General News

Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of female-friendly dating app Bumble, was just named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list, and is featured on its December 2017 cover. This is no small feat – her dating app has amassed a large following with 70% year-on-year growth, according to the article, and has 22 million registered users. In comparison Tinder has 46 million registered users and last year saw growth at 10%.

The company is also being eyed by Match Group, owner of dating app rival Tinder, and is said to be in talks for over a billion dollars as an asking price. Herd turned down the company’s original offer of $450 million, according to recent reports.

The swipe has become the symbol of a generation. To the right, it’s shorthand for like, lust, and if you’re lucky, love. To the left, it signifies dislike, disgust, and disappointment. It seems shocking that a simple gesture has come to mean so much, but it was no accident.

Tinder’s creators worked tirelessly to create a fun physical mechanism for the app, tapping UX designer Loren Brichter (who created the familiar pull-to-refresh feature now used by most apps) to design their own iconic gesture. The groundbreaking swiping interface turned dating into a game - and an addictive one at that.

Sean Rad, one of Tinder’s two co-founders, once told TIME, “Nobody joins Tinder because they’re looking for something. They join because they want to have fun. It doesn’t even matter if you match because swiping is so fun.”

Henry Badenhorst, founder of the groundbreaking dating site Gaydar, has died in his native South Africa at age 51 following a fall from a tower block. His tragic passing comes a decade after his co-founder and former partner Gary Frisch fell to his death in a similar fashion in London.

According to BuzzFeed News, Badenhorst fell from the 23rd floor of the Michaelangelo Towers, a hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg, on 11 November 2017. Initial reports suggest he took his own life, though the exact details surrounding his death remain unclear.

“Eighteen years ago, Henry and his partner Gary revolutionised the way that gay men meet and in doing so created a safer environment for LGBT people everywhere,” said Gaydar’s current managing director, Rob Curtis. “We are shocked and saddened to hear of Henry’s passing and send our sincerest sympathies to Henry’s friends and family.”

The duo launched Gaydar in 1999, after a friend complained that he was too busy to find a partner.

Market analysts have a fascination with Tinder and Bumble, the two fastest-growing dating apps in the online dating industry. Rumors have been persistent that Match Group and Tinder was interested in acquiring the female-friendly dating app for around $450 million as reported back in August of this year, but the company turned down the offer.

Now it seems that Match Group, the parent company of Tinder, is reportedly still in talks to acquire Bumble, but now for a much heftier price tag of one billion US dollars, according to a recent article in Forbes.

Currently, Match Group has only $500 million in cash and a market cap of under $8 billion, according to website TechCrunch. So potential options would be to fund Bumble with some debt, or to do a cash/ stock combination deal, or even to acquire a portion of the company rather than all of it.

Dating sites regularly add new features to help users find love and stay competitive in an increasingly crowded market.

Over the years we’ve seen Coffee Meets Bagel partner with Yelp and Spotify, Tinder ramp up its famous swipe with Super Like, The League copy it with Power Play, Bumble introduce a time limit for responding to matches, and that’s barely the tip of the updates iceberg.

OkCupid, too, is no stranger to launching new features. Back in 2009, the site debuted its A-List premium paid subscription. In 2013, it experimented with (and quickly ditched) a sister app called Crazy Blind Date. In 2014 and 2015 came expanded options for gender self-identification and the Identity Project. In 2016, OkCupid released an update for nonmonogamous daters, and most recently, users were introduced to a Member Pledge and photo commenting.

But not every update makes the cut.

Remember the days of standing in line for coffee and striking up a conversation with the cute girl standing in front of you? And maybe you asked her out on a date? If you are single and living in Britain, you probably don’t.

A recent study found that almost half of British singles have never asked someone out on a date face to face. In fact, the trend of meeting potential dates has moved online, to the point where people prefer having a conversation over text rather than in person where things could get awkward or uncomfortable. Most singles meet eligible dates over dating apps and social media, which means they have little incentive to practice real life face-to-face conversation.

The study was commissioned by U.K. food brand Grace Say Aloe, a manufacturer of beverages. Researchers surveyed 1,500 single adults in the U.K.