Mobile

Use it or lose it. That’s the motto men on Bumble will have to live by from now on. The dating app just announced that male users are now required to reply to women's messages within 24 hours or they lose the match.

Bumble has always been unique. At first glance, you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for Tinder 2.0 - but look closer and you’ll notice the key difference that has made the app a hit in its own right. Once a pair is matched on Bumble, only the woman can send a message. If she doesn’t do it within 24 hours, her match buzzes off into cyberspace, never to be seen again.

By requiring women to make the first move, Bumble takes a feminist stance and places power firmly in female users’ hands. The new update levels the playing field between the sexes even further by requiring men to respond within the same timeframe.

Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe told Mashable that the goal was to make it an “even keel” experience. "She was held to 24 hours to reach out to you,” Wolfe said. “We feel it's only fair you're confined to the same rules." Previously, men had unlimited time to answer messages.

"I know the whole idea is that it's empowering women, but it also just puts the ball in the guy's court and starts a 'wait and see' game," New Yorker Lauren Drell told Mashable. "It means we need to rush but then a guy can take their time in replying back and vetting options."

Wolfe also says that by applying the 24-hour restriction to all users, they can't "rack up" their number of matches anymore - a common practice on other platforms. "It's helping objectify women less," she explained.

A final goal for the new rule is to prevent ghosting, an increasingly prevalent phenomenon in online dating. According to data from Fortune magazine, 80% of Millennials have been ghosted at some point. Bumble has found that the number of messages sent and chats initiated has significantly increased since the introduction of the time limit.

Male responses to female-initiated chats have gone up 18%, and a chat is 70% more likely to continue once there is a reply. The app has also witnessed a 9% increase in women sending the first message since men are replying to their initial message.

Bumble is confident that the good news will keep coming. Along with being the most frequently requested feature, says Wolfe, testing in the UK found that the male 24-hour timer increased response rate by 20%.

Tinder has just released an update to its app. Now, Tinder users in New York City (where the new feature is being tested) can play "matchmaker" with other users by sharing profiles in their social networks outside of Tinder.

WIth the new feature, these users can share profiles of other users on messaging apps like Slack, Evernote, and Gmail, or social platforms like Linked In, Tumblr, GroupMe, and Wunderlist. Tinder users however are not able to share profiles over Facebook.

In theory, a matchmaking feature on Tinder makes sense because of the sheer volume of users - it expands your network and opportunities even more. The downside of this latest update is that other people on Tinder can take your profile, post and share it wherever they want, and you have no control.

People post their profiles on Tinder knowing that other users of the app can swipe and accept or reject them, but like with online dating sites where users don't necessarily want their work colleagues or family members to know they are signed up - swiping and matching has always been done within the confines of the app. Even though you sign up on Tinder with your Facebook account, and photos are pulled from your Facebook page, your activity on Tinder isn’t posted to your Facebook account for all to see. The two are kept separate for privacy. 

Our work and love lives have generally been kept separate for good reason. Let’s say you have a business meeting with some important clients, who are connected through your boss (and to you) on a platform like Slack or LinkedIn. You probably wouldn’t want them to know how you present yourself on a dating app – as it could be very different from your professional persona. In Slack, you can send a Tinder profile you received to your entire work team if you want. In LinkedIn, you can share the Tinder profile with the general LinkedIn public. (This might make for a good revenge plot if you are upset with a co-worker or an ex girlfriend.)

If you share over Wunderlist, you can essentially make the profile you are sharing part of your “to-do” list. If you want to save and read someone’s profile later, you can do this when you share with Pocket.

Once you share a profile, the recipient gets a link to open the profile in Tinder. If they don’t have an account, they are prompted to join in order to view. (The shared links expire after 72 hours or five clicks, so at least there is a limit on sharing one profile.)

New York is a testing ground for this app feature, so it might be tweaked before it’s launched to other cities.

Will this new feature work for Tinder users? It's hard to tell, but it definitely will make online dating not only more interconnected, but more complicated. When you blur the lines between public and personal and don't give people the capacity to maintain some control over their own profiles, chances are, they won't stick around.

 

Badoo recently launched a photo verification feature which asks new users to verify their profile by sending one to Badoo of them performing a specific gesture which allows a Badoo moderator to compare the person in the photo with the rest of the users photos. If they matched then the photo's and profile for that member is deemed verified.

Last week Badoo let us know that they have added a new feature to their iOS and Android dating apps which allows users to upload 15 second video clips. Before going live the video will be reviewed for inappropriate content by one of Badoo's 5,000 moderators (the same ones which review photos). Badoo decided to add this feature because videos allows online daters to get a sense of what the person they are interested is like. You can expect to see video's from members which show their sense of humor, creative skills, unique quirks, and other insights from the member.

For more about this dating service you can read our review of Badoo.

Some break-ups are worse than others, but all break-ups can take a toll on our mental and emotional state. How many times have you chosen to distract yourself from the pain and sadness you feel? Probably more than you think – sometimes by going out with friends, drinking, or having sex, and other times by throwing yourself into work, a hobby or a new fitness routine.

Now, more and more of us are turning to dating apps to swipe and feel that little “rush” from matching with a new profile or engaging in some flirtatious messaging. And why not? It’s healthy to flirt, to meet new people, right?

