Features

Image: Bumble

Bumble For Friends, the signature dating app’s standalone app that focuses on helping people find friends, has debuted new AI-based features.

The app announced one new feature dubbed “Plans” which helps users organize a meet-up in real life, and lets them invite up to 15 people. They can create public or private plans from the app, according to Tech Crunch, but the private plans require the planner to send invitations to specific members in their network.

The feature resembles the MeetUp app, where you can organize an event and invite members of your group to attend. Bumble offers options to grab coffee, eat out, do a workout together, “something outdoors” or a night out. Then you can make it public or private, and the last step is choosing the friends from your Bumble network to invite.

eHarmony has revealed the next chapter in their journey with the introduction of an updated visual identity. The update features a contemporary wordmark, a modern color palette, and a minimalist icon – all designed to elevate the user experience and attract more singles on the dating service.

eHarmony states that "these changes not only underscore our dedication to innovation but also strengthen our commitment to fostering meaningful and enduring connections."

Many of the larger dating apps recently like Tinder, have also revamped the design of their dating apps. These companies feel with the worst of the pandemic behind us now, dating singles are looking for a change. A redesign helps with this transition and keeps many daters on the service they started on, instead of moving to another.

Several China-based dating apps have added location trackers as a premium feature to boost revenues, but it’s also boosting suspicions among users.

According to South China Morning Post, some of these features include real-time location tracking, daily check-ins with partners, and allowing your partner to check your phone usage. In theory, the idea is to increase transparency and build closer connections between partners, but in reality, the features are causing more tension between them.

Understandably, this trend has sparked controversy, especially among those who already have partners who are suspicious of their behavior. The features can be quite intrusive, including a subscription that allows mutual sharing of smartphone usage time, battery level, network status and screen unlock history. It is not clear how knowledge of these particular features contributes to improved relationships. In fact, they seem to be exacerbating existing problems in relationships.

Tinder just announced a host of new features for its app, along with its “Rizz-First” redesign, an obvious move to court the coveted Gen Z market.

While adopting the popular Gen Z slang for “charisma” was widely seen as a cringeworthy move for the dating app company, experts also agree that trying to appeal to the Gen Z market is important for dating apps, especially as subscriber bases and revenue are falling. The new Rizz-First look includes enhanced and updated animations, a new “It’s a Match!” screen, and prompts and quizzes that younger daters prefer when getting to know someone over an app.

According to the company’s announcement, the team saw a growing need to provide a more engaging experience. In fact, Tinder’s recent Future of Dating Report found that 69 percent of Gen Z daters say that dating standards need “refreshing” to fit a modern and diverse society. Overall, daters need a bit more than a photo, a brief bio, and a swipe to feel connected to someone.

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, will be expanded to include a dating app feature.

According to Fox Business, Musk recently held a company-wide meeting on the anniversary of his acquisition of Twitter to announce where he sees the platform headed. At the meeting, employees report that he said that X will become a “fully fledged” dating app in 2024, according to Business Insider.

At the meeting, he also mentioned that banking and transaction features will be added to the app in the near future, referring to these two major moves as being part of the new “everything app” he envisions for X.

Peter English, who founded popular travel site Kayak.com, has turned to a new venture. He and his partner Rachel Cohen are launching an app called Lola Dating.

According to a feature in The Boston Globe, Lola is designed to get people to meet IRL. The app offers users a calendar up front, and invites them to look for openings over the next four days (the sooner they can schedule a date, the better it seems). Lola users can mark the times and dates they are free, and the app takes it from there, matching them only with people available on the same night. The app will only be available for residents of Boston at launch.

According to its founders, meeting in real life quickly is key. They met after connecting on Bumble and instead of messaging back and forth, scheduled to meet in person right away. They were both convinced that endless messaging without getting to know each other in real life was a real problem among dating app users.