Bumble Relaunches and Women No Longer Have to Make the First Move

Bumble has unveiled the newest feature of its dating app, removing the requirement for women to make the first move with their matches. The app’s new CEO Lidiane Jones said that this is part of a larger relaunch of the app.

Until now, Bumble has required women to send the first message to a potential match, keeping them in control of who they want to communicate with. Now, the dating app has jettisoned its requirement to automate the process with the launch of “Opening Moves,” which lets female users choose from a list of prompts where matches can reply and start a conversation themselves. (Women can also create their own prompts.)

For same-gender and non-binary users, they can either set or respond to an Opening Move.

Some of the automated questions include “Who’s your dream dinner party guest (real or fiction)?” and “What do you like about my profile?” Once the user chooses the prompt, it will be given to all of the user’s matches, according to The Verge. When a match responds to the prompt, the woman has 24 hours to choose whether or not to continue the conversation.

How Opening Move works on Bumble.

Image: bumble

“In listening to our community, many have shared their exhaustion with the current online dating experience, and for some, that includes making the first move,” Jones says in a statement. “We want to evolve with our community, shifting from a fixed approach to giving women more options in how they engage.”

The app’s relaunch also includes updated “dating intentions” badges on profiles, so potential matches can quickly see what the person is looking for (life partner vs. fun, casual dates). The app will also now highlight common interests and favorite musicians at the top of potential matches’ profiles, so users can quickly see what they have in common instead of scrolling through a bio.

The app is also requiring users to post at least four photos on their profile instead of just two. (If you post less than four, you won’t show up in Bumble’s “For You” list, which delivers four daily profiles to a user, curated based on preferences and past matches, according to The Verge.

The changes come at a time when dating apps across the board are struggling to grow their new subscribers. They are specifically focused on younger daters, who are turning to in-person events or social media apps rather than pay for dating app features. Bumble and other apps are looking to AI-driven features as well.

For more about this dating app, check out our Bumble review.