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Dating platform Feeld debuted an updated app with more features in early December, only to find that users were having trouble logging in or using the app at all.

In a statement posted on its website about the app’s troubled relaunch, Feeld said: “Since our app update on Friday, we’ve been listening to your invaluable feedback, and understand your concerns about some of the changes, technical issues, and our responses. We know that some of you missed out on Feeld dates, Connections and experiences, and we are working on meaningful ways to make this right.”

After almost two weeks of continued problems, the dating app provided another update in mid-December.

Peter English, who founded popular travel site Kayak.com, has turned to a new venture. He and his partner Rachel Cohen are launching an app called Lola Dating.

According to a feature in The Boston Globe, Lola is designed to get people to meet IRL. The app offers users a calendar up front, and invites them to look for openings over the next four days (the sooner they can schedule a date, the better it seems). Lola users can mark the times and dates they are free, and the app takes it from there, matching them only with people available on the same night. The app will only be available for residents of Boston at launch.

According to its founders, meeting in real life quickly is key. They met after connecting on Bumble and instead of messaging back and forth, scheduled to meet in person right away. They were both convinced that endless messaging without getting to know each other in real life was a real problem among dating app users.

Muzz dating app, formerly MuzzMatch, has had a hard time growing an active userbase in India, despite the country having the third largest Muslim population in the world. Also, nearly 50% of India’s population is under 25 years, making the country the second-largest market for dating apps (after the United States).

Muzz is marketed as a matchmaking app rather than a dating app for Muslim singles, because as founder Shahzad Younas told Rest of World: ““We don’t date. We get people married.” The app however, is encountering safety problems concerning fake accounts and bots, a problem for all dating apps. But there are more issues to consider for a marriage-minded app in India, because dating app users have had their photos taken and used for other purposes.

One such high-profile incident happened in 2022, where a group worked to scrape photos of prominent Indian Muslim women and uploaded them to a dating app “listing them at ‘auction’ with an attempt to humiliate them,” according to Rest of World. This kind of behavior could become more common without specific protocols and safety measures in place.

A massive leak of 2.3 million dating app records, including personal information from over 260,000 dating app users and 969,571 images and private chats were exposed to the public, according to SC Media.

The data breach included extremely sensitive information, including sexually explicit private photos, recollections of sexual experiences, and details about previous sexual encounters that were tied to dating app user profiles, according to Hack Read, a security news website.

The leak primarily affected users of 419 Dating – Chat & Flirt app, which is based in Hong Kong but has users around the world. Other apps were also compromised, including Meet You – Local Dating App and Speed Dating App for American by MyCircle Network Corp, but these are thought to be linked to the same group of developers as 419 Dating.

A dating app launched by two friends in San Francisco has already gained 6,000 new members, thanks to its clever hook of getting you to a real-life date as quickly as possible.

Soon works like a traditional dating app, allowing members to set up profiles, swipe and match. But once a match is made, instead of messaging first, the app presents a calendar and list of options for where to meet so you can schedule your first date. The idea is to get you meeting IRL, where you aren’t wasting a lot of time on texting a match that goes nowhere.

The meet-up places are not restaurants, but rather bars, coffee shops, or parks, because as the twenty-seven-year-old co-founder Cora Kyler told San Francisco Gate: “There’s no dinner. That is way too much of a commitment for a first date. We call it a ‘zero width’ date. It’s a vibe check, mostly coffee or a drink.”

Image: Her

Dating app HER has launched “Thirst Mode,” a new feature in time for Pride Month.

Thirst Mode offers HER users 60 minutes per day of unlimited likes, the ability to see who has liked them, and a chance to move their profiles to the top of the heap for more visibility, according to Cosmopolitan. This feature is intended to showcase that the dating app is prioritizing hookups as well as relationships, especially during Pride. The company found in a recent survey that 40 percent of its users were hoping to hook up with a friend this month.

HER was launched primarily for the lesbian singles community, but has now expanded to include “FLINTAS” (female, lesbian, intersex, trans, and agender singles).

The feature will be free during Pride month for all users, according to Cosmopolitan. After that, it will be a premium feature that costs $5.99 per month for those willing to pay.