Online Dating

On September 7, Su Xiangmao, the 37-year-old multi-millionaire entrepreneur behind a Skype-like app called WePhone, jumped to his death from the 15th floor of his Beijing apartment building. He left digital suicide notes on Google Plus and Sina Weibo, as well as a disturbing welcoming message on WePhone: "Company owner is forced to death by his evil wife Zhai Xinxin, and the app will stop working." The message included Zhai's phone number and her national ID information.

Su’s notes told a tragic tale of marriage gone wrong. He met his 29-year-old ex-wife in March on Jiayuan.com, China’s largest online dating website, where both were VIP members with "verified" personal profiles. In the months that followed, Su spent 13 million yuan ($1.96 million) on Zhai, showering her with gifts like a Tesla Model X and a seaside apartment in South China's Hainan Province. They married in June.

One month later, they divorced. Su agreed to pay Zhai 10 million yuan as part of their settlement. If he failed to do so, he wrote, Zhai threatened to report his business, which operated in a legal grey area, and his tax evasion to police.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. A dating app is teaming up with a voice-activated digital assistant to help tech-savvy singles find love hands-free.

Earlier this month, eHarmony announced a partnership with Amazon to bring a branded skill to Alexa. Enabling it allows eHarmony users to hear their matches and messages by voice, ask for more details about their dating prospects, and have photos of their connections sent to their smartphones.

This time around, it’s not eHarmony or Alexa that’s in the news. Plenty Of Fish has announced an integration with the Google Assistant on Google Home, as well as eligible Android and iOS phones. Same premise, different devices.

How Hinge Matchmaker Works

We normally frown upon butting into the love lives of others, but Hinge has launched a new app that hopes to make it socially acceptable to hook up your friends.

Hinge Matchmaker is designed to let you pair up your pals who are already on the dating app. After downloading the app and logging in, Matchmaker will scan your Facebook friends list for people who have Hinge profiles. The app then presents two of your single Facebook friends at a time, leaving it up to you to decide whether you think they’d be a solid match.

If the answer is yes, you can suggest the match and even add an icebreaker message to get the ball rolling. Your suggested match will see each other on the regular Hinge app, along with your note, and can choose whether to continue the conversation or not. There’s also the option to focus on a specific friend’s dating life by locking their profile, which allows the matchmaker to rotate through the available matches for that person alone.

A woman from Canberra, Australia has been suspended by dating app Tinder for asking too many matches whether or not they registered to vote, so they could receive a ballot to vote on marriage equality.

She originally started asking friends and followers to register to vote over social media, and after many of them did, she took to Tinder to try and engage more people.

According to website Junkee, the woman, known as “Lizzy” reported that a lot of men thanked her for the reminder and were glad she reached out to them to advocate for a worthy cause. One man even shared her message along with the link to the voter registration site to all of his matches.

The divide between dating and politics is getting smaller, especially since the 2016 election. Many American daters are opting to put the political beliefs of potential partners front and center when it comes to seeing if there’s a spark. And dating apps are noticing this trend, too.

In September, OkCupid announced its alliance with Planned Parenthood Federation of America to allow its customers to show their political leanings when it comes to female reproductive health. OkCupid is offering an #IStandWithPP badge that shows up on the profile of anyone who has publicly answered “no” to the question “should the government defund Planned Parenthood?” The app’s algorithms will also consider the badge when matching you with potential partners.

But users can choose to keep their feelings to themselves. “When you answer a question on OkCupid, you have the option to make your answer public or private,” Melissa Hobley, CMO of OkCupid, told website Bustle. “Only if you publicly answered that you support Planned Parenthood, then you receive the badge automatically. If you don't want the badge on your profile, then you can mark your answer as private.”

eHarmony New Skill for Amazons Alexa

There’s no shortage of apps and websites to help lonely hearts find love, but there’s only one voice-activated digital assistant playing matchmaker for tech-savvy singles.

Amazon is teaming up with online dating platform eHarmony to launch a new skill for its AI-equipped, hands-free Alexa speaker. eHarmony users who enable the skill will be able to hear their matches and messages by voice, and ask Alexa for more details about their dating prospects.

The ability to access eHarmony matches through Alexa is the latest move by eHarmony to make it easier for people to connect and date in a fast paced world. "Alexa provides a unique, human element to eHarmony," said Grant Langston, chief executive officer of eHarmony, in a statement. "The eHarmony skill for Alexa advises singles on matches who are compatible and sent messages. The eHarmony skill for Alexa also surfaces pertinent information, like location and occupation that some people might gloss over if they are just quickly swiping at attractive pictures. With the eHarmony skill for Alexa, people can focus more on the other elements of a profile by listening to her."