Dating Services

Move over Tinder, there’s a new Facebook-based mobile dating app in Los Angeles.

Hinge likes to call itself the “anti-Facebook” for good reason. Instead of relying on GPS and matching whoever happens to be close by, Hinge tries to connect you to potential love matches through your Facebook friends and their networks. So, you’re not meeting “randos” like you might through Tinder.

Recently, The Huffington Post interviewed the founder and CEO of Hinge Justin McLeod, who mentioned that Tinder didn’t even exist when he was developing Hinge. Because of the app’s slower roll-out to the major cities – first in Washington D.C. and next in New York, and a lot of word-of-mouth advertising - many people have caught on and downloaded it before it was even available in their cities, including 6,000-7,000 L.A. singles.

When asked what the main difference is between Hinge and Tinder, McLeod says: “It’s interesting because Tinder started in LA, and I think it’s one of the places where it’s worn out the quickest. From what I hear, people thought it was cool when it started, but people burned through all of their matches and now the quality has gone down. I think [with Hinge] we have a great long-term solution for that because we have a curated app that gives you a limited number of matches each day.”

The app skews a little older and more professional than your typical Tinder users, too. Ninety percent of users are between the ages of 23 and 36, and 99% are college-educated. Most work in either consulting, banking, law, tech or media. McLeod believes the entertainment and legal industries will be strongest in L.A.

The best part? Hinge doesn’t seem to be loaded with guys looking to get laid. In fact, women comprise a little more than half the users at 50.2%, whereas 49.8% of men are using the app. It is a more equal distribution. (Hear that L.A. guys?)

According to Hinge’s website, there are many reasons to go with Hinge rather than relying on Tinder or the bar scene. It states that “if you meet someone at a bar vs. through friends, your date is 5 times more likely to lie about his relationship status, 14 times more likely to lie about his age, and four times as likely to have a one-night stand and never call you again.”

While these are good selling points for Hinge, there are still problems the dating app is working out, like how fast people can move from being matched to actually communicating and setting up a date. Because Hinge only matches you with a maximum of 15 people a day, you’re less likely to go through all of your connections. However, it makes the communication process a lot slower – with Tinder, it’s easier to sort through matches and meet up quickly.

Hinge is now available to L.A. residents, and is free to download. If you are interested in this service you should check out our new Hinge review.

eHarmony recently launched a new service called eH+, which provides professional matchmaking for those willing to pay a fee for more personalized service. Now, the company is introducing Ashley, the matchmaker behind the new service.

Before you start envisioning sessions with Patti Stanger and some TV-worthy drama, Ashley is much more focused on understanding her client’s perspectives. She finds out where they seem to be running into roadblocks in their love lives, and what might be holding them back. She works with them through one-on-one conversation, feedback, and a focus on finding a mutually beneficial relationship.

According to eHarmony, Ashley’s focus is to create a great connection with her clients so that she’s better able to help you find a long-term, lasting relationship. She’s earned Master’s degrees in Marital and Family Therapy and a Doctorate in Psychology, so she’s trained to work with people to help cultivate healthy relationships.

So what does all of this personal service cost? It’s not cheap at $5,000 per year. But if you really are focused on finding the right relationship and you don’t want to spend hours in front of your computer pouring over profiles and sorting through all of eHarmony’s guided communication, this might be for you.

In fact, with eH+ you don’t even need a computer. You can talk to Ashley via phone or Skype (or however you prefer). She also calls you when she finds a match for you. It’s a good option for busy professionals who are looking for a little more personalized service, like hand-picked matches and follow-ups after dates.

eH+ sounds similar to traditional matchmaking services that provide one-on-one support to their clients, but instead of relying on a smaller pool of people, eHarmony can pull from its vast database to find you quality matches. In essence, eHarmony’s matching system is still doing the technical work of sifting through thousands of profiles to find the right matches for you, and the professional matchmaker is providing an extra level of service to help you improve your dating skills and connect with the person who is the best match.

According to eHarmony founder Neil Clark Warren, eHarmony has now 762,000 paying members, up 50% from last year. They won’t disclose how many people have signed up for the eH+ service, but Warren claims there has been great response.

eHarmony has its sights set to the future, though – and they are moving beyond the dating world. The company’s next focus is matching people with the right job. “Sixty-five to seventy-five percent of people in US are not happy with their job,” according to Warren. “They can be if they match on both the cultural basis with the company they work for and on individual personality basis with the person to whom they report," he said.

A new kind of LinkedIn based on eHarmony matching? I’d be curious to check it out.

To find out more about this dating site you can read our review of eHarmony.

Anyone who has dated online knows that it's one of the biggest drains on time and energy ever. It's not that it isn't fun, it is, it's just that it's also a lot of work. Between the spambots, scammers, and plain old average liars, an entire lifetime could be spent just separating the real profiles from the fake ones. Who has time for that?

No one, that's who, so thankfully a new service called Mesh promises to do it for you.

The goal of the New York City-based startup, who says their product is still in "pre-beta,” is to "[m]ake online dating enjoyable and trustworthy again." Some might debate whether online dating (or maybe even dating at all) was ever enjoyable or trustworthy, but for now let's give Mesh the benefit of the doubt.

Launched last fall, Mesh claims to help online daters prevent “creepy and sleazy messages, stalkers, overly aggressive types” and other undesirables from cluttering up your inbox. Some might say that being denied the pleasure of rejecting people takes all the fun out of online dating, but even the most hard-hearted of daters could probably stand to free up some time in their schedules for something else.

