Mobile

Dating services have had a historically difficult time cracking the Southeast Asian market. While the stigma of online dating has disappeared in the West, it remains alive and well in much of the East. Cultural norms have largely kept the region’s dating rituals in the past.

Things may finally be ready to change. According Forbes, an increase in developer tools has brought more discreet dating options to Southeast Asia, and that may be the key to cracking the market.

Paktor is one of the apps leading the charge into the sector. Since launching in 2013, the company has built a network of around 15 million users and more than 5 billion swipes, making it the largest dating app in the region by both downloads and usage.

Features of AirDates

If you’ve been dreaming of joining the Mile High Club, this could be your shot. A new Tinder-esque dating app called AirDates promises to be the greatest in-flight entertainment since SkyMall.

AirDates, as the name suggests, is designed specifically for travelers looking to make love connections while they fly. The app is only in beta, but it’s caused quite a stir since appearing at the Disrupt London conference in Decemeber.

Users upload their travel itineraries prior to boarding to find other travelers on the same route. The app then scans your surroundings for fellow passengers who match your preferences. You can choose to be visible or remain hidden to other users (either way, you’ll be able to chat).

There’s only so much you can learn from carefully curated photos and sparsely filled out profiles. Plenty stretch the truth, resulting in more disappointing first dates than we’d care to try to count. Spin the Bottle, a new video dating app, hopes to solve the problem by skipping straight to actual eye contact.

"With so many 'swipe left, swipe right' dating apps out there right now, we wanted a way to take people beyond the often misleading, perfectly manicured profile pictures and get them right to face time," said Matthew Cohen, CEO and co-founder of Spin Labs, the company behind Spin the Bottle. "Looking into someone's eyes and having a conversation... can be much more revealing than reading a list of interests and seeing a gallery of heavily edited, perfectly filtered selfies."

A new take on the classic party game, Spin the Bottle reimagines the online dating experience with 30 second live video speed dates. The premise is simple: a player gives the bottle their best spin with a swipe, and when it stops, they begin a 30 second video chat date with their match. If they're feeling a spark, they can tap an icon to give their date a kiss and wait for one in return. Two kisses and it's a match.

Tinder might have gotten a lot of action in 2016, but according to a recent article in The Washington Post, niche dating apps are poised to get more attention this year.

Research from online dating sites and apps have shown that the biggest increase in memberships and activity occur from New Year’s Day through Valentine’s Day. It’s the time when the most people are looking for love, or at least a few dates. Traditionally, people have gravitated to the bigger sites like Tinder or Match in the hopes of having the widest pool of daters to choose from. But this year, people are looking for new ways to connect.

Part of the problem according to the Post is that dating apps don’t necessarily lead to users getting more dates. It’s easy to swipe endlessly, but that doesn’t seem to translate to meeting in real life. In the past year, poor and flaky dating behavior has left a lot to be desired, and daters are increasingly frustrated.

HitWe App Profile View

Another day, another new dating site that’s trying to hit it big.

Hitwe calls itself the “fastest-growing online discovery network” and promises to offer “the best opportunities for communication and new acquaintances.” They’d be big claims coming from anyone, but they’re downright gargantuan coming from a service most of us haven’t heard of. Naturally, it makes you curious… does Hitwe live up to its own hype?

A quick investigation reveals a colorful but simple site. Hitwe is clearly a product of its time. New users can sync their account with Facebook to automatically populate their profiles and save time. Pictures can be imported directly from Facebook or Instagram. The profile layout has both a featured image and a cover photo, a design that will be intimately familiar to any social media user. The profile also has tallies of visitors and likes, another resemblance to many social media profiles.

Hornet, a dating app that touts itself as “the world’s second largest gay social network,” has announced that it has raised $8 million in its first round of institutional financing. The Series A round adds to a $500,000 angel round raised in 2012.

Founded in San Francisco in 2011, Hornet set out to strengthen the gay community by providing quality social interactions and being the most inclusive, diverse service in the LGBT dating market. CEO Christof Wittig has previously said the company aims to “jump in where Grindr dropped the ball” by focusing on lasting connections rather than quick flings.