Online Dating

Update 2019-11-18: The POF Singles Events App has since been removed from Google Play.

We thought we would write about the POF Singles Event app after POF closed the forums at the beginning of the summer.

For the past number of years the forums were still being used by a lot of POF users as a way to organize single events. On the leadup to the closure, POF disabled regular forum posting in May. Users could still read all forum posts but that functionality would disappear by the end of June according to the message on the forums. For the forums, POF also still allowed Event Hosts to create and promote events while a promised new event creation service was being worked on. At first I though this might be something integrated into the website and existing POF dating apps. I then found the POF Singles Events app on both iTunes and Google Play and then realized they may be referring to this app.

It was about 7 weeks late but by August 23rd the POF forums were closed for good.

New Design

A few weeks ago POF banned face filters and it appears soon after on Sept 17 the Plenty of Fish website, blog and dating apps received a facelift. The dating service has moved from an all light blue fish logo and theme to a layered multi color almost neon look. The light blue color is still there but the brightness has been turned up along with the addition of pink and dark blue. The interface itself has changed to reflect these colors with a few tweaks here and there to the layout. As far as we can tell no new features have been added and none removed.

You can also see the new look reflected in the Google Play and Apple App stores POF app install pages. One thing I notice on the App store is that POF is pushing a new statistic of 17 million conversations are exchanged everyday on the service. They still list the same stat of 4 million visitors everyday from 2017 (among others like 150 million registered users and 57 million new connections every week) so it looks like the dating service POF growth has stagnated. This is in part probably the result of Tinder becoming so popular and is also probably responsible in part of the updated design (which I am still getting use to).

POF bans Face Filters

Image: POF

Plenty of Fish is demanding users put their best, and filter-free, faces forward. In a blog post, the dating service announced that it is implementing an immediate face filter ban across the platform. All images that contain filters will be now be removed by the POF moderation team.

In a statement released by POF, clinical psychologist Dr. Cortney Warren said: “Singles today are craving greater transparency in dating, with the large majority of singles wanting honest, straight-forward information from potential partners as well as in their own self-presentation.

POF made the bold decision to ban face filters after conducting a survey of more than 2,000 U.S. single adults. The research reveals that singles are embellishing more and more aspects of their lives, primarily due to self-induced pressure to be appealing on dating platforms and interesting on dates. Singles feel the current dating climate is so competitive that it requires them to embellish their interests, hobbies, appearance, income, career and education in order to find a romantic partner.

Russia’s largest social media platform VKontakte is going head-to-head with Tinder and Badoo by launching its own dating app.

According to The Moscow Times, VKontakte’s Lovina is a video-centric dating app, offering a video chat option to people who like each other over the app and a “carousel” of short videos for a quick communication between random users who are browsing through the app. Executives behind Lovina say that providing video as the main way for users to connect is a better method than what traditional dating apps like Tinder offer, because video is much more revealing than photos or a written profile. Plus, there’s less chance of someone faking a video compared to photos.

Ask singles what they don’t like about dating apps and the grievances come pouring in. Profiles are too shallow. Pictures are heavily filtered or edited. Swiping to match is too superficial. Messages are cut and pasted. Conversations rarely lead to a date. Ghosting.

Garrett Fritz, an MIT aerospace engineer who began his career building helicopter simulators, aims to address these complaints with a new dating platform. Challengr requires users to create and respond to ‘Challenges’ within the app in order to match. A Challenge is a text-based question, dare, or thought that you think represents yourself or your ideal match. It could be as simple as “What was the last podcast you listened to?” or as intense as “Show me a video of you bench pressing your bodyweight.”

Image: Facebook

Facebook Dating made its much-anticipated debut in the US on September 5th, but concerns about its privacy issues have overshadowed the excitement in media coverage of the app.

Facebook was recently ordered by the Federal Trade Commission to pay about $5 billion in fines for privacy lapses, including its maligned partnership with Cambridge Analytica leading up to the 2016 elections. And most recently, the Attorneys General of eight different states have launched an anti-trust investigation of the company, specifically concerning the company’s privacy practices and purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram.

Still, Facebook Dating is betting on its wealth of personal user data as a competitive advantage for creating better matches to directly compete with apps like Tinder. (Match Group saw its shares fall 5 percent on the day Facebook Dating was launched, a sign of investor concerns about the new competition.)