General News

Look at the success of MTV’s Catfish, OkCupid’s omnipresent DTF advertising campaign, and the launch of Tinder-branded candles, and it’s clear online dating has become an indelible part of modern life. Dating platforms have changed the way we meet, the way we speak, the way we entertain ourselves and the way we perceive ourselves.

Recent research from sociologists Michael Rosenfeld and Sonia Hausen of Stanford University and Reuben Thomas of the University of New Mexico reveals the immense influence online dating now wields. According to the study, online dating has become the most popular way for heterosexual couples in the United States to meet. Data from 2009 showed that the percentage of heterosexual couples who met online rose from 0 percent in 1995 to about 22 percent in 2009. Today, that number is closer to 39 percent.

The dating industry remains a firm favorite for entrepreneurs who dream of founding the next breakout startup. But for many big-time investors, new dating platforms are risky ventures in a crowded market that may not be worth betting on. In honor of Valentine’s Day, Crunchbase News took a look at the relationship between startups, investors and the pursuit of finding a mate. Their status? It’s complicated.

Online dating has proved it can be an enormously profitable industry, yet despite producing impressive numbers, it often struggles to lure venture funding. “In 2018,” writes Joanna Glasner, “venture investors put $127 million globally into 27 startups categorized by Crunchbase as dating-focused. While that’s not chump change, it’s certainly tiny compared to the more than $300 billion in global venture investment across all sectors last year.”

Global venture investment in dating startups currently leans heavily toward companies based in China. Blued, a China-based dating app for gay men, received nearly 80 percent of dating-related capital in 2018. In 2017, Chinese mobile dating app Tantan received the bulk of dating investment. In 2014, Beijing-based matchmaking site Baihe raised a staggering $250 million.

February might be the season of love, but recent reports of hacking incidents may have you thinking twice before opening your favorite dating app. OkCupid is the subject of not one but two such stories - first a report revealing the dating site has denied a data breach despite multiple users’ claims of their accounts being hacked and stolen, and now the discovery of a security flaw from Israel-based cybersecurity firm Checkmarx.

According to researchers at Checkmarx, a vulnerability in the Android version of OkCupid’s mobile app could have exposed users to attacks of varying severity from cybercriminals. Bad actors could exploit the flaw to monitor usage of the app, read messages, track a user’s geographic location, send links with self-replicating malware or impersonate the victim.

“The disruptive potential of this attack is frightening as it is not hard to implement, it is not easy to detect by a typical user, and has high ​confidentiality​, high integrity​ and high ​availability​ impact,” said researchers in a post explaining the potential impact of the flaw.

Users of the popular dating app Coffee Meets Bagel woke up to a surprise on Valentine’s Day. Instead of looking at matches, they were greeted with a notice from the company saying some of their personal data had been hacked.

According to a report from CNN, the data breach occurred a few days before on February 11, but CMB executives were trying to assess the situation and the extent of the damage. In their notice, the company stated that an “unauthorized party gained access to a partial list of user details.”

Their email goes on to say: “The affected information only includes your name and email address prior to May 2018. As a reminder, we never store any financial information or passwords.”

Bumble Spotlight

So you want to be the center of attention? Bumble has announced a new feature called Spotlight that will do just that. When activated, Spotlight will bump your profile to the front of the line for 30 minutes, allowing you to be seen by more Bumble users than you would during a regular swiping session.

Spotlight will be available to all users who are willing to cough up two Bumble Coins (acquired through a separate in-app purchase) for the perk. One coin currently goes for $0.99 in the US or £1.99 in the UK. If you prefer to keep your promotional activities under wraps, have no fear that your Spotlight secret will be exposed. Your profile will not look any different to those browsing. On your own screen, stars will appear across the top of the app to indicate Spotlight has been enabled.

If you think the Spotlight feature sounds familiar, you are far from alone. It bears an obvious resemblance to Tinder’s Boost, which also promotes your profile in your area for 30 minutes. An icon appears next to new matches made during a Boost period, but other users see no indication you used the feature. Tinder Plus and Tinder Gold subscribers get one free Boost per month. Other users may purchase Boosts at any time.

How in love are couples in America? What exactly makes a relationship thrive? For the second year running, eHarmony has released The Happiness Index: Love and Relationships in America to answer these questions and others. The national survey took place online between December 13, 2018 and January 3, 2019, with 2,327 interviews conducted by Harris Interactive.

eHarmony wastes no time announcing the good news: 83 percent of Americans are happy in their romantic relationships. Those who are blissfully paired up say the secret to their success is having a monogamous relationship with open communication, a healthy sex life, and an equal partnership between both halves. Only one in nine people say they are unhappy with their partner or spouse. These troubled couples are often together for companionship rather than love, have infrequent sex, and feel a sense of inequality in their relationship.

This year, a strong correlation between romantic happiness and an interest in social justice issues emerged. Couples who reported shared awareness of important cultural movements, such as #MeToo, also reported increased relationship happiness. Additional links emerged between relationship happiness and openness about mental health, honest political discourse, and voting in the 2018 midterm elections.