Bumble

Dating services have collaborated with fashion labels, food brands, artists, candlemakers, musicians, movies, television networks, sports teams and charities - but a new crop of partnership deals may be the most surprising yet. According to a recent report by the Houston Chronicle, Tinder and Bumble are hosting parties with fraternities on college campuses. In return, the fraternities are signing contracts declaring that they are exclusively a Tinder house or a Bumble house.

“Simply scan to enroll!,” read a sign posted outside a University of Texas party earlier this year, referring to a scannable QR code printed below. “Must: be within five miles of campus, be ages 18-22, have an existing Tinder profile, have UT Austin in your profile.”

Image: Bumble

Bumble announced its most recent partnership with Gen. G to create the first all-female team of professional Fortnite players.

According to CNBC, the female-friendly dating app will also become the official partner for Kristen Valnicek (a.k.a. KittyPlays), a content creator and Twitch player who is head of new gaming initiatives for Gen. G, a global esports organization that was originally founded in South Korea.

Image: Bumble

Dating app Bumble is going all-in on its mission to empower women. The latest move is launching a new ad campaign to help combat loneliness, featuring activist and actress Jameela Jamil.

The #askingforafriend campaign launches August 4th in honor of International Friendship Day, and will focus on encouraging Bumble users to build friendships to counter the growing problem of loneliness around the world. According to studies, social media is part of the problem, with one in five people saying browsing through their feeds makes them feel lonely.

Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe

Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd spoke out against parent company Badoo in the wake of allegations made by more than a dozen employees that it promoted a toxic work culture, especially for women.

An exclusive by Forbes revealed allegations made by thirteen former Badoo employees who worked at the company’s London headquarters, citing a sexist office culture with drug-fueled parties, employees naming engineering updates after porn stars, and a widely circulated video of an employee receiving oral sex from a prostitute.

Forbes also said the employees specifically named Badoo owner Andrey Andreev, who also owns a majority stake in Bumble, of making derogatory comments around race and physical appearance.

Bumble Voice Chat and Video Call

Image: Bumble

Leading the way for major dating apps, Bumble launched an exciting new feature for its platform: in-app video and voice calls. It will soon be available in Bumble Bizz, Bumble BFF and its signature dating app.

The new feature is similar to Facetime, in that you can voice or video call a match directly from within the Bumble app. The ability to make an in-app call will be available only once a match has been made, according to Tech Crunch. In other words, there must be a double opt-in so users won’t be getting unsolicited calls from random users.

A new study found that dating app users tripled in India over the course of 2018, thanks mainly to women.

Dating app usage in the Indian market has huge potential, and not just because of the impressive growth over the last year. Overall user penetration still rather low at 2.7 percent as of 2018, but it’s expected to hit 3.2 percent by 2023 according to online market researcher Statista. Analysts also expect the market to be valued at $100 million in the next five to eight years, according to a report in LiveMint.