Online Dating

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:

Dating is full of clichés, and online dating is even worse. If I see one more person who describes themselves as “fun” or says they like “hanging out with friends” (or, God forbid, that they like “candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach”) I am going to throw my laptop out the window in a fit of rage. Could you possibly be any more boring?

Most online clichés should be ignored, but there’s one overused online dating phrase that’s worth paying attention to: “no drama.”

Yes, it sounds incredibly annoying and to be honest I would probably never date someone who used it. That being said, I do think it has value. We all like to complain about the drama others bring into our lives, but when was the last time you stopped to ask yourself if you’re the reason there's drama in your relationships? If you find yourself in bad relationship after bad relationship, it's time to face the music: the common denominator is you.

Next time you see an online dating profile that says drama queens need not apply, ask yourself a few questions:

• Are you ready to have fun? If a new relationship is coming directly on the heels of the previous one, you may not have given your self sufficient time to heal. On the other hand, if it's been forever since you last dipped your toes in the dating pool, you might be feeling totally lost. Getting back into the swing of things means being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Sometimes you’ll be rejected. Sometimes someone you're interested in will simply disappear. Sometimes a date will go totally haywire. If you're not ready to face every eventuality – and have fun while doing it - there's a good chance drama will follow.
• How confident are you? Dating isn't always easy. In fact, it can be downright brutal. Things will happen that will make you forget how totally awesome you are. The minute your confidence takes a hit, you start behaving in ways that sink it even further. Low self-esteem leads to neediness, to dependency, and to attention-seeking behavior. When you don't feel good about yourself internally, you'll find yourself desperately seeking external validation. None of this is healthy. None of this is attractive. And all of it = drama.
• Have you fully moved on from your last relationship? Hello, drama central! One of the easiest ways to doom a relationship is to enter it before you're ready. It’s never smart to start dating right away after the end of a relationship. It might feel like a fix, but that fix is only temporary. You’ll end up dragging the baggage from the previous relationship over to the new one, dooming things with your new date from the very beginning. When a relationship ends, stay single until you're ready to date again with confidence, happiness, an open heart, and absolutely zero ex drama.

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.

Spring is a time of renewal, and in keeping with the theme of the season, Match.com has unveiled a freshly redesigned mobile experience for iPhone users. Match 3.0 for iOS took major cues from Apple's own iOS7 overhaul, even redesigning the Match.com logo for 2014. But the biggest inspiration for the new Match mobile app was its competitors.

Prior to the app’s makeover, it was a carbon copy of the Match.com website. These days, the mobile application includes original features that were built specifically for smartphones and can't be found online. The app now opens to a Discover page containing two brand new features: Stream and Mixer.

Stream serves up photos of singles close to your location utilizing an innovative algorithm that analyzes your preferences. The feature highlights additional photos and a member's profile as well as the primary profile picture, giving a greater glimpse into his or her personality. Match President Amarnath Thombre spoke proudly to TechCrunch about the new feature:

“The challenge was to leverage all the rich data that Match has about users, like secondary photos and information from their bio, and make it super lightweight,” Thombre said. “With the Stream, users can see a lot of information about their potential matches without ever clicking in to anything.”

Mixer is Match’s attempt to capitalize on the explosive success of Tinder. Scroll through a rapid-fire presentation of profiles. Swipe right if you're interested; swipe left if you're not interested. You can also like photos and send messages from within Mixer.

Other new features include:

• Threaded messaging. Messages are now organized in conversations, enabling you to easily preserve the history between you and a match. “Delivered” and “read” receipts are included.
• Easier photo uploading. There are now three different ways to add photos from within the app’s interface.
• In-app notifications. In-app notifications make it easier for users to stay connected.
• In-app purchasing. For the first time, users have the ability to purchase subscriptions and additional features while signed into the app.
• More ways to communicate. Communication can begin as soon as you launch the app and can be continued in multiple different ways, from Stream to Daily Matches, and even directly from a members’ photo. Single-click payment is now available.

Of course, in addition to all the new features, the updated app still includes traditional search and matching, but the experience has been redesigned to be more mobile-friendly. Considering that 50% of Match.com’s sign-ups come from mobile, and more than half of messages sent between users come from smartphones, the new generation of Match's iPhone app is coming not a moment too soon.

