Location

Epic Games, maker of popular game Fortnite, just won an antitrust lawsuit against Google for its Play Store practices. This outcome could be a gamechanger for app developers, who must rely on Google and Apple stores to get their apps out in the world.

According to Tech Crunch, a San Francisco court found that Google “willfully acquired or maintained monopoly power by engaging in anticompetitive conduct” as stated in the court filings. The jury determined Google’s liability, but a judge still has to decide what the final outcome will be.

The two companies will plead their cases in January to argue for how Google will need to adjust its Play Store policies going forward. Currently, the company takes a commission of as much as 30 percent of all purchases made via apps on its platform. The original lawsuit included Match Group among other companies, but all of them settled out of court apart from Epic Games.

Image: TInder

Dating app Tinder has released its new dating trends report for 2023, and one of the main findings of the Year in Swipe point to singles wanting a range of dating experiences, rather than being so focused on finding “the one.”

In other words, more singles were interested in their own dating journeys rather than the destination, with Tinder noting that there was a 5.5 times increase in users adding statements in their bios like: “Everything I do is for the plot.” NATO dating was also a big phrase – “not being attached to an outcome.”

Singles also said they embraced “main character energy” in 2023, alluding to stories they can share about their dating lives with their friends (and followers on social media). They said they looked at the dating process as a way of building a roster of new experiences and memories (to add to their personal stories), which took the pressure off outcomes. It also left room for “self-exploration through dating,” according to Match Group’s release.

Image: Stir

Actress Busy Phillips is starring in her latest project – a new holiday promotion for dating app Stir, which caters to single parents.

The campaign MILF on the SHILF campaign satirizes the popular Christmas tradition in many households with kids of “Elf on a Shelf,” but now with an adult twist. The goal is to help single parents have a little fun this holiday season and embrace their inner MILF or DILF (Mother or Father I’d like Fireside, according to the campaign).

The campaign features a video of Phillips in elf attire posing on a mantel, luxuriating in costume in a bath, and advocating for parents to take care of themselves this holiday season – instead of focusing all their attention on making sure the kids have a great holiday.

Tinder and Hinge have recently released new ultra-premium subscriptions for what they called “motivated daters,” but a significant population of singles would rather not pay the steep price for a dating app experience. In fact, the more companies try to monetize dating app features, the more it seems to turn off daters altogether.

A recent report from Bloomberg found that people are gravitating back to in-person events like speed dating, which saw a 63 percent increase in participation this past year according to Eventbrite. And they are reluctant to pay the $500 subscription for Tinder or $60 subscription for Hinge, though Match Group has noticed an uptick in revenue since releasing the premium services.

According to Bloomberg, third-quarter downloads for Hinge were the app’s best ever and that 1.3 million of its users pay for a subscription. Bumble will be offering short term subscriptions as well as its own high-priced premium service in the coming months.

Grindr has become the most popular dating app in the U.K. among singles aged 54 and older, according to a recent study from Ofcom, the country’s communications regulator.

According to The Pink News, Tinder was still the most-downloaded dating app in the UK, with 2.5 million users, followed by Bumble at 1.7 million U.K. users. Grindr has grown in 2023, but it still captures only about 1.9 percent of the U.K. adult population, or 924,000 users. But as far as time spent on the apps per user, Grindr wins hands-down.

In fact, the average user of the gay dating app spent seven hours on it in May of 2023, according to Ofcom, compared to only one hour on Tinder, and a bit more than two hours for each Bumble and Hinge.

Several China-based dating apps have added location trackers as a premium feature to boost revenues, but it’s also boosting suspicions among users.

According to South China Morning Post, some of these features include real-time location tracking, daily check-ins with partners, and allowing your partner to check your phone usage. In theory, the idea is to increase transparency and build closer connections between partners, but in reality, the features are causing more tension between them.

Understandably, this trend has sparked controversy, especially among those who already have partners who are suspicious of their behavior. The features can be quite intrusive, including a subscription that allows mutual sharing of smartphone usage time, battery level, network status and screen unlock history. It is not clear how knowledge of these particular features contributes to improved relationships. In fact, they seem to be exacerbating existing problems in relationships.