Reviews

Every online dater has been there: stuck in an endless exchange of messages. When the end finally comes, it almost always happens one of two ways.

Option one: you meet in person, realize you're not at all compatible, and are furious about how much time you wasted on pointless messages. Option two: you never even get to that point. Someone just ghosts and the conversation is over by default.

Rarely does it end with option three: you meet, click instantly, and ride off into the proverbial sunset together

A new dating app is hoping to spare you some of that trouble. Whim promises to cut to the chase and set up actual dates - with "no endless texting" and "no flakes or fakes."

The process is exactly as simple as it sounds. Users create profiles and then specify which days they're free to go on a date. The date can be any night of the current week or a recurring weekly evening. After that, users browse profiles and indicate who they are interested in meeting.

When two users express interest in each other, Whim automatically sets up a time and place for the date, based on your availability and preferences (a user who doesn't drink, for example, won't be sent to a bar). Users can message each other about logistics, but it isn't required.

OkCupid alum Eve Peters started the venture two years ago. She told TechCrunch that Whim “surveyed the users of online dating apps and found that matches resulted in dates less than 10 percent of the time.” In contrast, matches on Whim resulted in dates more than 90 percent of the time.

The idea has its perks. Whim requires only a small time investment, which is increasingly important to users. It also guarantees that, when someone matches with you, they're actually looking to go on a date. A right swipe is a meaningful action on Whim and users have to think more seriously before they do it.

The idea also has its downsides. Those who are concerned with safety may not take to Whim's insta-date premise. For them, messaging before a meeting is an important part of the getting-to-know-you process – a filter for creeps, weirdo's, and other undesirables.

To counteract those concerns, Whim's dates all take place in public places. Peters also says the service relies on “high human touch” to ensure safety. All profiles are read by Whim team members, and users are encouraged to give post-date feedback so anyone objectionable can be removed.

The service is currently free and available only in the San Francisco Bay Area. Peters said she plans to charge $10 a month and launch in a second city by the end of the year. You can download the iOS app here. An Android version is expected in 2016.

Don’t you wish you could tell if someone on an online dating site was lying, or if all the information provided was accurate and up-to-date? Well it seems there’s an app for that.

Been Verified is targeting users of online dating sites in its marketing campaign. The service provides online background checks to help people “discover, understand and use public data in their everyday lives.” Basically, Been Verified consolidates data from many sources of public records, providing a background check on potential dates, including police records, mortgage deeds, and social networking profiles.

If this is unsettling, remember – it is all information that you volunteered or that is automatically public record. So, everyone is searchable, but sometimes it’s difficult to gather all of the information that’s out there. Been Verified just makes it easy – one-stop shopping, if you will.

Been Verified has dealt with a lot of fake profiles and scammers, so they wanted to get the word out to online daters about how to protect yourself. Following are some tips they recommend:

• It’s a big red flag if your online interest asks you for money, especially if it is early on and if you’ve never met face-to-face. Scammers will often ask for money on behalf of a sick relative, a short-term loan to pay rent, or travel money to visit you if he lives out of state.
• Be careful if he avoids meeting you, especially if he states he will be out of the country. There is a reason that scammers don’t want to meet face-to-face.  If they are running a game, they will come up with all kinds of excuses to avoid meeting. Some may use work travel as an excuse, others may say they have shared custody of his kids and it’s his weekend to keep them, or that an ill mother needs to taken care of. Listen carefully to what they are saying.
• To avoid identity theft scams, try Google's reverse image search. Take a few minutes to search the profile's pictures, and if the reverse search shows up across hundreds of pages, it is highly likely that the person is being deceitful and is using someone else’s images as his own.
• When chatting online, make sure the flow of conversation makes sense to ascertain if you’re talking to a live person or a robot profile. Mix up the conversation; see if the person continues to track with you. If they are unable to switch gears, it could be a robot responder giving predetermined responses.
• If his profile is comprised of only one photo and the text is basically empty, they could be a scammer. People who don’t want to be held accountable to the content of their profile will simply leave it blank. If they are too lazy to take the time to self-disclose and post some self-descriptive text, then you should probably take a pass.

