Online Dating

The singles cruise is getting a millennial-friendly makeover this August, thanks to a new partnership between up-and-coming cruise operator U by Uniworld and exclusive dating app The League.

"A lot of our users on the app are saying that they're really sick of the first date," said Brianna Haag, The League's head of events and partnerships. "People want different types of experiences. They don't want the interview plus cocktail at a bar."

The League’s answer to bar fatigue is a weeklong adventure that will take place along France's Seine River. The itinerary includes stops at Rouen, Honfleur, Vernon and Paris, with excursions like biking along the Seine and touring the Palace of Versailles. While aboard the ship, guests can experience a spa, silent discos, farm-to-table cuisine, wine tastings and (we assume) plenty of opportunities to live out their sexy sailor fantasies.

Dating app Tinder announced the rollout of a new feature called Tinder Loops, which allows users to create looping GIFs for their profiles.

Tinder users can upload short videos (two seconds in length) to their profiles so they can “show more personality” than with photos alone, according to Tinder. When the company tested the feature earlier this year in Japan, Tech Crunch noted that people who added the Loops feature to their profiles were 10% more likely to receive a right swipe.

The feature also seems to increase the likelihood that people will communicate over the app. Tech Crunch also reported that users testing the feature saw their average conversation length increase by 20%.

Happn - the dating app that matches you with people who have crossed your path IRL - has always raised eyebrows. Despite assurances to the contrary from Didier Rappaport, the app’s co-founder and CEO, concerned singles continue to fear its location-tracking functionality could be misused by suitors with creepy, or possibly dangerous, intentions.

Happn remains undeterred from its mission, and starting next month, will offer users yet another way to identify their missed connections.

The new interactive map allows users to discover people they’ve crossed paths with over the past week. Tap locations you visited over the last seven days to reveal the profiles of others who hit the same spots. This is different from Happn’s standard functionality in that it allows users to travel back in time by retracing other users' steps, rather than being limited solely to current data.

Whether or not the teams score, the fans certainly will. Around two million of them have flocked to Moscow to see soccer’s brightest stars do battle during the 2018 World Cup, causing a massive surge of traffic for Tinder in the Russian capital.

The phenomenon is a familiar one. During the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Tinder reported a 50% spike in usage in the country over the course of the tournament. During the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Tinder founder Sean Rad told the Wall Street Journal the app experienced a 400% day-on-day increase in new users. And during the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Tinder noted a 1,850% hike in users taking advantage of the Passport feature to change their location to South Korea.

Match Group has a new dating app called Crown, and to kick off its initial launch in Los Angeles, the company threw a party at the trendy rooftop bar EP&LP in West Hollywood.

The event drew more people than originally anticipated – the company received almost 800 RSVPs. This was an invitation-only event, but word managed to trickle out to L.A. singles. When we arrived, there was a line forming down the block just to get inside.

Crown strategists are positioning the app as a departure from the typical swiping apps modeled after Tinder, because of its intentionally game-like format. Much like you would approach betting on your favorite sports team, say for March Madness, Crown presents you with sixteen matches per day, presented in a bracket format. You pick the winner of each pair of potential matches, until you are left with the final four. When you crown the winner, you have twenty-four hours to message each other and see what happens next. The process starts all over again the next day with new matches.

Image: Tinder

Tinder is boldly going where it has never gone before. The so-called “hookup app” is not only taking a stab at shaping more serious relationships, it’s also giving users a break from its most famous feature.

Tinder’s latest update is Picks, an exclusive matching option for Tinder Gold members that highlights your most promising matches so you don’t have to sink hours into searching, and swiping, for them.

“Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day to stay on top of your swiping game,” says Tinder’s announcement. “We’ll show you your Picks on a daily basis — and believe us, we know how to pick ‘em.”