Here is our Match.com review where you can find more information on this service.

IAC has released its first quarter 2014 financial results. All in all, the company reports $740.2 million in revenue for Q1 2014, more or less on par with the $742.2 million in revenue of Q1 2013.

Websites revenue increased thanks to the acquisition of the “Owned & Operated” website businesses of ValueClick (which the company acquired in January of this year), the contribution of CityGrid Media, and growth at About.com. On the other hand, applications revenue decreased, primarily due to lower queries in B2B. Adjusted EBITDA decreased as well, as a result of lower revenue in B2B and higher marketing expense in B2C.

The Match Group – which includes Match.com, Chemistry, People Media, OkCupid, and other dating businesses – saw 9% growth in dating revenue (broken down into 7% growth in North America and 12% growth in International). Non-dating revenue grew 53%. Despite the higher revenue, driven mostly by increased subscribers, IAC’s profits declined due to a significant increase in marketing expenses for certain businesses.

Dating revenue for North America totaled $134.5 million in Q1 2014, up 7% from $125.6 million in Q1 2013. International dating revenue jumped 12% to $70.5 million in Q1 2014 from $63.2 million in Q1 2013. Combining both, IAC’s total dating revenue for Q1 2014 is $205 million, an increase of 9% from $188.9 million in Q1 2013.

The question now, of course, is what does the rest of 2014 have in store for IAC?

One major change that stands to make a huge impact on IAC's bottom line is the monetization of Tinder. Though IAC has declined to specify its exact ownership stake in the company, it has said that Tinder is now completely owned by IAC and Tinder executives, with CEO Sean Rad at the helm. The hugely popular mobile dating app is the hottest company in IAC's portfolio, but it doesn't yet generate any revenue. IAC has announced that 2014 will be the year that changes, though they've been vague so far about the exact way that monetization will take place.

The most obvious strategy would be to run ads on the service. In fact, it wouldn't be the first time it's happened. Fox used fake profiles to promote The Mindy Project, as did the USA Network program Suits, though they did not bring Tinder or IAC any revenue and a company spokesperson maintains that the campaigns were "strategic partnerships" rather than advertising.

Happily ad-free Tinder users should enjoy the experience while it lasts – with all the money-making potential the app packs, it’s probably only a matter of time before ads become the new norm.

Dating and communication between two potential romantic partners has reached a whole new level thanks to the growing popularity of apps. If you’re nervous or shy, you can approach a woman or man through an app and never experience firsthand rejection. You can swipe left or right, without having that uncomfortable conversation if one of you isn’t interested.

Tinder is an app where users interact with each other through profiles and information pulled from Facebook. You can see, at least through photos, who is messaging you. But other apps are surfacing to channel all of that flirting through a new, underground form of communication.

Truth is the latest in a series of anonymous messaging apps that sends private flirtations or missives to people on your contacts list. It's undercover one-on-one messaging between friends.

So, if you like a guy but aren’t sure if he likes you, you can hide behind an avatar and anonymous username with Truth to message him and see if he might be interested. If he doesn’t have Truth on his phone, he can download it to read your message, making him another user. This is a cool and exciting feature for shy types.

On the other hand, if you want to slam your friend without her knowing who did it, you can do that, too.

Truth is different from popular apps like Secret and Whisper because it utilizes your own contacts list instead of broadcasting through a feed like Twitter. So, the focus of communication is between friends. But all of these apps share one thing in common – they allow you to be anonymous. Which means in the online world – you can say or do whatever you want with no accountability.

One of the objectives for the app is to allow people who are uncomfortable flirting or asking someone out face-to-face a means to do it without having to feel the sting of rejection. On the other hand, it’s a perfect platform for bullying.

Truth’s co-founder Ali Saheli tells website Mashable that, “We try to keep it light and playful,” but acknowledges that from day one they have seen the potential for abuse. He estimates content reported as abusive represents less than 5% of all messages. "The most common usage is flirting with classmates. And obviously we've seen a range of uses, like people giving feedback in workplaces.”

The app has taken off among the most vulnerable age groups – specifically high school and college-aged people. But is it making dating any easier or a better experience? As one young woman told Mashable, “You're just playing a game to figure things out."

If you would like to try the Truth app you can visit their site called Use Truth.