Bumble Inc

Image: Bumble

Dating app Bumble hopes to share more positivity over its app with the launch of its new feature Compliments.

According to Tech Crunch, Compliments lets a user write a compliment to another user, even before they match. The recipient will be notified of an unread compliment when they log in to the app, putting it front and center. Each user is allowed one message per day to send in the Compliments feature.

To send someone a Compliment, users can look through a person’s profile and see what they would like to message about. The Compliment can be sent on whatever strikes a chord – something they wrote in their bio, a profile prompt response, or anything else. When the user has a Compliment in mind, they can click on the yellow icon at the bottom left corner of a profile (with a heart inside of a speech bubble), and a text box will open where the Compliment can be written. There is a limit of 150 characters per Compliment.

The value for dating app Bumble’s stock has dropped 14 percent after the company lowered revenue forecasts for the fourth quarter, and Gen Z users have increasingly stopped renewing their subscriptions.

Bumble expects Q4 revenue to be between $232 million and $237 million according to Reuters. This is lower than Wall Street projections of $254.5 million, according to Refinitiv data. Still, the company pointed out that paying users for the third quarter increased to 3.3 million from 2.9 million last year, a sign of growth despite the downturn.

According to Motley Fool, on a call with investors, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said that the economic slowdown affected spending for “certain segments of its user base,” notably younger daters, who were not renewing subscriptions at the normal rate. Motley Fool also noted that shares had already fallen 38 percent this year as investors fled dating and tech stocks in general, following a surge of interest and rising subscriptions in dating apps during pandemic lockdowns.

Dating app Bumble announced it will be cracking down on false reports from users who target gender non-conforming and other LGBTQ+ users.

According to CNET, Bumble moderators are already dismissing close to 90 percent of violation reports directed at gender nonconforming members, not because they violated rules as the report points out, but because these reports aim to force LGBTQ+ people off the app. Bumble announced that it will not be tolerating this type of behavior, and they will be removing users who repeatedly engage in the practice of submitting false reports.

"Identity-based hate is an issue that negatively affects many communities and is something that increasingly many gender-nonconforming folks, like trans and nonbinary people, have faced in online dating," the company said in a statement.

Image: Bumble

Bumble has open sourced the AI it uses to detect nude photos, giving developers the technology to help combat the sending of unsolicited images over their platforms.

Bumble’s photo blocking feature called Private Detective aims to curb so-called “cyber flashing” that users have long complained about on dating apps, giving the user the option to delete and report the sender without having to view it. The refined version of the same AI is now available on GitHub for commercial use, distribution, and modification, according to Tech Crunch. The idea is to provide the technology to smaller companies who don’t have the time or resources to develop themselves.

In theory, as Tech Crunch points out, this AI could go beyond dating apps to be incorporated into any app or social platform to help shield users from unwanted content and cut down on lewd photos sent over many types of apps.

Image: Bumble

Dating app Bumble will offer a real-life Bantr on its platform, the fictional dating app made famous on hit TV series Ted Lasso.

Starting October 13th and through the end of the year on Thursdays at 7pm, Bumble is offering Bantr Live, and operates much like the fictional app, according to the company’s blog post. When you decide to play, you won’t be able to see or swipe on other daters’ profiles. Instead, you will be paired at random to strike up a text chat with someone who matches your location, age and gender preferences, but you won’t be able to see photos or their profile (just their name). Much like Bantr on Ted Lasso, these events are meant to spark conversation ahead of seeing what someone looks like to make for a more genuine match from the start.

Participants get three minutes to decide if they want to keep chatting, and then they are matched with the next participant to see if a connection can be made. At the end of the event, users can see who matched with them. At this point, they will be able to see the profiles and photos of these matches.

Bumble is testing a new speed dating feature in the U.K. to see how effective it is in getting users to engage with each other over the app.

According to Tech Crunch, the company has been alerting U.K. users to a specific date and time when the virtual speed dating event happens, so they can choose to join. When they do, they are not shown their dates’ photos up front – instead, they briefly chat before photos are revealed.

Tech Crunch did share how the feature worked, and that it’s being presented as a game rather than an event (referring to attendees as “players” who click a “play game” button to start). Participants must agree to some rules (similar to Facebook’s speed dating app Sparked), where they are asked to “keep it respectful” before they can play. They also must agree to not ask about their date’s looks – the reveal comes later, after the two have decided there’s a connection. Each couple is given three minutes to chat before they can see each other’s photos.