Milestones

Popular dating app Bumble is a rising star among competitors to Tinder, mainly because of its female-friendly focus, giving women the power to initiate contact with matches. Now, Bumble is expanding beyond the dating scene with its new platform BumbleBizz, aiming to connect professionals looking for a new job, a business partner, or to hire new talent.

According to a feature in Fast Company, Bumble aims to give LinkedIn a run for their money, focusing once again on women in the workplace. Bumble itself is a female-only operation, with CEO Whitney Wolfe (a former co-founder of Tinder), at the helm. She has hired a team of women to help grow the company and launch BumbleBizz.

Notably, Wolfe is aiming to attract women. BumbleBizz works as its dating app counterpart does, where anyone can create profiles and swipe, but women initiate contact. While LinkedIn might be king of networking opportunities, Bumble aims to give it a run for its money by targeting a female demographic and giving them a leg-up.

Online dating corporation Match Group was reported to have made an offer to purchase dating app Bumble for $450 million this summer, according to a report by website Tech Crunch.

Match Group is the parent company to a number of dating apps, including popular Bumble competitors Match, Plenty of Fish, OkCupid and Tinder. It seems Bumble hasn’t accepted the offer, which is understandable since some analysts value the company at almost a billion dollars.

Bumble has a rocky history with Match Group as well, which could play a part in any decision about an acquisition. Bumble’s founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe sued Tinder and IAC in 2014, (when Match Group was a part of IAC). Wolfe was one of the co-founders of Tinder, and brought a sexual harassment lawsuit against her ex-boyfriend Justin Mateen, who also happened to be one of Tinder’s co-founders and the CMO. Wolfe accused him of sending her “sexist, racist, and otherwise inappropriate comments, emails, and text messages” following their very public breakup. The two parties settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, with neither side admitting any wrongdoing.

Jdates New Look

Earlier this month Jdate.com new makeover was launched along with an updated logo design. The JDate dating apps for iOS and Android also was updated to version 3.0.0 supporting a new and improved interface and features. Not to be left out, the JDate online magazine Jlife also got a face lift as well. All of these updates are designed with JDate users in mind and are focused on making the online dating experience easier, more streamlined, and engaging.

One of the main changes includes profile browsing. It has been simplified offering 5 main options for sorting members including New, Online, Distance, Match %, and LookBook. Each of these views are based on what you are seeking (called Discovery Preferences) and include attributes like gender and age range. These can be easily changed on the browsing page (or on your profile) to refine your searching.

Singles in New York have a new way to date, network, recharge, and bee social in the big city. Bumble, the popular female-focused dating app, has opened its first physical location in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood. The pop-up installation has been dubbed ‘The Hive’ and is set to remain open for the month of June.

The space is decked out from head-to-toe in Bumble’s branding, featuring yellow walls, honeycomb shapes, and plenty of bee-related puns. The Hive is open to anyone who wants to stop by - users and non-users alike - whether they’re looking for a date spot, a place to hang with friends, a co-working space, or just a respite from the constant buzz of city life.

“It will follow the format of Bumble and offer something for everyone,” Whitney Wolfe, founder and chief executive officer of Bumble, told Mashable. “A place for dates to meet, friends to do activities together, and co-working for our bizz users. Bumble has allowed you to build your hive digitally, and now we’re giving you an extension of that physically.”

The company that popularized mobile dating has now announced the launch of a new desktop platform for its service, dubbed Tinder Online.

Tinder Online takes an old-school approach to online dating with its latest offering, a web-optimized version of its app that is more reminiscent of its predecessor's desktop applications, a la Match and eHarmony. Tinder’s new platform requires the same login process of signing up with your Facebook account, but currently it is only offering the free basic service. Tinder Online doesn’t include certain revenue features like “Super like” and “Tinder Boost,” so it’s not yet clear how Tinder will try and monetize the new platform.

According to Tinder’s blog, the move was aimed at serving users who were struggling with the app’s storage and WiFi capabilities:

Spring is off to a big start for MeetMe. The social discovery service recently announced the beta launch of a live video feature in its popular applications, followed a few days later by a completed acquisition and a rebrand to The Meet Group.

MeetMe introduced Live to the world on March 30. Live is a one-to-many video feature that allows users to broadcast themselves, watch other users’ broadcasts, and chat in real time. The feature is now available to MeetMe’s beta community, with plans to roll out to more users in the coming weeks.

After the completion of the initial rollout, MeetMe intends to launch new freemium products within the video streams to help monetize the feature and encourage broadcasters to produce high-quality content. The company also expects to bring the feature to its Skout mobile applications later in the year.