Dating Services

Dating apps happily boast about their sign-up rates or the number of marriages they’ve created, but they’re understandably reluctant to release less flattering figures. How many users actually stick with an app once they’ve created a profile? How many let their account lapse, or delete the app altogether? Which apps are most quickly abandoned?

In pursuit of more juicy data, mobile data company Ogury sampled more than six million mobile user profiles from its network to take a deep dive into usage habits around the world. They focused on users in the US, UK, France, Italy, and Spain who had used dating apps within the six months between January and June 2017. To present the most balanced findings, they were were careful to maintain an identical male to female ratio in each region.

Ogury’s results reveal a landscape that may surprise online dating’s biggest advocates. One chart in the report shows that dating app longevity leaves something to be desired, with most app uninstalls occuring within the first day of usage. Zoosk users, at 44.1%, are most likely to uninstall in less than 24 hours, followed by Grindr at 33.6% and Tinder at 32.9%.

Coffee meets… summer camp? The best (or worst) part of your childhood is getting a modern makeover this May, complete with arts and crafts, water sports, and in all likelihood, the same sloppy makeouts behind the dining hall.

Coffee Meets Bagel has announced the launch of its latest venture, CMB Experiences, to help users connect IRL. These Experiences promise to be “unique, real-world events and spaces where people can go offline and engage in a fun, novel, delightful experience together.”

And what could be more fun than sleepaway camp?

Match Group has a new CEO, and she’s determined to provide a better online dating experience for women. In a recent interview with Marketwatch, Mandy Ginsberg revealed that Tinder will be debuting a new feature that lets women choose whether or not they want to make the first move. She has female-friendly plans for their other properties as well, including Match and OkCupid.

Tinder’s new feature competes directly with dating app Bumble, which has seen incredible growth since its debut. Bumble differs slightly in that women automatically get to make the first move, rather than choosing.

Ginsberg has also launched a new campaign for OkCupid that “emphasizes shared hobbies over hookups.”

Despite strong showings from the likes of Bumble and Coffee Meets Bagel, Tinder is still on top as the most popular dating app for young, tech-savvy singles. But can it continue to crush the competition in a space that becomes increasingly crowded?

Tinder is determined not to slip or stagnate. A series of new features are planned for 2018, parent company Match Group revealed during its Q4 2017 earnings call, with a focus on location.

Though the company has been tight-lipped about exactly what’s in the works, it has previously described its strategy as blurring the “distinction between digital and real-life dating, and dating and simply engaging in your social life.” Tinder has also said that its upcoming location features will pull in “a new audience” and “expand the definition of dating.”

Do dating apps kill the romance of dating, or are they actually helping bring more people together? A lively debate on this topic was held the night of February 6^th in New York, with a panel of experts arguing for and against the motion: Dating Apps Have Killed Romance.

Let’s face it, if you’ve tried online dating, or had a friend who’s dabbled in it (more than 49 million Americans have), chances are you’ve heard a few horror stories. This was the focus of the argument from Eric Klinenberg, co-author with Aziz Ansari of the book Modern Romance, and Manoush Zamoroti, podcast host and journalist who argued for the motion. Citing stories of dates and relationships gone wrong, they argued that not only have dating apps killed romance, they have killed civility among daters. Ultimately, apps have changed the dating culture, and not for the better.

They argued that online dating specifically breeds bad behavior, because people are able to hide behind a screen – or worse, they have stopped interacting or knowing how to interact in real life. Zamoroti gave an example of one of her podcast listeners walking into a bar and seeing a line of single men ordering drinks and swiping on Tinder, ignoring the people around them completely. Plus, some online daters have become emboldened to send lude messages online, which makes the experience even more painful and depressing for other daters.

Tinder’s premium service has been controversial since its debut in 2015. The company started off on the wrong foot by setting higher prices for users who were older than 30, and a sliding scale to younger users. Now, a California appeals court has found the company’s pricing model to be discriminatory to older users.

Judges with the California 2nd District Court of Appeals reversed the decision made by a previous judge, and has ordered Tinder to stop charging older customers more for its premium service, according to reports.

Tinder was charging users 30 and older $19.99 to use the premium service as opposed to those in their twenties, who were only charged $14.99 or $9.99. For the extra funds, users got to “superlike” their favorite matches, swipe as much as they wanted, change their decision on a match even after they swiped left, and avoid those pesky ads that pop up in the free version.