Online Dating

BlueCity, parent company of China’s largest gay dating app Blued, has just announced its acquisition of popular Chinese lesbian dating app LESDO, marking the first-ever deal within the country’s LGBTQ market.

LESDO is an app created specifically for Lesbian users and one of the most popular lesbian social apps in China along with Rela. No financial information was disclosed about the deal. 

"We can see the scale of existing lesbian apps are not big enough to meet the demand of a sizable market," BlueCity's founder and chief executive Ma Baoli said in an interview with Reuters. He added that BlueCity could offer algorithm support, marketing, and financing to boost customer retention and visibility as well as increase new subscribers of the app.

Popular dating app Hinge crashed on a Thursday late in August, and when users were once again able to log in, they found that some of their matches were gone. Many took to Twitter to voice their complaints.

The app crashed Thursday morning August 20th according to Insider, and the Hinge team worked to fix the problem and make it available again only 30 minutes later. However, when people began to log back in, some noticed problems – especially that their matches were no longer appearing in their queue.

Bumble on TikTok

Bumble has turned to TikTok to help drive new subscribers, and has seen its installs increase five times between March and May when their campaign took place. The dating app has also seen its costs per subscriber decrease by 64% since running its direct response ads on TikTok’s platform, according to Mobile Marketer.

Bumble employed influencers to raise awareness of its app, creating content that would attract new users, specifically the younger demographic that gravitates to video-based social media like TikTok. The partnership was a success, with Bumble reporting revenue last month that was second only to dating app Tinder. 

A new survey from dating app Luxy found that American online daters differ from daters in other countries in terms of how they feel about current political leaders and whether or not they want to talk about politics on dating apps.

According to Luxy, which markets itself to elite and affluent daters, 54% of American online daters surveyed said they would talk about politics on a dating app, compared to only 36% of respondents from other countries. Sixty-three percent of those surveyed from outside the U.S. said they never discuss politics on a dating app.

To understand how online daters are faring in the midst of the many crises happening right now, including the coronavirus, the protests, and the economic recession, Luxy asked users both in the U.S. and outside the U.S. how they feel about 2020 so far. Luxy found that 40% of Americans are finding this year to be “extremely bad” or “quite hard,” compared to only 23% of those surveyed from other countries.

Tinder Split Screen Video Chat

Image: Tinder

Popular dating app Tinder launched its new in-app video chat feature in early July called Face to Face, but only in select markets.

Face to Face users have access to video call each other through the dating app and avoid exchanging personal numbers, which is a good step for overall user security. There are a few other privacy measures that Tinder is including in the rollout – namely that two people have to agree to a video chat before it can actually happen, according to The Verge.

The U.S. government is cracking down on potential online security risks by banning dating, gaming and bitcoin mining apps from phones issued to those serving in the U.S. Marines.

The Marine Corps already has strict guidance in place for what apps can be installed on their servicemembers’ phones, according to Military.com. But now officials have issued a notice for its members to delete any apps that are considered a risk, specifically those that can access photos, videos, contacts, microphone, location or calendar. Most dating apps are able to access at least some of these from their users’ phones.