General News

The eHarmony free trial starts Thursday February 25th and continues to Monday February 29th, 2016. This 4 day event is available in both the United States and Canada, on the website and dating apps. This is the second free trial eHarmony has run this month.

Existing eHarmony members get access to the free trial automatically. If you don't have a membership all you need to do create one. No credit card is required for this, just the completion of the eHarmony profile questionnaire. The whole process takes about 30 minutes to complete depending on how long you spend answering each question. Most questions are multiple choice and it is important you answer them as truthfully as possible since each one affects the outcome of who the eHarmony matchmaking algorithm chooses to match with you.

Once you have completed the profile your will receive your first set of matches. You can now review those matches and start communicating with the ones you wish, starting with the guided communication process and then continuing on with email. You will continue to have new matches sent to you every day or so. One thing to note about the free trial is that it does not include photos, secure call, or the skip straight to email feature for the guided communication process.

To find out more about eHarmony and how it works, our eHarmony review is a good place to look.

Another new dating app has hit the market to compete with Tinder, the ever-popular app that is both cherished and demonized for changing the landscape of dating. Precisely takes the user-friendly format of Tinder (swiping), and combines it with a clickable menu of over 200 filters across 25 different categories, so you can select descriptions according to your preferences.

Dating sites like OkCupid and Match are two successful yet traditional online dating platforms, and their matching algorithms also use descriptions. However, these sites rely on users answering questions and writing detailed profiles, which can take a lot of time. Precisely aims to take the time-consuming part out, but still maintain the helpful filters.

So instead of writing about who you are or what you want, you can choose to “activate” or include in your profile adjectives that the app provides in a ready-made list. For instance, you can choose descriptors like: “vegetarian,” “blonde,” “curvy,” “freckles,” “tattoos.”

The app provides a variety of personality-based filters in addition to physical descriptors, covering art, fitness, politics, diet and religion, for instance. If your religious or political views are important in your relationships, you can make your beliefs known to others. Or you can choose to not make them part of your filters.

Are you a plus size dater looking for a new and better online dating experience? WooPlus aims to create a friendlier, more enjoyable time for daters who are sick of apps and online dating sites geared towards people with leaner bodies, and are looking for a more accepting environment.

Niche dating sites are a huge part of online dating. While Tinder serves the general dating market, some sites and apps prefer to focus on a certain segment of the market with particular tastes – whether it’s dating people who have the same political beliefs, eating habits, or religious views, for instance. Some dating sites even cater to hobbies, lifestyles and preferences like Star Trek fans, farmers, tattoo lovers, or those who prefer to date redheads.

eHarmony has setup a free communication trial which starts Wednesday morning on February 10th and runs for 5 days until the evening of Monday February the 15th. This event is for both the United States and Canada.

To be able to participate in the trial an eHarmony account is required. So if you haven't done it already, all you need to do is create a free eHarmony membership and fill out the profile questionnaire. No credit card is required. When you do fill out the profile make sure you have 30 to 40 minutes as there are a number of multiple choice questions. You can save a partially answered questionnaire and continue on later, but I always find it is better to finish it in one sitting. Also, make sure you have a few photos picked out for your profile before hand. A head shot for your main profile photo is good along with a few more photo's showing yourself having fun.

Once your profile and questionnaire is complete, eHarmony will then send you about 5 matches right away. These matches are created by the eHarmony matching algorithm which is based on years of research by eHarmony Labs. The information from your profile and questionnaire about what you want in a partner along with what best matches with your personality traits is used to figure out what eHarmony members, when matched to you, have the best chance of creating a long-term and happy relationship.

eHarmony free communication trials happen about once a month. The dating site and app (which is available both for the iPhone and Android devices) is always extra busy during this time especially in February when Valentine's Day is fast approaching. Features not included during the trial include skipping the guided communication process and going straight to email. The guided communication process is where you and your match each answer a couple of questions about yourself. These questions are picked out by you and your match and are designed to help break the ice before you start writing to each other via email. Viewing of profile photos is also only available to paying members during this event.

For more details about this popular dating matchmaking service, you can read our eHarmony review.

