Online Dating

Match Group, the company who brought online dating into the mainstream first with iconic dating site Match.com and then with its acquisition of Tinder, is looking for new business opportunities outside the dating industry. This week at CES, the company announced the new app Ripple for those wanting to network for career opportunities.

The app is positioned to be a direct competitor of LinkedIn, a popular career building and networking site. According to Ripple executives, LinkedIn’s framework is too stagnant for users to effectively network, and ends up being primarily a database of resumes. LinkedIn also doesn’t do much to create stickiness for people to update their profiles and check in regularly, unless they are actively seeking clients or trying to find a job.

Ripple borrows the matching game from Tinder to help with its stickiness. When you launch the app, Ripple presents you with people who might be a good professional match, based on interests, people you are connected to, events you’re attending, and groups you are part of. Ripple also includes your social networks like Twitter and Medium, so potential employers or work colleagues can see what you’re posting and what is most current (encouraging you to be more active). Users are able to decide whether someone is a good fit, and then connect with them.

That dating services sometimes make dubious claims should surprise no one, but rarely do their fishy fabrications make headlines. Unfortunately for eHarmony, a recent misstep has proved to be the exception.

The company's claim that it uses a "scientifically-proven matching system" has been banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority after appearing on a billboard in the London Underground.

"Step aside, fate,” the advertisement boldly proclaimed. “It's time science had a go at love."

In the smaller print below, it continued: "Imagine being able to stack the odds of finding lasting love entirely in your favour. EHarmony's scientifically-proven matching system decodes the mystery of compatibility and chemistry so you don't have to. Why leave the most important search of your life to chance?"

Think you can meet someone special without downloading a dating app? New research from UK’s luxury lingerie and swimwear retailer Figleaves shows that online dating is important if you want to find love.

January has been cited as “peak season” for those willing to try online dating. Match Group who own popular dating app Tinder expects a 63% increase in messages exchanged among its users. And many more singles will be joining dating apps and swiping left and right throughout the month, including those who have never downloaded a dating app before.

There are many myths out there about online dating, so we’ve decided to look to some statistics to separate fact from fiction. Here’s what recent studies have proven:

Following the announcement that it has launched a multipoint strategy to embrace blockchain technology, Snap Interactive has announced the first new product of the initiative: a video-enabled secure messaging system.

Called Backchannel, the service enables real-time text, voice, and video messaging between both individuals and groups. It will leverage blockchain and other decentralization technologies to offer unique security benefits, furthering SNAP’s mission to provide global communication platforms with an emphasis on privacy.

Backchannel will adopt the end-to-end and forward secrecy encryption best practices currently used by communication apps like Telegram and WhatsApp. It will also authenticate users with a crypto identity that requires no personally identifiable information. With no link to the real-world identity of its users, Backchannel can never be subject to legal demands for disclosure and no personal data can ever be stolen by hackers.

eHarmony will be running a free communication event this weekend. It starts Friday January 26^th and runs to late Monday January 29^th for eHarmony.com members only.

For new and existing members these events are a great way to try out eHarmony, especially if you are new to the online dating world. There is no cost and no credit card is required. All you need to do is create a free account and profile and fill in the personality questionnaire which takes between 15 and 30 minutes. Once that is complete you will receive your first set of matches (usually about 4 or 5 profiles). You can then go ahead and review each profile and send messages to those you like. Every day you will receive a new set of quality matches from the eHarmony matching algorithm for you to look at.

For more about this online dating service, please check out our review of eHarmony.

Bumble changed the game when it launched in 2014 and required female users to make the first move. Now Hinge is offering its own take on conversation, and it hopes the new feature will help combat one of online dating’s biggest scourges.

After focus grouping, surveying, and beta testing, Hinge found that conversations frequently fizzled out simply because users had forgotten to respond. To offer a gentle reminder, the company has introduced ‘Your Turn’, a feature that lets users decide – regardless of gender – who makes the first move, and politely prompts you when it’s your turn to respond.

This addresses one of digital dating’s most stubborn problems. Conversations often start strong but are later abandoned - or, as Hinge’s research discovered, are unintentionally forgotten. Your Turn is a tiny-but-effective nudge to remind you that someone is waiting to hear back. In early tests, the feature was found to reduce ghosting by 25 percent.