Technology of the Week – Dating on a platform: Tinder vs Lexa

10

October

2016

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Technology of the week: The dating industry

In the dating industry, a platform is multi-sided, as men are mostly looking for women and women are mostly looking for men. In this blog we discuss two types of dating platforms: Profile-based dating and Location-based dating.

Profile-based dating

The dominant player in the Dutch market is Lexa, with a little over 2 million users. The main reason for their dominancy is the so-called network effect. Lexa uses a business model based on subscription tiers. This model makes use of a free base service. Users can create a profile, send a limited amount of messages and have a limited amount of people they can be matched up to. This tier is primarily used for driving people towards the service and increasing the network effect. The full membership is used for lock-in, keeping switching costs high.

Location-based dating

Another technology that disrupted the regular dating market is Tinder. Tinder is a mobile dating application that matches potential partners with one another through an algorithm based on your friends in your Facebook account and other people using the service from the surrounding location. Therefore, the location determination plays a crucial role within this application. Furthermore, Tinder makes use of already available personal information, as users have to log in via Facebook.

When looking at the business model of Tinder it can be observed that this dating platform is completely free to use. However, the amount of likes one can give is limited per day and users can buy a Tinderplus subscription to have an unlimited amount of likes. Therefore the business model of Tinder can be described as a freemium business model.

The similarities

The first similarity between both platforms is that the success rates depend on demand and supply of man and woman active on the platform. When one side of the platform is heavily outbalanced the platform value for both female and male users will not be in balance.

Another similarity can be found in the market dynamics. The online dating market is highly competitive. For location- and profile-based dating there are many other alternatives offering the same kind of service. Think about platforms like Happn and Badoo.

The differences

When looking at the differences between Lexa and Tinder. One can observe that Tinder offers full functionality with the additional opportunity to buy Tinderplus with unlimited likes. Therefore this platform model is based on a freemium model. On the other hand, Lexa offers you only the opportunity of the online network when you take a monthly subscription. Therefore, the lock-in with Lexa is a lot higher. So, to conclude Lexa has created a mono-homing platform structure, while Tinder is still in the multi-homing platform structure.

Furthermore each platform has another approach to generate potential matches between its users. Tinder’s algorithms make use of the location and mutual friends within Facebook, whereas Lexa lets its users fill in a form with personal questions. Subsequently, an algorithm will create matches based on your personality instead of location.

 

 

 

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Big Data And Public Transport: Mapping Developing Countries

3

October

2016

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In many developing countries public transport is not comparable to the way we are used in our modern western societies. In our society we use mobile applications to look up information regarding trains, buses, metros and trams to get to our destination. However, in developing countries these apps do not exist simply because the lack of an extensive public transportation network. In cities from Bogota (Colombia) to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), public transport is mainly offered via informal privately owned transport companies. These essential networks are almost invisible for governments but increase the mobility of its citizens.

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The Future Of “The Big Four”

9

September

2016

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The way company invoices are being documented has been varying from company to company. Therefore, companies started to develop software to standardize and generate electronic invoices. This saves time for the internal accountants but also generates more accurate digital information.

As more and more accurate information about company transactions is being automatically generated, we will enter in a new era where external auditors will have to be able to deal with Big Data.

Every year the Big Four are the biggest employers for new graduated students specialized in financial audits. The toolkits these students use during their studies and at their employer is mostly similar to these 50 years ago. Current auditing methods are still relying on sampling invoices of a specified book year to eventually have a confidence level about the firm’s financial situation. When a company is publicly listed you can imagine that you prefer to have one hundred percent transparency.

According to a report of KPMG on the future of audit, it is argued that big data and analytics is impacting every aspect of our lives and will also affect the way audits are performed. The report mentions that in 3-5 years auditors will use big data to test one hundred percent of the transactions in a specified book year. According to EY, the process of integrating the use of big data into the audits is coming with challenges as experienced recourses to analyze these data are scarce.

In my opinion we are entering a new era within audit where the use of big data into audits will result in much more automatization of the current audit process. Subsequently this might change the traditional way of how the Big Four companies operate. As the Big Four continue to hire students with the traditional accounting toolkit this might soon become a strategic disadvantage for the Big Four. The Big Four should be quick in adapting a digital environment by employing graduates with a background in big data as it is the next phase of audit. If the Big Four lacks to do so, new opportunities will arise for companies to step into digital audit and might even change the names behind the Big Four.

I am wondering if some of you already have some experience within the Big Four and can agree with me about the fact that the Big Four is now focusing on the IT side of audit.

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Sources:

http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Issues/Managing-finance/EY-cfo-need-to-know-future-of-audit#introduction

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.464.1416&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Click to access ACI-Audit-The-Future-of-Audit.PDF

Click to access ey-big-data-and-analytics-in-the-audit-process.pdf

Click to access CW_AuditingintheEraofBigData.pdf

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