Boomers are looking for love and increasingly turning to dating apps to do it. But Tinder isn’t necessarily what they are looking for.

BBC reported that the demographics with the biggest growth for dating app usage are 18-24-year-olds and those over 50. Between 2013 and 2015 when Tinder began to take off, online dating tripled for the younger demographic and doubled for those aged 55-64, according to Pew Research Center.

However, older daters were finding obstacles in using popular apps like Tinder that continue to cater to young users. For example, when Tinder launched its premium paid service, the company charged significantly more for older users, which caused an outcry. Some dating apps don’t let people over 50 sign up at all, so boomers were either having to lie about their ages or look for another platform. 

Match Groups CEO Mandy Ginsberg

Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg has announced she will step down from her role at the company for health and personal reasons.

The news comes as Match Group is in process of separating from its parent company IAC, which is expected to close in Q2 of this year. Shar Dubey, Match Group’s president, will take over for Ginsberg starting March 1st.

According to The New York Post, Ginsberg told Match Group employees the news in an email, citing personal and health reasons for her departure. She described a “personally trying” period according to reports. These included a recent surgery correcting a previous double mastectomy to prevent breast cancer as she was diagnosed with the BRCA1 gene, as well as a tornado slamming into her Dallas home, rendering it unlivable. Ginsberg is stepping back to take care of her health and her family.

It seems like almost every Tinder user has a horror story. For some, it’s a first date that looks nothing like their photos. For others, it’s being ghosted after weeks of messaging back and forth. And for many, it’s connections that end in harrassment, discrimination, insults, unwanted sexual advances and other ills that online dating has become notorious for.

Tinder is hoping to curb behavior that violates its community standards with a recent update. The company announced in a blog post that it will now use artificial intelligence to detect offensive messages before they reach their intended recipients. The feature, called Does This Bother You?, is powered by machine learning and aided by human members of the Tinder community. Similar technology also plays a role in Undo, an upcoming feature that will allow Tinder members to take back a message containing potentially offensive language before it’s sent.

Recipient of Gold
Tinder

Recipient of Silver
POF

Recipient of Bronze
Match

The 2020 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll went online October 1^st, 2019. It ran for 3 months and then closed for voting on December 31^st, 2019. 513 visitors took time and cast their vote in the poll. The poll asked the following question:

Which dating app or site would you recommend for the Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award?

Voters get to choose 1 dating service from a selection of 10 of the top dating services in 2019. These services are selected by the Editors of DatingSitesReviews.com. For this award the dating service which received the most votes gets the Gold, second place gets Silver, and the third, Bronze.

It was a really close race this year. The top 3 results differed by only 2% in votes (usually this number is much greater). The votes for all the dating services were much more evenly spread out with the lowest and highest only having just less than a 10% difference (this number in previous years could be higher than 30%). What this tells us is that the dating services have matured and user experiences and successes have evened out more across the competition.

The recipient of the 2020 Single's Choice Gold Award is Tinder. Tinder received almost 15% of the vote which works out to 76 votes. Tinder was the winner of Gold as well last year but had 17% of the vote.

The recipient of the 2020 Single's Choice Silver Award is POF (Plenty of Fish). Once again POF comes in second place with 13.65% of the vote (70 votes in total). This is an improvement for them over last year when comparing votes by about half a percent.

The recipient of the 2020 Single's Choice Bronze Award is Match.com. Match received 12.67% of the votes (65 votes) and almost was able to achieve second place. In fact Match missed out on this award last year and it is the first time a paid only dating service has won when competing against free dating services (in previous years we had separated free and paid services in the poll). So this is quite an accomplishment.

Recipient
Tinder

Tinder is this years recipient of the Editor's Top Pick - Over All award. In most years the winner of this award usually goes to the the Editors choice of the best paid dating service or the best free dating service. This year is different though.

So why did Tinder stand out over either award winners Match and POF?

Dating app Grindr, currently owned by Chinese company Kunlun Tech, might be off the market soon thanks to a bid by the Milan-based app design company Bending Spoons.

According to Global Dating Insights, Bending Spoons has offered $260 million for the popular gay dating app, headquartered in West Hollywood. Reports are also linking investment firm H14 to the deal, which is headed up by Barbara, Eleonora, and Luigi Berlusconi, children of Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The app’s original founder Joel Simkhai sold his company for $93 million to Kunlun Tech in 2016.