Matching

Tinder has unveiled a new feature that lets friends and family choose your matches for you.

According to The Verge, Tinder Matchmaker lets users invite their loved ones and trusted friends to view and recommend potential matches, regardless of whether they are on Tinder themselves. How it works: users can start a Matchmaker session via a profile card or in the settings of the app, where they can create a link to share with up to 15 friends and family members. Matchmakers can either login if they are Tinder users themselves, or continue as a guest.

There is a time limit for sharing opinions! The invited matchmakers have only 24 hours to recommend profiles before the link expires. Then the Tinder user can look through the match list, where profiles will be marked as a “recommendation” for those who liked a particular match. (Those rejected profiles won’t be marked at all, and will remain in the running for the user to ultimately decide if they are interested.)

Image: Tinder & Peacock

Dating app Tinder has partnered with Peacock streaming service to launch “Horror Movies” as an in-app Interest and also to host private date night screenings for horror movie fans.

The new Horror Movies Interest badge Tinder is adding allows its users to filter and search for those who share a love of scary films, according to Tinder’s press release. In addition, Peacock is adding a new dedicated “For You and Boo” date night collection to its service, which will be available starting October 5th.

To add the new interest badge to their profiles, users can go to “edit profile” and scroll down through the interests to find “Horror Movies,” and select it. Once added, Tinder users will also be eligible for an exclusive in-app offer, but only between October 4 and October 31.

Tinder announced its new exclusive VIP service Tinder Select, which will cost members almost $500 per month (which works out to $6,000 per year!).

The new service will give top-tier members access to new features like a “VIP search, matching and conversation,” according to Bloomberg, none of which are currently available in Tinder’s existing paid subscription plans. Tinder did not reveal any details about the features.

The new service might have some similarities to exclusive dating app The League, which Tinder’s parent company Match Group acquired last year. There’s a market for exclusivity on dating apps, and the company is betting that offering a premium service will work for Tinder, too.

Tinder has been testing the VIP service, but now it’s an official subscription tier, at least for those invited to join. The new service was only offered to less than 1 percent of the most active Tinder users, according to Bloomberg News.

Men using filters to enhance their dating app photos tend to attract more matches, but they also come across as less trustworthy to women.

According to a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior, women were shown 10 profile photos of single men, both filtered and unfiltered versions. Most women preferred the more attractive, filtered versions of the men, but these same women also said they didn’t seem as trustworthy as the men in the untouched ones.

Researchers also found that ultimately while the women found altered profiles less trustworthy, they were in fact more interested in dating the men behind them. According to PsyPost.org, this conclusion “ultimately suggests that the allure of heightened physical attractiveness outweighs the reservations arising from diminished trustworthiness.”

This summer, young daters have been more interested in tossing aside geographical boundaries and looking for love in faraway places. They are also looking for short-term romance that comes to an end after the vacation is over.

According to Mashable, 33 percent of Bumble users are embracing “wanderlove” - the prospect of pursuing love interests outside of where they live. And young singles want to experience adventure and romance in a new place. Travel is the top priority for these daters, and if they can have an “expirationship” - a little bit of romance along with it that can end when they finish their travels, even better.

Part of this growing trend is due to post-pandemic work models, where many people were able to move to where they wanted to live, rather than stay where their workplace is located. Young people with no kids are especially interested in traveling, rather than putting down roots in a specific place.

A fast-growing percentage of Grindr users are turning to the gay dating app not to find a relationship, or even a hookup. Instead, they are looking to network for career advancement.

According to The Advocate, Grindr said almost a quarter of its members use the app to network, and that a spokesperson for the company said it’s an “effective tool” for those looking to connect with other gay men for both personal and professional relationships.

Traditionally, singles have avoided mixing work and personal relationships over dating apps, especially when they could get matched with a boss or co-worker. But now, according to Grindr’s own survey of its users, “approximately 25 percent say that one of their key activities on Grindr is to network,” according to The Advocate. A Grindr spokesperson told Business Insider in an email: “We know people use our app to meet new people in their area and in new towns, and we also have plenty of anecdotal evidence of people making connections that lead to professional opportunities like jobs.”