Not necessarily. Using dating apps as a distraction – to swipe through endless profiles – can work against you and delay the healing process after a break-up. As a writer for website Bustle described it: “An unexpected match with an attractive guy would briefly pull me out from under the cloud of sadness, and it validated my future dating potential in the most superficial way possible. At the time, I knew that it was wrong for the approval of random strangers to mean more to me than the unconditional support from my friends and family, but I didn't want to stop swiping: the next match could always be better than the last…After the fleeting glow from a witty text exchange faded, the positive feelings about myself did, too.”

Distracting ourselves isn’t always the best thing for getting over a break-up. Healing is a process – it’s good to feel your emotions and come to terms with your broken heart. Healthy transformation comes from this process of sitting with pain so we can let go and move on. Distraction only serves to delay our healing.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s good to throw yourself into something healthy, like joining a new running group or growing that garden you always wanted. But when you try and ignore your feelings, opting for quick fixes like the rush from swiping through a dating app, it can backfire.

The “high” you feel from superficial interaction is fleeting, and can leave you feeling worse than you did before – and more likely to swipe. In fact, swiping can become a validation exercise, rather than a healthy way to meet dates. You don’t want to confuse the app itself with your ability to connect with people.

Our self worth doesn’t come from how many matches or messages we get, or how many opportunities we have to meet new people. We have to feel grounded in ourselves – confident in our abilities, independence, and worthiness – rather than dependent on what others think – especially random strangers over text.

So next time you are tempted to login to Tinder after a break-up because you are in desperate need of distraction or validation, call your friend and go out for dinner instead. You’ll be happier and healthier in the long run.

 

There seems to be a new dating app launching every week. In such a crowded market, you’d think investors and developers would shy away from creating something new, but it seems everyone is trying to take a piece of the dating market away from Tinder.

However, I came across a new app trying in a more interesting way to differentiate itself from the popular app – not by being more “female-focused” or offering profile verification as other competing apps are doing, but by focusing on what the actual goal is – the real-life date.

Dating app Dine offers users a chance to match not only through common interests, but through restaurant preferences. According to the company, the goal is to get you from an online match to an actual date – dinner or drinks – as quickly as possible. (Avoiding the Tinder problem of messaging endlessly with no results.) The app is integrated with Yelp to offer local eating choices.

Dine is owned by Mrk & Co., founded by veterans of Japanese gaming giant DeNA, which Nintendo partnered with to bring its games to Smartphones last year. But Dine isn’t incorporating the game-like elements of Tinder or its parent companies' popular games in its dating app. Its premise is similar to dating website How About We, where people can search for matches based on ideas they come up with for a first date. But Dine is all about the eating experience.

The concept of Dine is simple: After filling out your profile, you pick three restaurants or bars where you’d want to meet for a date. Dine offers you 2-5 potential matches per day, along with which three places they chose, so you can request to go on a date at a particular location.

When you send someone a date request and they match (accept), you can message each other. However – Dine provides users with suggested messages ready to go, with the language focused on scheduling a date and time for your meet-up. Of course you can erase their suggestions and add your own message, but the app is focused on getting you to set the date and meet in person.

According to an article in Business Insider, about half of accepted requests lead to actual dates within a two-week period, at least for the beta phase of the Dine app launch.

Dine has now launched all over the U.S. and Canada. Also noteworthy: Apple was impressed enough with the concept to feature it on its list of "best new apps".

Tinder, Bumble, and Coffee Meets Bagel may inspire most of the buzz in the mobile dating industry, but it’s Badoo that’s now celebrating a major milestone. The London-based company has just become the first ever dating app to reach 100 million downloads in the Google Play store.

“We’re really excited about today’s milestone,” said Alexandra Chong, President of Badoo, in a statement. “With 10 years of existence, Badoo has the industry’s deepest insights and experience, and knows how to use this wealth of information to create a fantastic user experience and sustain incredible growth and momentum.”

Other companies in the 100 million club on Android include Whatsapp, Snapchat, Spotify, and Twitter - but a surprising number of big names (from the aforementioned Tinder to Amazon, Uber, and Pinterest) haven’t yet cracked the nine-digit mark.

Along with that big news comes the launch of a timely new feature. Badoo is putting privacy and security at the forefront of the product by introducing a new photo verification system designed to combat catfishing. To get a picture verified, users must submit a selfie with a pose requested by Badoo. The gestures are not common, like a thumbs-up, but rather unique and specific.

Once the image has been submitted, Badoo’s team of over 5,000 moderators across the globe review it to ensure it follows the directions and matches the other photos on the profile. The entire process can reportedly be completed in less than one minute.

For an additional layer of safety, users can opt to be matched only with verified users. Chong says the selfie scheme was devised to make the verification process fun instead of tedious. After testing other possibilities, selfies were the clear winner. Moving forward, existing users will be encouraged to verify their account and 100% of new Badoo users worldwide will be required to go through the process.

Badoo hopes the new feature release will aid its push into the United States. The company has plans to open its first office in the US and will begin a marketing/PR campaign to announce its arrival. Chong says the company has also set its sights on solving other problems that plague the online and mobile dating worlds.

“We hear a lot of complaints about people chatting forever online and never meeting face-to-face,” she told Forbes. “So we developed a great, innovative feature to address that. It will be launching in the coming months, so stay tuned!”. For more on this dating app please read our Badoo review