Mobile

Now that Tinder has announced the integration of Instagram into its dating app, daters might become more self-conscious about posting selfies or an abundance of food photos. After all, if someone’s interested in your profile and wants to look further, it gives him/her more reason to judge you and move on.

That can be pretty stressful to your low-key dating style on Tinder. But if you are watching what you post – and want to put your best face forward, so to speak – then you might want to consider these tips about the kind of photos to avoid posting.

No drunk shots. It might seem festive to include a picture of you downing that margarita for Cinco de Mayo, but it might make your dates wonder if you party too much. Avoid polarizing potential dates based on a few weekend nights out having fun – find activities that represent who you are in your normal, every day life.

Keep group photos out. If you post a group photo, not only will potential dates wonder which one you are, but they are more likely to want to date your friends. Don’t fall into this trap – everyone has friends, so there’s no reason to promote it, and if you want to show off how attractive yours are, it will backfire.

Ease up on duck faces. The rise of the selfie has also resulted in the popularity of making duck faces at the camera. While you might rock your pout, don’t advertise it on Tinder. People don’t want to see your Kylie Jenner impression, they want to know who you are and what you really look like. Also, try smiling instead.

No posing with celebrities or ultra nice objects, like sports cars. I know you’re proud of that photo you took with George Clooney, or that you just bought a new car. Please don’t pose next to them for your Tinder photos. This is really screaming to potential dates: “I’m desperate for attention.”

Include a body shot. If you have nothing but shots of your face, people will make assumptions about what you’re not posting – your body. They might assume you’re hiding something, or you’ve lied about your weight or appearance in some way. Don’t let this happen. Be straightforward, and try to have a little fun with it.

Avoid all those photos of your pet and/or your food. You've heard this before, but please avoid posting all those pics of your adorable dog or cat making faces, sleeping, cuddling, whatever. Show these to your friends, not your potential dates. The same goes for food, no matter how artfully you’ve captured that plate of sushi. Endless pictures of food doesn’t tell your date anything about who you are, what you like, or how you spend time – except that you like to eat pretty things. The focus of your profile should be you.

For more about this dating app you can take a look at our Tinder review.

Tired of meeting flaky people over dating apps like Tinder? Turns out, there’s a reason for all the disappearing acts: a recent study by GlobalWebIndex reported that up to 42% of the population on Tinder are already in relationships. And incredibly, 3 in 10 users are married. Before you start bashing men, the report also broke down information by gender, and it turns out that married and taken women on Tinder outnumber the men on the app who are already in relationships.

In response to this, and perhaps to further differentiate themselves from the popular dating app, Hinge has announced that in the latest release of its dating app, it will publish whether or not you’re in a relationship, engaged or married.

Hinge did its own study among its users, and found that 1.6 percent of them were either married or engaged, while an additional two percent were already in relationships. While Hinge wins hands-down over the high percentage of cheaters on Tinder, it still wants to do better. So in Hinge version 3.5, users who reveal they are “married,” “engaged” or “in a relationship” on Facebook will have that information pulled and shared on their Hinge profile, in an effort to shame cheaters everywhere. And if you remove your relationship status from Facebook to avoid this problem? Then you may have to explain it to your spouse or partner.

Hinge utilizes Facebook to match people who are in the same circles – Facebook friends of friends who are also using the service – so you’ve never really meeting a total stranger. At least, you will have a Facebook friend in common, which helps daters reduce the anxiety about online dating.

The new version adds another great benefit, which is more transparency in dating. Instead of finding yourself devastated to find out several dates later that your match is otherwise involved, it’s out in the open.

This might be a problem for female daters, according to the GlobalWebIndex study, since the majority of cheaters on Tinder happen to be women – the target market and primary user base for Hinge. Hinge appeals to women because of safety issues, especially those who are nervous to try a dating app, because users are matched within their own social networking circles. But if married women take to the app (and perhaps they won’t – and don’t – because they would be called out by their mutual Facebook friends), they have to go to greater lengths to hide their movements.

Regardless, it is a positive step for online dating in general to create more transparency for those who are truly looking to date other single people.

Are you on Tinder? Chances are, you’re also a member of a traditional online dating site – and many of you are paying for the service. According to a recent survey by Global Web Index, 70% of Tinder users also use an online dating site – and the majority are accessing all dating sites through their phones (58%).

Tinder has changed the online dating market in a big way – more people are participating, simply because Tinder has helped online dating lose its stigma by providing a low-intensity, game-like experience. It’s much easier to swipe left and right according to potential matches' looks, and have Facebook and Instagram photos populate your profile without having to do much. It takes the pressure off of the whole experience, plus it’s free unless you upgrade to Tinder Plus.

However, many people who use Tinder want to add to their online dating experience, and therefore join paid sites like Match.com along with other online dating sites, paid or free (although most free online dating services are moving to a tiered premium service model to create more revenue).

Global Web Index found some interesting statistics in their study – including the fact that 31% of those surveyed used an online dating site in the last month, but only 1% used Tinder. Six percent used a location-based dating app, which means people are looking for other alternatives to Tinder, even in the dating app market.

Obtaining revenue from Tinder Plus could be an obstacle for the company. According to Global Web Index, only 14% of online dating site users as a whole pay for a service, while 24% of Tinder users pay for an online dating site (which makes it seem likely they wouldn't also pay for Tinder). And more than a third of dating app users say they use ad-blocking software, which means premium services like Tinder Plus have to come up with compelling features to attract paying clients, in addition to promising an ad-free experience. Perhaps this is why the company is placing limits on its free service, restricting the number of profiles a user can look at each day – to get people to invest in the paid service.

