General News

By now, most people have heard of Tinder, whether or not they have used the dating app or understand what it does. Tinder has become a brand synonymous with modern online dating. But since its launch in 2012, the company has been struggling with taking advantage of its explosive popularity and translating it into revenue. After all, the dating app itself is free – a major draw in the online dating world for people who just want to try it out, and one of the factors contributing to its success. But offering a free service doesn’t help the company build its business.

In the last few months Tinder launched a premium service called Tinder Plus, charging users for special features like searching for matches in another city, a pretty typical revenue path for online dating apps looking first for an audience and then for ways to generate revenue. But since Tinder has garnered brand recognition, the company has decided to use this to its advantage by partnering with other well-known brands. With product placement for TV shows and advertising campaigns featuring young single daters swiping left and right, Tinder is charging companies to be seen with its brand – specifically companies trying to appeal to a younger demographic.

For instance, last year Tinder was featured on The Mindy Project to help its main character find a new boyfriend, and Domino’s pizza created a Valentine’s Day advertising campaign offering deals to Tinder users. But the dating app’s latest tie-in is getting some buzz. Tinder teamed up with Gillette to analyze 100,000 male Tinder users – with facial hair and without – to see if women swiped left or right more often for the clean-shaven guys. The results? It seems Gillette won, with a vast majority – 74% of total right swipes going to the well-groomed guys - as well as 37% more matches.

Gillette put together a 30-second spot outlining the study and its results, showing groups of single women on their Tinder apps, swiping left (rejecting) guys with facial hair and then swiping right (accepting the match) for the same guys once they were clean-shaven. The women were also shown commenting on which guys looked better without facial hair.

Gillette is promoting the test results on a website called shavetest.com, as well as through YouTube. Of course, the main idea is that guys would rush out to purchase Gillette products so they can score more dates. But really, it seems the winner is Tinder, with more well-known brands trying to capitalize on its popularity and reach consumers where they are – on their phones.

No partner? No problem.

There's an app for that, because there is, no joke, an app for everything at this point.

Picture a family get-together. Picture that family asking you invasive questions about your relationship status. Picture awkwardly trying to deflect their questions. Picture inventing a fake significant other just to avoid the interrogation.

Now picture a world where that doesn't have to happen. To alleviate the social pressures single people face, St. Louis business partners Matthew Homann and Kyle Tabor decided to do the hard work for you. They created the Invisible Boyfriend and Invisible Girlfriend apps so you don't have to worry about dreaming up a believable fake date.

The apps promise a faux SO “your family can believe in” and “real-world and social proof that you’re in a relationship - even if you’re not - so you can get back to living life on your own terms.” For $24.99 a month the app offers a personalized partner constructed from a hundred text messages, 10 voicemails and one handwritten note. You'll also get crowd-sourced selfies and a story about how you met your sweetie, plus the opportunity to customize your invisible SO's name, personality, interests, and physical characteristics.

Before you start worrying you'll fall in love with your faux dream person and wind up living the real-life version of Her, Matthew Homann says it's out of the question. “We’re not trying to build something that could fool you,” he told TIME. “Our intention has always been to build something that helps you tell a better story about a relationship you’re not in.”

The apps were inspired by real life events. Nine years after Homann divorced his wife, he found himself feeling frustrated when his mother asked if he was bringing a date to Thanksgiving dinner. "In that moment I realised how great it would be to have an answer for her that didn't require me to actually be dating someone," he writes on the website. He started putting the plan into motion in 2013 and the app went live into public beta this month.

You may be wondering just how unhealthy it is to have an invisible BF or GF. That's definitely one of the stops on the crazy train, isn't it?

Gail Saltz, MD, Health‘s contributing psychology editor, says that isn't the case, as long as you're honest about why you're using the service. If it's all in fun, you have nothing to worry about. It only becomes a problem if you become so lost in the fantasy that you forget to look for real relationships.

It may even be a useful tool, Dr. Saltz adds. “Someone with a lot of social anxiety might practice with something like this as a method of making themselves more comfortable for the real thing.”

