Happn

Love can feel like a game sometimes, and in this case, it’s literal. Happn is testing a new gamified feature for singles in Spain, a simple but addictive game called CrushTime.

CrushTime is designed to give users another opportunity to connect with people they cross paths with in real life. At the start of the game, CrushTime presents four users you’ve recently been near. One is a person who has already liked you (a “Crush”), and it’s up to you to figure out which one it is.

If your intuition is on point and you guess correctly, you can start chatting in-app immediately with your new match. If you’re wrong, it’s simply a non-mutual like and no one knows but you. You can either start a new game or try again if you’re into one of the remaining profiles.

Dating apps have to set themselves apart from the rigorous competition, and it seems new features are being introduced weekly. The latest is from dating app Happn, who announced a new matching feature called “Crush Time” to help its users find matches.

Crush Time is purposefully game-like, which makes it interesting. It shows you four profiles, and you have to guess which one already liked you. If you guess correctly, you can start messaging right away with the in-app messaging feature. If you don’t guess correctly, then you don’t match (because it’s not a mutual like).

Another unique twist to Crush Time is the fact that you can’t just endlessly play the game. It pops up every so often, so you have to watch for it. (This of course adds to the stickiness of checking the Happn app more than you otherwise might). It makes the game all the more exciting when you get to play.

As we close out the first quarter of 2017, Happn has big plans to drive growth during the remainder of the year.

CEO Didier Rappaport told Business Insider that the company is working on a “new business model” that adds subscriptions to the service. Though the subscription model is still being tested, the tentative plan is to remove the ads (which currently fund the company) for users with paid accounts.

Since launching three years ago, Happn has built a user base of 25 million people. However, the company has yet to become profitable, and that’s its chief goal for 2017.

See All Dating Apps on Map

With the amount of media attention Tinder receives, you’d think it was the only dating app on the market - or if not the only option, at least the most popular one.

But the numbers tell a different story. Technology company Quantcast reviewed over 480,000 searches from January 6, 2017 - February 5, 2017 to discover which dating services singles in America prefer. They found that not only do different states have different preferences, preferences seem to come in clusters. And they’re not always what you’d expect.

Overall, old-school dating service PlentyOfFish won the most states with its free app. It may not have the hype of its newer, fancier competitors, but in this case slow and steady won the race. POF was especially popular in the south, southwest, and midwest.

Wednesday 8 March was International Women's Day, an event celebrated around the world to commemorate the struggle for women's rights.

Each year, the day is an opportunity to reflect on gender issues, inequalities, and opportunities for growth. The 2017 theme focused particularly on the latter, perhaps inspired by the surge in activism we’ve seen in recent months. The theme, #BeBoldForChange, called on everyone to step up and help create a better, more inclusive world.

The call was not just for individuals. Businesses also took part in celebrating women this year, including two popular dating apps.

Dating apps found their foothold with younger users. Tinder launched on college campuses in 2012, and 90% percent of its earliest users were aged between 18 and 24. It wasn’t chance; it was strategy.

“They thought if this product is successful among that young college demographic, who also happens to be the most social group of people on the planet [and] the least likely to need an app to meet people, it can [work] for anyone,” Tinder spokesperson Rosette Pambaki told Complex.

Tinder’s wager was right, and in the years that followed, it and other apps like it became explosively popular amongst younger users. But times change, and if a company is to survive, it must change with them. The Wall Street Journal reports that dating apps are now welcoming singles in their late 30s and beyond for one simple, but essential, reason: their money.