One last interesting statistic from the study: men outnumber women on Tinder 6 to 4, so ladies are definitely at an advantage using the app. However, although half of Tinder users are single, a substantial amount (30%) are married, and another 12% consider themselves in a relationship – even though they are on Tinder.

So if you decide to use Tinder, it’s a safe bet that your online dating experience will be enhanced if you decide to invest in another service as well.

Luxy, a new dating app for rich people, seems to like provocative gimmicks to attract new users to their service. First, they launched their app in 2014 describing it as “Tinder without the poor people.” Now, they have taken their brand to the next outrageous level by offering $3.4 million to rename the celebrity enclave of Hidden Hills, California after their own app – Luxy, U.S.A.

Hidden Hills is an exclusive suburb of Los Angeles, home to celebrities Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus, and the Kardashians. The app is trying to tie in its own service with the rich celebrity lifestyle.

According to an article in CNN Money, the app so far has 135,000 active users, including its latest member – an actor from Californication. (Luxy is apparently using this bit of celebrity news to help promote the app, too.)

To qualify to use Luxy, members must prove they make at least $200,000 per year – by providing income tax statements.

By now, we all know of Tinder’s unprecedented success in the online dating market. But how exactly did they make it happen – gaining over one million active users in less than a year, and then to gather 24 million users in only two years?

According to Tinder, there were two essential challenges with the online dating market before they launched the product: first, there was social stigma associated with online dating – the perception by the general public that it was a last resort, rather than a good way to meet people. Second was geographical concentration – people like to date others they know are close by; it would have to work on a micro level before it worked on a national or even worldwide level. Meaning, Tinder had to get active users who were all in the same area to enjoy using it to create stickiness. Think about it: when you download a dating app, it’s a little disappointing to see that your matches live an hour or more away.

With these two things in mind, Tinder started its marketing initiatives on college campuses. Two of the company’s co-founders were active in their respective fraternity and sorority, and first approached them for help in spreading the word. Justin Matteen, one of the co-founders, hosted a party at his parents’ house where he invited his college fraternity and sorority members from USC to help launch Tinder. For admittance, attendees had to show their phones at the door – and prove that they had downloaded the app.

This strategy worked effectively, because it addressed the online dating stigma by populating the dating app with young, socially active and attractive young people, creating a desire for a wider audience to download and use the app (in the hopes of meeting some sorority girls, we suspect). In addition, it created a buzz within a geographically close community – fraternities and sororities on the same campus. From there, Tinder’s team went to college bars and approached non-Greek members, enticing them with meeting other attractive young students via the app.

The strategy of marketing to college campus influencers worked – within six months, Tinder had half a million users. From there, the company had to branch out to a larger demographic. They started city by city, holding parties at exclusive nightclubs, appealing to the 24-35 year-old demographic. As of first quarter in 2015, the company had 24 million users.

“In early months, over 85% of our user base was between the ages of 18-24, but now that age demo only makes up about 57% of our user base," said Matteen in website Parantap. "We are seeing a huge upswing in both 25-34 year old demographic and 35-44 year old demographic.”

Tinder has taken off thanks to a remarkably executed marketing and influencer campaign. As a result, they have changed the whole online dating industry.

For more on this dating app you can take a look at our review of Tinder.

Little Lizzie McGuire herself, Hilary Duff, is officially on Tinder.

Her appearance on the popular dating app has been big news since a Tinder user came across her profile and posted a screen shot to Reddit. Naturally, there were plenty of skeptics, but Duff confirmed to radio show Valentine in the Morning that she is indeed on the app. And that's not all she had to say about her new adventures as a mobile dater.

"In my life I've always had really serious boyfriends, I've always met people through work, and I've never been on a blind date," she said. Determined to try something new, she turned to Tinder and called the experience “wildly addicting” so far.

Some would dip their toes slowly into the online dating waters, but not Ms. Duff. She jumped straight in and says she's talking to “probably about nine guys right now.” Not to suggest she has no standards – a shirtless mirror selfie is an instant swipe left, she explains, while a funny profile is likely to get you a right swipe.

Duff even went as far as to dish on her first Tinder dates. It appears her style is low-key, active, and affordable. Her first date was to a bowling alley, with the second scheduled for a go-karting track. She even brought friends along to the first date, making sure things stayed safe and laidback.

So how did things go on the big day? During an interview with On Air With Ryan Seacrest, Duff said “He was cool. He brought a friend and I had some friends there. He used to be in editing for reality shows. Now, he’s an actor and he just wrote a play. He’s an interesting guy.”

Still, it doesn't seem that sparks flew on the first try. She says the night didn't end with a kiss, and that she's unsure about the prospect of a second date. “I don’t know how I’m feeling,” she told Seacrest. “We’ll see how it goes.”

Duff likely has plenty more meetups to look forward to, as rumor has it cameras were rolling during her bowling date. Sources told TMZ that Duff plans to capture her exploits in the dating world on camera for a reality show that chronicles her life as a new divorcée.

So far her rep has no comment about the potential reality show, but Duff was allegedly seen on a second date and once again cameras were recording the proceedings.

Will you be tuning in if the Duff dating show makes it to TV?