law.
