Dating Services

Bumble Boost with BeeLine, Rematch, and BusyBee.

Female-focused dating app Bumble has been available for free to its users, but now the company is offering a premium paid service for those who want to use its brand new features.

The paid version of the app includes three important features aimed at competing with other popular “tiered” dating apps like Tinder, which also offers optional paid features to help provide a premium matching experience.

Bumble’s first feature, named “Beeline,” will offer its members a line-up of users who have already “liked” them, so they can skip swiping and match with their likes by choosing “yes,” with the intention of making the process more efficient.

eHarmony's new CEO Grant Langston

Goodbye Neil Clark Warren, hello Grant Langston. eHarmony is bidding farewell to its founder and CEO following 81-year-old Warren’s return to retirement.

Yes, return. After creating the company in 2000, Warren went on Retirement #1 in 2007. eHarmony struggled in his absence, finding it hard to remain fresh and relevant in the increasingly competitive online dating market.

Just four years later, in a move his friends called “crazy,” Warren came out of retirement at 78 to become eHarmony’s chief executive once again. His second tenure in the role saw employee layoffs, significant changes in management, closures of international operations, and the launch of a bundle of new products and services. When all was said and done, the floundering website had found its way back to relevance.

Swiping could leave you with the love of your life, or crippled confidence. A new survey from the University of North Texas found that singles who used Tinder are more likely to have lower self-esteem and feel unhappy about their looks than people who don’t use dating apps.

“Tinder users reported having lower levels of satisfaction with their faces and bodies and having lower levels of self-worth than the men and women who did not use Tinder,” said Jessica Strübel, PhD, who presented the research at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.

It’s no secret that women tend to fare better in online dating than men, at least as far as opportunities. Women receive far more messages and matches compared to their male counterparts, which can be frustrating for guys who are looking for something more serious than a hook up, but can’t seem to get to a match, let alone a first date.

But to be fair, women don’t have an easy time online dating either. They receive many more unsolicited and even offensive messages and texts, including inappropriate photos and abusive or threatening messages, which is why they have to be more selective in who they communicate with.

So, the gap between men and women in online dating has grown even wider, especially with dating apps like Tinder where men can “mass swipe” right on women, hoping to increase their chances of meeting someone special, while women's inboxes are flooded.

Is this the most unconventional dating advice ever?

While most experts encourage you to put more effort into your online dating messages, OkCupid co-founder Christian Rudder suggests doing exactly the opposite. And he has the research to back it up.

“OkCupid has records from the pre-smartphone, pre-Twitter, pre-Instagram days — hell, it was online when Myspace was still a file storage service,” he wrote in an article for New York magazine. “Judging by messaging over all those years, the broad writing culture is indeed changing, and the change is driven by phones.”

Alex Williamson knows a thing or two about dating. The 28-year-old joined the Bumble team a few months before launch, and is now the app’s director of creative marketing and brand copywriter. If you’ve seen Bumble’s viral response to a finance bro (also known as "The Connor Letter”), you’ve seen Williamson’s work.

Refinery29 recently sat down with Williamson to get an insider’s perspective on the online dating industry. She shared what she’s learned working behind the scenes at one of the world’s most popular dating apps, offering advice on how to write a bio, how to choose a profile picture, how to identify red flags, and more. Her top tips include: