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Tinder just released a new update to its popular dating app, but decided to swipe left on its Snapchat-like “Moments” feature. The Moments feature was first offered to Tinder users a year ago, but now has been removed from the app’s latest update.

With Moments, Tinder users could share photos that expired after 24 hours, hoping to pique the interest of their matches. Moments also allowed users to stylize photos with filters, paintbrush, and the ability to write text over the image. The purpose of Moments was, according to Tinder co-founder Sean Rad, to jumpstart conversations among matches. If a match liked your Moment, they could swipe right. The app would notify you of their interest, and then you could both start chatting.

Last year when Moments first launched, Rad was pleased with consumers’ response. In an interview at tech event TC Disrupt he declared that due to Moments, Tinder had “seen a massive increase in conversations started and post-match engagement.”

News about Tinder’s latest update focused on the new features the app is offering, such as a revamp to the Profile and Inbox. The update allows users to add employment/education information into their profiles. The Inbox now places new matches in the top bar and current conversations in the lower part of the screen. There were also slight improvements on the backend with an update to Tinder’s algorithms.

No mention was made from Tinder about the absence of Moments, or that the company also got rid of its “Last Active” feature, which let users know the last time someone used the app. With the new update, Last Active disappeared as well.

Website Tech Crunch attributes the loss of Moments to the popularity of Snapchat. Likely Tinder users would just use Snapchat or other similar apps with any potential matches instead of using the Tinder feature. Plus, Tinder partnered with Instagram to let users use their recent Instagram photos as an extension of their Tinder profiles. With these offerings, Moments might have lost some traction.

Users did notice Moments’ absence however, and took to Twitter and review postings to let the company know they were not happy with this move. The most vocal opponents let their voices be heard with tweets like: “why is tinder getting rid of moments? that was like its best feature tbh.”

So far, the company hasn’t responded to inquiries of why they decided to ditch the features. Perhaps we’ll know more with Tinder’s next update. For more on this dating app you can read our review of Tinder.

Are you online dating? If so, chances are you have filtered your matches according to your preferences – body type, height, age, career, or whatever is most important to you. Filtering our choices is a good thing – but inevitably, it feeds our tendencies to not want to compromise. After all, if you can choose who exactly you want at the swipe of a screen, why should you settle for less than your ideal mate? You want your date to check off all the boxes on your list, not just a few.

For example, let’s say you don’t want to date anybody who lives more than a 15-minute drive from you, or who didn’t go to college, or who isn’t much into Cross Fit since this is your preferred fitness activity. If you met someone great who lives 45 minutes away, or was into hiking instead of Cross Fit, or who doesn’t have a college degree, would you reject her?

When we are given so many options for meeting new people, it can be difficult to compromise at all. Even if the right person for you appeared on your Tinder screen, you might not even agree to the first date because there are other people who better meet your criteria and filters.

For example, I live in Los Angeles. There is a lot of traffic, and many people spend hours a day in their cars commuting to work. So it’s only natural that they don’t want to spend any more time driving to meet a date, especially when it might not go well. Why waste even more time and effort?

But the truth is, you might be missing out. Maybe you don’t want to consider someone who lives more than fifteen or twenty minutes away, but if you met someone who you found incredibly attractive and compelling, chances are you would drive those few extra miles to spend time together.

If you are a Cross Fit fanatic, and believe that only other Cross Fit people will “get you” - so there’s no point in dating someone who prefers volleyball, or hiking, or sailing for instance – then you are missing out on people who could show you their own passions which are different from yours. There is something compelling about people with passions. They make you want to know more about them, about their interests. So why not give a new date a chance, even if they will never love Cross Fit like you? There are so many other opportunities to be compatible – you don’t have to be in love with the same activity.

Filters serve a purpose, but if we aren’t willing to compromise our own rigid guidelines about what we think we want, then we miss important opportunities. Remember, preferences aren’t deal-breakers. If you’re interested in meeting someone, if you find him/ her attractive and interesting, then don’t let things like distance and compatible interests get in the way. Because you never know – love is often found in the most unlikely places.

