INDUSTRY • Social Networking PROFILE • Founded in 1997 • HQ in New Hope, PA • Available on iPhone, iPad and Android CHALLENGES • Desire to manage potential spam threats proactively • Difficulty detecting fraudulent accounts with previous registration requirements • Concern with security issues BENEFITS • Reduce registration of fraudulent accounts • Improve user experience • Monitor and alert of suspicious users • Event-based verification for suspicious events MEETME USES TELESIGN TO SECURE ITS USER COMMUNITY AND REDUCE THREAT OF FRAUD CASE STUDY Within a year after Quepasa acquired myYearbook, it re-launched as MeetMe, giving the two companies a unified brand to offer a new social mobile platform designed for people to meet outside of the traditional realms of existing social networks. Most social networks focus on connecting with people you already know, but the MeetMe platform was designed to meet new people and engage in interesting conversations. However, users needed to be confident that the new virtual connections were actually with real people. Many social mobile apps are challenged with fraudulent account setup. MeetMe wanted to take a proactive approach to secure its community by identifying ways it could make it easy for legitimate users to access their accounts but require additional verification steps when suspicious activity occurred. MeetMe wanted to reduce the incidents of fraudulent behavior to provide a better overall experience for its community and protect its brand identity. “We wanted a better way to prevent the setup of fraudulent user accounts. One of our top priorities is providing a seamless experience for our users and to ensure account security.” DAVID BROWN Vice President of Operations, MEETME
Transcript
INDUSTRY• Social Networking
PROFILE• Founded in 1997
• HQ in New Hope, PA
• Available on iPhone, iPad and Android
CHALLENGES• Desire to manage potential spam threats proactively
• Difficulty detecting fraudulent accounts with previous registration requirements
• Concern with security issues
BENEFITS• Reduce registration of fraudulent accounts
• Improve user experience
• Monitor and alert of suspicious users
• Event-based verification for suspicious events
MEETME USES TELESIGN TO SECURE ITS USER COMMUNITY AND REDUCE THREAT OF FRAUD
CASE STUDY
Within a year after Quepasa acquired myYearbook, it re-launched as MeetMe, giving the two companies a unified brand to offer a new social mobile platform designed for people to meet outside of the traditional realms of existing social networks. Most social networks focus on connecting with people you already know, but the MeetMe platform was designed to meet new people and engage in interesting conversations.
However, users needed to be confident that the new virtual connections were actually with real people. Many social mobile apps are challenged with fraudulent account setup. MeetMe wanted to take a proactive approach to secure its community by identifying ways it could make it easy for legitimate users to access their accounts but require additional verification steps when suspicious activity occurred.
MeetMe wanted to reduce the incidents of fraudulent behavior to provide a better overall experience for its community and protect its brand identity.
“We wanted a better way to prevent the setup of fraudulent user accounts. One of our top priorities is providing a seamless experience for our users and to ensure account security.”
TeleSign is a communications platform as a service (CPaaS) company, founded on security. Since 2005, TeleSign has been a trusted partner to the world’s leading websites and mobile applications, helping secure billions of end-user accounts. Today, TeleSign’s data-driven, cloud communications platform is changing the way businesses engage with customers and prevent fraud.
For more information, please visit www.telesign.com | @TeleSign
CASE STUDY
MEETME TEAMS WITH TELESIGN TO HELP SECURE ACCOUNTS MeetMe chose TeleSign’s Mobile Identity solutions to help secure user accounts and reduce bulk account creation incidents. As a way to verify anonymous users, MeetMe requires certain suspicious new registrations to include a valid phone number for SMS or voice verification.
HOW IT WORKSAlthough account security was a top priority, MeetMe wanted to make registration and account verification as easy as possible. Previously, MeetMe relied largely on CAPTCHA1 verification for suspicious behavior, but found many users abandoned the registration process because the distorted words were illegible. As an alternative, MeetMe turned to TeleSign’s SMS & Voice verification capabilities, which verify a user’s telephone number in seconds.
When the user enters a telephone number on MeetMe, TeleSign sends an automated SMS or voice call to the user with a one-time PIN. The user then enters this one-time code and is immediately verified. This procedure binds a unique Mobile Identity to the account. This new, secure and seamless process helps MeetMe block fraud while minimizing friction for its users.
1. CAPTCHA – Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart
COMPANY OVERVIEWMeetMe® is the leading social network for meeting new people in the US and the public market leader for social discovery (NASDAQ: MEET). MeetMe makes it easy to discover new people to chat with on mobile devices. With approximately 80 percent of traffic coming from mobile and more than one million total daily active users, MeetMe is fast becoming the social gathering place for the mobile generation. MeetMe is a leader in mobile monetization with a diverse revenue model comprising advertising, native advertising, virtual currency and subscription. MeetMe apps are available on iPhone, iPad and Android in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Russian, Japanese, Dutch, Turkish and Korean.
Cautionary Note Concerning Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this document are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including whether we will secure our user community and reduce the threat of fraud, whether we will successfully manage spam threats and detect fraudulent accounts, whether we will provide a seamless user experience and ensure account security, whether we will provide a better overall experience for our community and protect our brand identity, whether we will realize the anticipated benefits of our arrangement with Telesign, including reducing registration of fraudulent accounts, improving user experience, monitoring and alerting of suspicious users, and event-based verification of suspicious events, and whether we will successfully block fraud while minimizing friction for our users. 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,” “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, 2014, filed on March 13, 2015. 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.
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