You might not have known this if you’ve used popular dating app Tinder, but the service secretly calculates a score that ranks the most (and least) desirable people swiping on the service.

And every single Tinder user has a score.

In an article for Fast Company, reporter Austin Carr was interviewing Tinder founder Sean Rad, who let him know this wasn’t some urban myth. In fact, Rad went so far as to admit that not only does each user have a desirability score, but that the company spent more than two months developing the algorithm for rating people. According to Rad, it’s more than a popularity contest of which users get the most swipes or matches, or who has the more attractive photos, but a combination of factors that make a more complex overall view.

Still, the swipes probably have something to do with your desirability score. In fact, every time a Tinder user swipes right or left on you, that is factored into the equation – how often you are liked, versus rejected. And how many times there is a mutual swipe, versus a one-sided rejection or like. Then there are the more intangible factors, like career choice, words used to describe oneself in a profile, and educational background.

Carr got to look at his own desirability score, which was just slightly above average to his dismay. He cautioned his readers to avoid looking at their scores, as they could potentially end up even more self-conscious daters than they were already. Tinder wouldn’t give him any details besides a top line number of how he compares to everyone else using the app. Tinder does have more detailed breakdowns and analyses, but they chose not to share.

While it might be interesting to learn your Tinder desirability score, it doesn’t help if you end up on the lower end of the spectrum. It certainly doesn’t mean anything in terms of your ability to connect with that one special person – people are attracted to one another based on that intangible known as chemistry, for one.

Also, people have a wide array of tastes – what might seem attractive to one Tinder user might turn off another. OkCupid discovered this in its own study, where it researched the most-messaged users. More often than not, the ones with more unusual features tended to get more messages, and more people considered them attractive compared to those who were considered more "ordinarily attractive."

So if you are on Tinder, just keep swiping and dating without worrying about how you stack up against the competition. It’s just an algorithm, after all. For more information on this dating app you can read our Tinder review.

The business of online dating continues to grow, as more apps enter the market and compete for funding from investors ready to cash in on the next Tinder. The latest financial news in the industry involves popular gay dating app Grindr, who just announced that Chinese online gaming titan Beijing Kunlun Tech has taken a “majority investment” in their app.

According to The New York Times, Beijing Kunlun’s stake in the company will be about 60%, with the remainder to be owned by Grindr employees and Joel Simkhai, the company's founder. The valuation of Grindr seems to be about $155 million according to the same article, although the actual amount invested was not disclosed.

Interestingly, Grindr had not raised capital from outside investors prior to their deal with Beijing Kunlun. The company was started and funded by Simkhai himself, who began with only a few thousand dollars. He grew the company and the brand: according to PC Magazine, the average user spends up to 54 minutes a day on the app – a figure that exceeds Facebook’s 42 minutes and Instagram’s 21 minutes.

According to leaked documents back in August, Grindr predicted pulling in about $38 million for 2015.

According to Financial Review, Carter McJunkin, chief operating officer of Grindr said in an interview: "We have users in every country in the world, but in order to get to the next phase of our business and grow faster, we needed a partner," McJunkin added that the relationship made sense for Grindr because of Beijing Kunlun's digital expertise, and because the company agreed to let Grindr's founders continue its operating structure and retain its current team.

Beijing Kulun saw Grindr as a good opportunity to expand beyond its core gaming focus, into more of an overall “lifestyle” brand. 

It’s interesting to note that Beijing Kunlun’s choice to purchase stake in a gay dating app seems incongruous, since homosexuality is still a taboo subject in China, and many gay people face widespread discrimination. It is not clear if Grindr intends to expand its business into the Chinese market, but there would be social stigma to overcome.

Beijing Kulun might see Grindr as a sound investment above all, despite its target market. Or perhaps they are paving the way for other Chinese investors to expand and reach out to invest in more diverse, successful brands outside of China. "We have been very impressed by Grindr's progress to date and are extremely excited about the future of the company," Yahui Zhou, chairman of Kunlun, said in a statement. "We will continue to seek out and invest in high-quality technology companies led by top-tier management across the globe.” For more information on this gay dating app you can check our our Grindr Topic.