Popular dating app Tinder, which many daters have described as a hook-up app, has decided to get a little more serious with its latest update. Instead of upping the volume of swipes, the management team decided to focus on encouraging users to be more selective, and is now offering a feature dubbed “Super Like.”

Instead of just swiping right when you like someone special (like all the other right swipes before), the new feature allows you to swipe up – or Super Like - one special match per day. When two people Super Like each other, Tinder reports that they tend to have conversations over the app that last 70 percent longer. (Tellingly, the company is rolling out this feature in the wake of Vanity Fair’s controversial article on the so-called “dating apocalypse” fueled by Tinder, which ended in a Twitter rant from Tinder co-founder Sean Rad.)

Tinder is definitely getting its new more serious message across in marketing campaigns, including a video the company made highlighting the Super Like feature, which is targeting female daters. In the video, a woman is being harassed by a bunch of men who are trying to flirt with her, and she’s not interested. So to save herself from their aggressive tactics, she Super Likes a nice guy on the app. In other words, she is saving herself from the awful herds of pushy guys on Tinder by using Tinder’s latest feature.  

Will it be effective for Tinder to appeal to women? It is still by far the most popular app, but other developers are using Tinder’s hook-up reputation as a reason to choose another app. So Tinder is fighting back.

The new feature is a way to make women feel safer. But more than likely, it is also a response to Bumble, a rising star in the dating app world that has been getting a lot of attention.

Bumble is a female-centered dating app that looks like Tinder but gives the messaging power to women by having them make the first move. Coincidentally, Bumble was also founded by one of Tinder’s co-founders Whitney Wolfe, who sued the company and subsequently launched her own dating app. This past week, Wolfe made an appearance on The Daily Show, in which she answered questions about how her app is changing the world of online dating by putting women in the seat of power to ask the men out.

It’s great that daters have more options, and the competition from apps like Bumble means that Tinder will continue to improve its offerings. And that’s always a plus.

Dating app Hinge is taking after OkCupid by collecting its user data and publishing results that might help people better connect. The latest report outlines the best pick-up lines among users of its app – and as it turns out, the way to a woman’s heart might just be through her stomach.

To conduct the survey, Hinge recruited copywriters and data analysts to compose 100 original openers, and sent them to 22 percent of Hinge users, who were then given the option of sending these openers to their matches. After studying eight million impressions, trends began to emerge. Some were expected - daters who want to connect should definitely avoid generic statements like 'Hey, what's up?' as an opening line, for example. The data was refined and categorized to give more in-depth info about who was responding—including their gender, age, and location across the U.S.

Results of the month-long experiment showed the most effective conversation starters for women include food references. For instance, a guy could ask a question like: “Chocolate, red velvet, or funfetti?” referring to cupcake preferences, or “Best discovery: Netflix or avocados?” for example. Hinge noted that “women are 40% more likely than men to respond to openers that are food-related.”

Men were most responsive when asked out directly, and particularly if those messages were assertive (the types of messages most women don’t like, which should be noted). For instance, if a woman put herself out there and confidently asked “Drinks soon?” or “Free this week?” men were 98% more likely to respond favorably.

Males were also found to have shorter attention spans: If they don’t receive a response to a message within six hours, a quarter of them will drop out of sight, compared with only five per cent of women.

As far as age groups, the 35 and older crowd prefers pop culture references. For instance, they responded best to “Katy Perry or Taylor Swift?” or “Bears, beets, or Battlestar Gallactica?” The 20-somethings preferred introductions about lifestyle with lines like: “Better adventure: Rock climbing or scuba diving?” or “Sunday priorities: Exercise, sleep or aggressive mimosas?” The 18-23 age group seemed to prefer novelty questions like: “Pain reliever personality: Advil, Tylenol or complaining?” and “You’re having your portrait painted – what’s your backdrop?”

Regional responses varied too, with folks in Los Angeles preferring entertainment-related questions (no surprise), and users in the Mid-West liking the 90’s references.

Hinge connects people through Facebook circles, and is available for both Android and iPhone. For more on Hinge, you can read our review.

There is a temptation many online daters succumb to, perhaps without realizing it. While the point of online dating is to widen your social circles and meet people you otherwise wouldn’t meet in real life, there is unfortunately a timing issue.