Been Verified was founded in 2007 by Josh Levy and Ross Cohen with a mission to help people discover, understand and use public data in their everyday lives. With millions of app downloads and millions of monthly visitors, BeenVerified allows individuals to find more information about people, phone numbers, email addresses and property records.

There have been a lot of breakthroughs recently for the LGBTQ community. The Supreme Court ruled on the legality of gay marriage across America, overriding state laws that made it illegal. Caitlyn Jenner disclosed her transition from male to female in an interview with Diane Sawyer, and later showed off her new body in Vanity Fair to a public that embraced her. Celebrities like Ruby Rose and Miley Cyrus have recently stated that they identify as “gender-fluid,” or as both male and female, bringing gender identity conversations into the spotlight.

It only makes sense that in this moment of time where people feel more free than ever to live their truth – there is also a dating app that helps you find that special someone, no matter how you identify. At least, that is what OneGoodCrush aims to do.

Launched this week, OneGoodCrush aims to help people in the LGBTQ community find long-term relationships. But they aren’t limiting their potential user base. Founder Frank Mastronuzzi wants everyone to feel they can find someone special using the app, including those who identify as heterosexual, or who do not define themselves as male or female.

"We wanted to be inclusive of everyone -- even heterosexual people can use our app," he told USA Today. "Letters on LGBTQ keep adding over time, but wherever you fall on this spectrum, you have a place on this app."

OneGoodCrush connects users through their Facebook and Instagram accounts to pull photos and profile information. The app works like Tinder and other dating apps, where each user is presented with photos and profiles, allowing them to swipe left and right to reject or accept a match. But while other dating apps like Tinder and Grindr offer same-sex dating options, they are limited when it comes to allowing users to communicate their own gender identity. The big difference between OneGoodCrush and other dating apps is that its members can claim their own gender identity -- man, woman, transgender man, transgender woman, or queer -- and then choose the gender(s) they are seeking.

According to the company’s records, the app has so far attracted about 100,000 users since its soft launch three months ago. Of the users that have signed onto the app, 57% identify as gay, 37% identify as lesbian, 4% have identify as transgender, 1% identify as queer, and less than 1% identify as straight.

Having the ability to identify as a transgender seems obvious in online dating, but it hasn’t been the case. As Trish McDermott, Strategic Advisor for OneGoodCrush states: "It seems online dating is one of the last bastions separating people, and that is kind of mind blowing. I think the industry has a responsibility to invite everyone."

Have you been to a music festival like Coachella or Firefly and wondered who that hot guy was standing ten feet away, singing along to every word of your favorite band’s favorite song? Maybe you chose not to go up and introduce yourself. But perhaps you pulled out your Tinder app and swiped left through a bunch of potential matches trying to locate his photo.

If you felt frustrated at not being able to hook up, or your nerves got the best of you, don’t worry. A Dutch-based company has created an event-based dating app for the festival-attendee market – so you can meet those people you spotted in person but didn’t actually get a chance to chat with.

Glance is the latest gimmick-driven dating app to hit the test market, and is currently in beta only in the Netherlands. However, the company has its sights set on worldwide release.

Glance allows you not only to locate people you might be attracted to at festivals, but if you plan on going, it can hook you up over the app in advance, so you can arrange to meet and hang out in person when you get there.

Hendrik van Benthem, founder of Glance, calls this “event­-driven dating.” In a statement he explains: “We live in a society in which users of products and services demand relevance. Why would you adjust your plans to a date that will probably turn into nothing, if your date can also come the place where you’ll be anyway, surrounded by people you feel comfortable with?”

Glance is not just for festival-goers. The app aims to get people introduced who plan to be at the same night club at the same time, too.

Glance launched in May 2015 in Amsterdam together with “leading partners from the event and entertainment industry.” The entrepreneurs behind Glance did not have any start-up investors, and are funding the company themselves. Says van Benthem: “We talked to different VC’s from the States and the Netherlands. Really cool to talk with those people. They operate on a different level and we learned a lot. The best experience was a meeting in the private jet of Dan Bilzerian. Crazy. But there never was a match...”

