Online Dating

Dating app Her (orginally called Dattch), designed exclusively by and for queer women, is expanding its focus to bring women together in conversation as well as for dating. Its new Community feature provides a forum for users to get updates on news and exchange ideas, expanding the app’s purpose beyond forging romantic ties.

Launched in time for Pride month in June, Her’s new feature allows for users to connect with each other around certain topics of interest to the community. In other words, a place to gather around the watercooler, but online. According to website TechCrunch, the first set of community groups includes a space for queer women of color, one centered around mindfulness and wellbeing and another for news and entertainment. App creators plan to launch more groups in the future, including pop-up forums around specific events, or even user-generated communities.

Users would be able to follow a person’s feed or post messages to a community board.

Image: MillionaireMatch

MIllionaireMatch has been busy updating their app and website these pass few months. With over 3.6 million members worldwide it is one of the largest dating services in their niche.

A number of blogs has been added to the service, this includes "Celebrity Interviews" and "Luxury Lifestyle". The celebrity blog contains interviews of entrepreneurs, fashion designers, and TV personalities. The lifestyle blog contains articles on dating tips and posts on anything that only the wealthy could afford.

The dating app recently added the option for members to become certified as a Millionaire. This feature has been available on the website for a number of years now but with the recent update users of the dating app can now provide the required documents. Once verified a members profile is marked by a badge.

Once upon a time, singles met by grinding on dive bar dance floors, playing footsie under the conference table, or shyly making eye contact at the church picnic.

Then online dating hit the scene. Dating apps and websites completely changed the dynamics of finding love, turning footsie and furtive glances into a series of swipes and winking emojis.

Or did it?

According to a recent survey from ReportLinker, modern dating looks decidedly less modern than pop culture would have you believe. Only 19% of adult singles in the US say they are registered on a dating service -- a surprisingly small percentage considering the size of the buzz around online dating. That leaves a whopping 81% who prefer doing things the old fashioned way.

Image: Recode

Last month, Facebook announced that it will be launching a new online dating feature, and since then details have come out about what it will look like. According to website Recode, an interesting benefit to users is that the new dating service won’t include ads.

Specifically, Facebook stated that it won’t be running ads alongside dating profiles, and they won’t use personal data associated with users’ dating profiles to send targeted ads to these users.

According to Recode, Facebook will provide users with a separate dating profile page, distinct from a personal Facebook page. It will match users according to location and interests, typical for most dating apps. (With Facebook, the more groups you “unlock,” the more matches you can potentially meet.) Facebook will also provide a separate messaging service specifically for dating, so you won’t have to message matches over your personal account. The dating messaging feature will be text only – no videos or images can be shared. (This seems intended to make it a more female-friendly experience, since women often get unsolicited photos and videos over online dating apps.)

Forget Ziggy Stardust. The award for ‘Most Exciting Rise And Fall’ this week goes to SeekingArrangement, the notorious sugar daddy dating website founded by Brandon Wade in 2006.

The US-based service suddenly soared to the top of the popularity charts in China’s iOS App Store, moving up 765 places on May 22 to take the number one spot for free social networking apps. Though SeekingArrangement has been in China since 2015, this marked the first time it topped the App Store rankings in the country. By comparison, according to Quartz, it ranks only 63rd on the same chart in the United States.

It is unclear what caused SeekingArrangement’s unexpected ascent to the throne. The company connects users -- usually an older, wealthier man and a young, attractive woman -- for what it politely calls “mutually beneficial relationships” or “compensated dating”. Considering the notoriously conservative culture in China, as well as the government’s recent crackdown on violent and sexually suggestive content on dating sites, the app’s download boom is all the more mystifying.

Before online dating there was video dating, and as the viral clip below proves, it could be just as awkward and cringe-worthy as any Tinder swipe session.

Take one look at a montage of hapless suitors dressed in their retro best talking about being “an executive by day and a wild man by night” and their career in toxic waste management, and it’s easy to see why video dating fell out of fashion. So out of fashion, in fact, that while video has exploded across almost all major social media platforms, it has yet to make a triumphant return to the dating mainstream.

Startups have tried for decades to update video dating for modern singles with little success, but thanks to new features from some of the industry’s most reputable names, the tide could finally be poised to turn.