Most people start communicating with their matches online before they make plans to meet in person. There is a “getting to know you” phase, complete with flirtations, shared intimacies, and lots of texts back and forth. For some, this process can go on and on for weeks before the two decide to meet in person.

By that time, anticipation has been built. Maybe you throw on your cutest outfit or favorite pair of heels, or style your hair for the occasion. You have butterflies in your stomach, excited to think how well you connected online – so surely you must also connect in person, right?

Not so much. Many online relationships fizzle by the time two people meet and discover that in person, there is just no chemistry between them. Certain personality affectations are hard to guage online, and people get a false sense of who the other person really is when they only communicate online.

For one, it is easier to fantasize when you aren’t seeing each other face to face. Maybe your date is really witty over text, but avoids eye contact in person. Maybe he’s painfully shy, or maybe he’s not exactly what you pictured in your head. Regardless, there is a gap between the person you fantasized about and the person sitting in front of you.

Secondly, people tend to cultivate a false sense of intimacy online. It’s easy to share more personal information when you aren’t looking each other in the eye. When you date in person, there is a more gradual build, as there is a certain level of trust that has to be gained before you open up. When you are only communicating online however, it’s easy to overshare. You can text at all hours, so there aren’t any boundaries for appropriate timing, or what you can feel free to say. Maybe you are more bold about flirting online, and would never say those things to someone in person. So what happens when you finally meet? There is a certain vulnerability that can make both people feel uncomfortable or awkward around each other, which can lead to a lack of chemistry.

And lastly, you don’t want to maintain an online relationship with someone who keeps putting off meeting you in person. They might not be who they claim they are. Do you really want to make an emotional investment in someone who isn’t eager to meet you in person, no matter the reason?

It is better to meet in real life sooner rather than later. Don’t build up an online relationship thinking it’s the same thing as actually dating. It’s not. Meeting face to face is the only way to assess how compatible and attracted to each other you are.

Tired of Tinder and endless swiping that leads nowhere? While the dating app is popular, it’s leaving most online daters a little cold. Many come across fake profiles, or they match with someone only to have them disappear before actually meeting in person. And then there is the whole hook-up reputation.

So what is an online dater to do? New dating apps like The Grade and Bumble are setting out to alleviate online dating fatigue by putting their resources into creating more quality matches, so users can have a better overall experience. Specifically, these apps analyze and the behavior of their own members, so other users can see how they rate.

Bumble, founded by former Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe, aims to give power back to female daters. Bumble only allows the woman to reach out and make the first move – not the guy. So she is in control of the dating experience. A recent article in International Business Times revealed that a new feature Bumble will be rolling out is a verification program called “VIBee” -- a system that rewards users with a badge if they have good behavior on the app. The feature will aim to discourage users from nonstop swiping (left or right), and from spam messaging. If a match sees you have the badge, you’re more likely to be contacted – or so the thinking goes.

The Grade operates in a similar fashion, and as the name suggests – grades people on their behavior while using the app. The grading system is three-fold: you are "graded" based on how complete your profile is, how long it takes you to respond to messages, and the quality of the messages you send. In other words, the app will analyze message quality, including length, spelling mistakes, slang and hostile words and then assign you a letter grade, like in school. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really check context, so while some words might be “red flags” in certain contexts but not others, you could be penalized for using them at all.

Founders of The Grade pride themselves on the fact that they are weeding daters out based on how they behave. With about 100,000 downloads of The Grade so far, approximately 1,000 have been expelled and 2,000 are in danger of “failing.”

Cliff Lerner, founder of The Grade, told International Business Times: “We’re not saying we’re going to take on Tinder. We don’t want every user. All of our users are going to be high quality and accountable for their behavior. A lot of people will be kicked off.”

Lerner’s app focused on the complaints he kept hearing from female online daters, who were asking for an app that allowed them to handle offensive or hostile messages from men. Most women who have online dated have encountered such messages from time to time, which has created a huge trust problem with online dating apps and services.

Behavioral monitoring might be the next Tinder after all, at least for female daters.