There's just one problem: what happens when your parents want to meet the new love of your life?

The latest dating app launch is capturing a lot of buzz - and aimed at marketing to the so-called “dating elite.” If you’re single and successful, The League might be the app for you.

The League has gotten attention because of its latest round of funding. Though founder Amanda Bradford was at first looking to raise half a million according to Time Magazine, she has now received $2.1 million from investors looking for the next Tinder – but without, you know – all the low-brow hook-ups.

The League differentiates itself from its competition by offering exclusivity – you have to be accepted into its network. The acceptance algorithm it uses according to Business Insider “scans the social networks to ensure applicants are in the right age group and that they are career-oriented.” The article goes on to say: “That doesn’t mean they have to be Ivy graduates or work for a big-name firm. But they should have accomplished something in their 20s.”

If you are accepted, you are given a limited number of matches each day at 5:00pm, which The League calls “Happy Hour.” You are also given the ability to refer one friend.

The League isn’t the first app to offer more “quality” matches as opposed to the giant dating pool that is Tinder. Hinge is invitation-only, working from your social media circles and offering a limited number of matches per day, as does Coffee Meets Bagel. The difference is that The League utilizes LinkedIn to find matches, avoiding direct contacts (like your boss) and working with those a little further removed. Some have argued that this blurs the line between business and personal, although eHarmony announced earlier this year they would be offering job-matching services to employers and potential employees.

So far, The League has attracted around 4,500 users from San Francisco. Like Hinge, CEO Branford wants to move slowly, city by city, to build her network in a more thoughtful way. She discovered most couples meet through school or work connections, and she wanted to optimize these already-existing networks (hence using LinkedIn for matching). In fact, she is doing much of the business networking herself by attending parties of tech execs in Silicon Valley and fundraisers in San Francisco. She walks around demonstrating her app and offering bracelets with the app’s logo to attendees.

“It isn’t an app for everybody,” Branford told the New York Times. “We’re trying to hit home that…people do have high standards.”

Online dating is evolving along with daters’ preferences. We have grown used to the idea of using technology for our personal lives, with more people online dating than ever (thanks to the rise of dating apps like Tinder).

The dating landscape has changed, even in the last few years. There is new technology of course, but there is also the growing number of singles (which consist of more than half of U.S. adults over age 18), and the fact that young adults are waiting longer to marry. So college isn’t the place you’re likely to meet your life partner – instead, it’s more likely going to be online.

With so much changing and so many singles out there, why is it still so hard to find the right person, or even to get a date from a few back-and-forth texts?

The answer might be simpler than you think. There have been several studies in recent years about our ability to make decisions, especially when we are given a lot of choices. Much like wandering into a candy store when you just want a bite of something sweet, your mind can be immediately overloaded with all the different types, brands, and flavors – so that you almost become paralyzed by the choices and unable to make a decision.

A study was conducted a few years back, where a group of people were given a choice between a few different brands of laundry detergents and asked to pick which one they’d buy. With only three or four choices, they tended to read the labels of ingredients and decide which was best based on content. They were also generally pleased with their choices.

The next group was given dozens of choices of laundry detergent. Researchers discovered when there were more than a few choices, people didn’t take any longer in making a decision - they were too overwhelmed and didn’t read the labels at all. The majority chose which detergent they would buy based solely on what the container looked like, and didn’t look at the ingredients. In fact – they were basing their decisions purely on superficial “looks,” because it was easier than trying to get to know all of their choices.

It’s no wonder we feel a bit ADD when it comes to dating, and that apps like Tinder have taken off. When we are given too much choice, it’s easier to just look at the photo and make an impulsive decision – yes or no - rather than think about what we really want. We don’t get to know people before deciding we aren’t interested in a date or even a drink. It’s too easy to think “there’s probably someone even better” while we are swiping, so we don't think twice about standing someone up or refusing to text them back.

Maybe it’s time to focus on one date at a time. Maybe we should start saying yes more often - instead of no.

Sam Yagan, the CEO of massive online dating biz Match Group (which owns Tinder and Match.com), and the cofounder of OkCupid, recently participated in a Reddit AMA to, um, interesting results.