Mesh takes a several-pronged approach to protecting you:

• Sub-par messages – those that include vulgarity, text-speak, poor grammar/spelling, and copy-and-pasted content - are automatically filtered into a Mismatch folder so you never have to see them.
• Before a potential match can message you, they must first prove that they see eye-to-eye with you on the essential questions you set as your Dealbreakers.
• Privacy settings are specific and taken very seriously. You can keep some preferences hidden (if you’re looking for a particular relationship, appearance, religion, etc) and Mesh will never connect, link, or publish anything to your Facebook profile.

Other perks of Mesh include an ad-free experience, more options for gender identification, and a “Perfect For” feature that allows users to set friends up with people they think they’ll like.

"The current crop of free online dating sites are broken," founder and CEO Asher Snyder said in a press release on Street Insider last week. "Harassment and undesirable vulgarity runs unchecked while quality messages get lost in the shuffle, leaving many women with a negative experience. Together with the team, we spent nearly a year reinventing online dating, using advanced technologies, better algorithms, and beautiful functional designs our generation expects. The result is like no other online dating service currently available. We hope not only to bring people together better, but to make online dating enjoyable and trustworthy again."

Most of us know about dating apps like Tinder that can help you meet people. But what if you need help picking out a good restaurant to meet a date, or what line should you use to approach a woman at a bar? Don’t worry, there are apps for those things, too.

Apps can give you a wealth of creative ideas for everything from where to go on a first date to how to pick out a good wine. An app can be a lifesaver if you get lost on your way to someplace new, or if you need last-minute tickets to a concert. It can also be a good source for discounts, since dating can get expensive.

Following are some apps you must download today to help your dating life – just be sure to put your phone away once you’re on the date:

Do you consider yourself an open-minded dater? If you live in L.A. or New York your potential dates are not as open-minded as you might assume. In fact, Las Vegas is the number one city for daters who are more receptive to others who don't share the same beliefs - not the coastal cities.

Dating website Zoosk looked at a sample of about a million of its members to see what regions in the U.S. had the most open-minded daters. The site looked at members’ willingness to date someone with different viewpoints on important topics such as children, religion, previous marriages, and education – and unveiled that coastal and generally forward-thinking cities aren’t as open-minded when it comes to who they will date.

Cities in the heartland - Las Vegas Nevada, Detroit Michigan and Columbus Ohio - made the top three on the list of cities with the most open-minded daters. Rounding out the bottom, where you’ll find the least open-minded daters, was Raleigh North Carolina, San Jose California, and Birmingham Alabama.

In addition to overall open-mindedness, the study looked at the breakdown of different topics that are important subjects for daters, such as religion. They found that singles in San Jose, California are the most open-minded about dating someone outside of their religion, while singles in Birmingham, Alabama are the least open-minded.

Educational disparity can be a deal-breaker for some daters. Salt Lake City, Utah has the highest concentration of singles willing to date someone with a different level of education, while singles in San Jose, California predominantly look for a partner with the same level of education.

And what about those who have been married before? Would you be willing to date someone who’s divorced? As it turns out, singles in Salt Lake City, Utah are most open to dating someone who was previously married, while singles in Hartford, Connecticut are least likely to consider the option.

Body type can be a concern for daters, too. San Antonio, Texas has the highest concentration of singles willing to date someone with a different body type than their own, while singles in Louisville, Kentucky largely look for a partner with a similar physique.

And what about smoking and drinking habits? Singles who reside in Nashville, Tennessee are most open to dating someone who has different smoking habits, while singles in Miami, Florida are least likely to do so. Providence, Rhode Island singles are most open to dating someone whose drinking habits differ from their own, unlike singles in San Jose, California who are not.

Zoosk just filed for IPO last month, but already the hype is huge. Upon the announcement of its plans to go public, Zoosk was dubbed ‘the Netflix of dating’ by the media and investor interest shot through the roof.

The "dating services" industry was valued at $2.1 billion in annual revenue by IBISWorld in September 2013. 68.7% of that figure comes from online and mobile dating services. IBISWorld predicts that the market as a whole will grow by 5% over the course of the next four years. The biggest players in the industry are names that are familiar to everyone, whether or not they have ever used the services: Match.com, OkCupid, eHarmony.

Zoosk may be smaller, but it’s no slouch. The online dating platform has over 26 million members, including approximately 650,000 subscribers across 80 countries. Zoosk’s membership grew from 18 million in 2012 to its current numbers, while the number of paying subscribers over the same period grew from 483,000 to 650,000. The company anticipates continued revenue growth based on its unique business model that’s similar to Netflix or Pandora.

What Zoosk has in common with those two Internet giants is its complex proprietary behavioral matchmaking engine. The technology analyzes your behavior on the site – from who you click yes on to who you linger on a little longer before saying no – to get to know you better (possibly even better than you know yourself). By tracking your actions on the website and evaluating your preferences based on it, Zoosk hopes to be able to anticipate your love life's every need, in the same way that Pandora guesses what kind of music you’ll like and Netflix suggests movies it thinks you should watch.

Of course, the stakes are a little higher when you can't just press pause or hit a skip button when you're not satisfied with the choice. Still, Zoosk is thriving. At the end of 2013, it was the highest grossing dating app and one of the top 25 highest grossing iPhone apps of the year. With a 2.9% market share, according to the IBISWorld report, Zoosk is one of the biggest players in the game.

That being said, Zoosk is not profitable. The company posted net losses of $2.6 million last year and admitted that it “may not achieve or sustain profitability in the future" in its S-1 filing with the SEC. For the future, if the IPO is to be successful (and the company as a whole), Zoosk will need to increase brand awareness via public relations, social media, and advertising. Zoosk must also create an effective system for retaining users and continue to expand its presence on mobile.

For more on this dating service you can read our Zoosk review.