Dating Services

The New Match Dating App

In late 2018 Match did a major update for both their website and dating apps (iOS and Android). They dropped a number of features and made the navigation simpler to use. In a sense Match has gone back to the basics of online dating, offering only the key features needed to search, match and message.

The apps and website more closely mirror each other now with this new version in terms of design and features. One of the main things you will notice when you first launch the new app or log into the website is the updated color pallet. Gone are the washed out darker blues. In its place you have a much more vibrant blues. This makes things pop more on the screen. Profiles also stand out more in searching and matching as they appear on screen larger. Other changes include:

Republicans are having a tough time meeting people over popular apps like Tinder, Bumble and OkCupid. So in larger numbers, they are turning to specialty right-wing dating apps to find like-minded matches.

A recent report from Vox examined this trend, noting that a growing number of profiles include the phrase “Trump supporters swipe left” – so that conservatives don’t even get a chance to strike up a conversation. OkCupid and Bumble have allowed members to state up front if they won’t date someone who doesn’t agree with their politics, making it harder for people on opposite sides of the aisle to connect romantically.

Because of the brewing frustration among conservative daters, some new dating apps catering to the excluded crowd have grown in recent months. Righter, Conservatives Only, Trump Singles, Patrio, and Donald Daters all offer a politically-friendly alternative to daters who are feeling discouraged with their current options – including Trump staffers who, according to an article in the Washingtonian, said they were having trouble getting dates in D.C.

Recipient
Adult FriendFinder

Once again Adult FriendFinder (AFF for short) is the Editors Top Pick - Sexy award recipient. The hookup scene in 2019 is still led by this adult oriented dating service thanks to the tens of millions of members who have met with success on this service in the last 20 plus years. In fact in this time period AFF has had over 91 million members join their service. This includes over 67 million from the United States, 5.7 million from Canada, and 8.7 million from the United Kingdom. Even during non-peak user times Adult FriendFinder usually has more than 90 thousand members online actively using the service to meet and chat with other members. During peak periods like evenings and on weekends, you can expect this number to triple.

AFF welcomes every type of person, this includes straight, gay and transgender. Intimate encounters are popular but you can find women and men interested in all types of kinky stuff.

We know we shouldn’t compare ourselves to what we see on social media. Everything, from the poreless skin to the sunsets over pristine beaches, is edited and carefully curated. But despite our better judgement, we can’t help feeling envious when we see travelers on picturesque getaways and fashion influencers posing in their flawlessly organized closets.

This compulsion to measure our real lives against the heavily filtered lives we see on social media now extends to our relationships. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are littered with images of #couplegoals that make it easy to draw comparisons to our own relationships and give us unrealistic perceptions of love. According to a survey from Match.com, one third of couples feel their relationship is inadequate after scrolling through snaps of seemingly-perfect partners plastered across social media.

Tinder and Bumble have spent most of 2018 embroiled in a fierce legal battle over patent infringement, misuse of intellectual property and theft of trade secrets. At the center of the dispute is the swiping mechanism that has become a ubiquitous feature of modern dating. In March, Tinder’s parent company Match Group filed a lawsuit alleging that Bumble “copied Tinder’s world-changing, card-swipe-based, mutual opt-in premise.” Bumble responded with an aggressive countersuit asserting that the swiping interface is not an original notion worthy of patent protection.

After attempts to settle privately failed, the dispute headed to court and the first big ruling has been handed out.

Judge Alan Albright of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas denied Bumble's claim that the Match Group patents in question are ineligible for patenting under Section 101 of the Patent Act.

Recipient
MillionaireMatch

The 2019 Editor's Top Pick - Wealthy award recipient is MillionaireMatch. This online dating service which launched way back in 2001 is designed to match wealthy successful singles with other attractive singles. Millionaire Match by our calculation is the largest dating site in its niche and currently has close to 3.9 million members. This is an increase of over half a million members in 2018.

MillionaireMatch is available on Android via a dating app and can also be accessed from their website on any platform. An iOS app is coming soon. What makes MillionaireMatch our Editor's choice is not only the amount of active members they have, it is the verification process that they have in place members can use. This allows members to verify information on their profile as accurate, including photos and income level. Once verified you will then become a Certified Millionaire and your profile will indicate this by displaying a Verified Badge.