The big thing making news is his answer to a query from Reddit user jairachi: “Being the CEO of a group that discernably specialises in finding love, have you personally used any of your services and subsequently found success?”

Yagan responded with the following bit of OkCupid trivia: “None of the four founders has ever been on an online date of any kind.”

It sounds scandalous, but before you make wisecracks about about Yagan's “ringing endorsement” of his services, read his explanation: “We were all dating our future wives when we started OkC. And before that, we were basically in college where online dating wasn't really pervasive.”

Yagan had a few other insights to add during his AMA. When asked if the free model of OkCupid attracts a different type of user than Match's subscription fee, Yagan said “Each dating product attracts a different user, and "freeness" is just one component (Tinder & OkC attract different users; Match and OurTime attract different users, etc.). So, yes, Match users and OkC users are different. I hate talking about "better quality" when referring to human beings, but it is true that people who pay for Match likely have higher intent than people on OkCupid or Tinder.”

Perhaps his most intriguing anwser came in response to the question “Is online dating 'good' for society? Why or why not, and what are the potential unintended consequences of this behavior?” Yagan thoughtfully replied that he believes dating apps make society better in three ways:

1. “Undoubtedly, greater choice leads to the selection of higher quality spouses.”
2. “Technology makes it easier to meet people who are less similar (farther away, different socioeconomic levels, different ethnicity, etc.).“
3. “The ease of getting back in the dating market makes empowers people in bad relationships to leave them, knowing that loneliness isn't the only alternative to their current situation.”

But it wasn't all smooth sailing for Sam. The Reddit community felt he left a few choice questions unanswered – naturally, the difficult or controversial ones – and was none too pleased about it.

Unfortunately, Yagan didn't respond to inquiries about spam emails, Facebook linking, and fake accounts. Fortunately, Reddit responded in its typically dry, hilarious style. “So, just like on Okcupid, you respond a couple times and disappear?” wrote user orangefolders.

“That's pretty much how those dating thing work, you only respond to those you want, and the moment it doesn't go your way, you stop responding altogether,” replied MonsterBlash.

Now here's something you don't see every day: someone who's trying to encourage you to settle.

Well, it's not really a “someone” so much as it's a “something.” A dating site, in fact. And it has the eye-catching name Settle For Love.

Now, before you turn into a self-help coach and start trashing the idea, hear what it's all about. It isn't so much about lowering your standards and accepting a sub-par partner as it is about embracing imperfection.

“It all started years ago when David was sharing crazy stories he had from meeting people through traditional dating sites,” says Settle For Love's Kickstarter page. “Dates were posting pictures from 10 years ago, hiding that they still lived with their parents, neglecting to mention they hate men, and the list goes on. It seemed traditional dating sites weren't encouraging users to do anything but sell themselves. Through these comical discussions, a clear gap was identified, and our site was born.”

A prototype was launched in 2013. A user's profile included both flattering and unflattering pictures, laid out the pros and cons of dating them, and explained what they'd be willing to settle for in a partner. The hope was that happier, healthier relationships would be the result of a more honest approach to dating. Besides, as the Kickstarter notes, “someone’s 'imperfection' may actually be an attractive quality to the right match.”

Self-awareness and a smidge of self-deprecating humor can be incredibly attractive. And there's something nice about knowing that a person can admit to their flaws. You're going to find out about them anyway – might as well list them all up front, right? That way you can decide immediately if you're actually compatible, instead of wasting time with someone only to discover after months that you're not a match.

Unfortunately, the Kickstarter failed to get full funding, but the idea is still an intriguing one. If someone could do the same idea – but bigger, better – would it stand a chance against other dating sites? Are people ready to focus more heavily on what's inside, or are we secretly all shallow regardless of what we say we want? And would taking the imperfections-first approach actually improve relationships in the long run, or just make us even more likely to reject people without actually taking the time to get to know them?

It looks like we won't know for sure this time, but I'm curious to hear what you have to say. Share your thoughts in the comments.