Online Dating

Dating app Bumble has seen tremendous success since its launch over two years ago, with more than 12.5 million registrations to date. Now, the company wants to expand their services to offer connections for friendship and business opportunities, too.

Bumble debuted as a dating app, differentiating itself from Tinder by putting the power of communication in the hands of women, who are required to make the first move. Since then, the company has launched Bumble BFF for people seeking friendships rather than romantic relationships, and it is about to release Bumble Biz to connect people for business networking.

Tinder’s reign won’t let up. The dating app is not only the most recognizable in the industry, it’s also one of the most successful. With constant feature updates, like 2015’s introduction of the ‘Super Like’, Tinder ensures it remains on top of the game.

Two of the most recent updates have proved to be highly beneficial for the app. During a panel at this year’s SXSW, co-founder Sean Rad shared that Tinder has matched some 250,000 transgender users since unveiling new gender identity options last November. The company also increased its community education and refined its approach to preventing harassment.

“We have a great algorithm that can help, but no algorithm can solve humans,” Rad explained. “We were taken aback by how complex identity is. It’s a very complex area and, at the same time, Tinder is extremely simple.”

Do you have a “wish list” for a future romantic partner? For instance, do you have a preference for height, career, body type, or whether or not your match is into yoga? Most of us do have a wish list for an ideal partner, but a new study shows that we tend to ditch those lists when we go searching for matches online.

Researchers from the Queensland University of Technology analyzed the dating preferences and contact behavior of more than 41,000 Australians between 18-80 on dating website RSVP. What they found was that despite the fact that most online daters have a clear list of preferences for their ideal partners, they still contacted people who bore no resemblance to these preferences. The study was conducted by behavioural economists Stephen Whyte and Professor Benno Torgler.

eHarmony in the United States is having free communication for 4 days starting Friday March 24th and running until the end of day on Monday March 27th, 2017. No coupon code is required.

For this free communication event all you need to do is create a free account on eHarmony to start receiving matches and communicate with them. For more targeted matches based on your personality you can then take the relationship questionnaire which takes about 30 minutes to complete. From then on your eHarmony matches will take the questionnaire into account and you will receive matches with singles with whom you have the best chance of creating a long and happy relationship with. During this event no credit card is required and viewing of profile photos are not included with the free trial.

eHarmony is well know for their matching algorithm which they have created based on years of research. Based on a study by Harris Interactive, eHarmony is responsible in help creating over 2 million marriages in the United States.

For more details about this popular matchmaking service please read our eHarmony review.

According to website Tech Crunch, Tinder has been offering a dating service for its most elite users for at least six months without announcing its existence.

“Tinder Select” is just as it sounds – a dating service for those Tinder users who are high profile and the most desirable, such as celebrities, supermodels and CEOs, so they can have access to date and message other high profile users and bypass the normal user matches.

But before you get excited to join and flirt with the A-listers, you can’t. Or at least most of us can’t because Tinder has to invite you first.

Cast your mind back to 2004. The year was a big one for the blossoming industry known as social media. Facebook debuted and went on to become the world’s largest social networking platform. Tagged and Hi5 also launched in 2004, and though they remained relatively under the radar, both earned significant revenue through games and paid features.

Tagged purchased Hi5 in 2011. After renaming the parent company ‘If(we)’ and changing its focus to social app development, revenue began to drop. Plans for an IPO were also dropped. Now, six years later, social discovery platform MeetMe has acquired If(we) for $60 million in cash.