Glance is available in the App store for iOS and Play Store for Android, and information is available on its website. It is currently only available for events in the Netherlands but the company plans to launch internationally shortly.

Online dating sites have long wrestled with replicating the experience of dating in real life.

Offline, the love of your life may find you at any moment. You could be standing in the produce section of the grocery store, wondering how to tell if a cantaloupe is ripe, when suddenly an attractive stranger appears to help you pick. It's all about serendipity.

Online, dating feels calculated. You'll never randomly bump into The One. But if U.K.-based Tab has anything to say about it, serendipitous meetings could soon be a part of your digital dating life.

Tab isn't a dating website. It's not a trendy new mobile app. In fact, it's a browser extension for Chrome. Every time a user opens a new tab, they're shown a potential match. If they're not intrigued by what they see, they simply carry on with business as usual. If they do feel a spark, they click a heart button. Mutual “hearts” are connected.

"Imagine you could bump into the love of your life on any corner of the Internet, just like in real life," Shib Hussain, one of Tab's co-founders, told Fast Company. "It was a light bulb moment. We were discussing how online dating is actually pretty time consuming, regardless of what platform."

“You have to actively look for people, switching from ‘not looking’ to ‘I am looking.’ And this isn’t how it is in real life," he said. "You just bump into people and it just happens."

Tab works its magic based on the profile users fill out during sign-up. The fledgling company is also testing out a more intriguing concept: matching people based on the types of sites they visit. It sounds ripe for a debate about online privacy, but the idea is interesting nonetheless.

Productivity gurus may also find fault with the extension. Tab is aimed at users over 25 who are trying to find a healthy work-life balance, but it may be hard to focus on the work part if life interrupts every time you open a new tab.

Hussain says Tab is trying to combat that issue with a simple, clean aesthetic. The design is intended to give users information quickly, with minimal annoyance or distraction, so they can get back to their busy days (and all the other tabs they have open).

So far Tab has launched in beta in the UK, and hopes to go live in the US later this year. A mobile version could also be on its way in the future.

So you're obsessed with Scandal. Or Game of Thrones. Or Better Call Saul. And you know that you really should spend your evenings with real-life people instead of fictional characters who are fixated on dragons and sleeping with their siblings, but somehow dating always seems to take a back seat to your television habits.

If a new Kickstarter is successfully funded, you may not have to make a choice. The project is called My Show Mate (possibly a play on “soulmate?”) and the tagline is “Because TV is too good to watch alone.”

The concept is simple, which is probably for the best because you'll be using it in short bursts during commercial breaks. If anyone even has those anymore. There will be no 100-question dating profile to fill out, simply a place for basic information like username, location and, of course, your favorite shows. If you click with a compatible TV match, there will be a chat feature to share feelings about a pivotal moment – just beware of spoilers.

The woman behind the idea is entertainment journalist and self-professed "hopeless showmantic" Angela Manfredi. “While thinking of ways to meet a great guy with whom I have a common interest,” she writes on the Kickstarter page, “I pondered the general checklist of couples' activities. Alas, many did not pertain to me.” Hiking, biking, skiing – none of the more active activities held any appeal. But “sharing a bowl of popcorn and chocolate-covered raisins while watching the season finale of Homeland” garnered an enthusiastic yes.

“I started thinking that other singles probably feel just as strongly about their favorite shows,” she continues. “That's the inspiration for My Show Mate, which brings singles together based on similar tastes in on-screen entertainment (or as I like to call it, screentertainment.)”

Ignoring that “screentertainment” is a terrible portmanteau, it's hard not to be at least a little intrigued by the idea of getting a date without leaving the couch. The Netflix/Tinder mashup was bound to happen eventually. That being said, it's also bound to get its fair share of criticism if the project moves forward. Someone will call it lazy, or will deem users unhealthily television-obsessed.

Manfredi already has a response to them. “We have seen proof - and lived the fact ourselves - that there's a need to express our feelings about the shows we're watching,” she writes. “The challenge and mission of My Show Mate is to enable members to do so with like-minded singles via a simple, elegant process.” If the ultimate goal of online dating is to connect people, it's hard to imagine a more instant bond than a mutual love or hatred of Olivia Pope.