Bumble Inc

See All Dating Apps on Map

With the amount of media attention Tinder receives, you’d think it was the only dating app on the market - or if not the only option, at least the most popular one.

But the numbers tell a different story. Technology company Quantcast reviewed over 480,000 searches from January 6, 2017 - February 5, 2017 to discover which dating services singles in America prefer. They found that not only do different states have different preferences, preferences seem to come in clusters. And they’re not always what you’d expect.

Overall, old-school dating service PlentyOfFish won the most states with its free app. It may not have the hype of its newer, fancier competitors, but in this case slow and steady won the race. POF was especially popular in the south, southwest, and midwest.

Dating app Bumble has seen tremendous success since its launch over two years ago, with more than 12.5 million registrations to date. Now, the company wants to expand their services to offer connections for friendship and business opportunities, too.

Bumble debuted as a dating app, differentiating itself from Tinder by putting the power of communication in the hands of women, who are required to make the first move. Since then, the company has launched Bumble BFF for people seeking friendships rather than romantic relationships, and it is about to release Bumble Biz to connect people for business networking.

According to website Tech Crunch, Tinder has been offering a dating service for its most elite users for at least six months without announcing its existence.

“Tinder Select” is just as it sounds – a dating service for those Tinder users who are high profile and the most desirable, such as celebrities, supermodels and CEOs, so they can have access to date and message other high profile users and bypass the normal user matches.

But before you get excited to join and flirt with the A-listers, you can’t. Or at least most of us can’t because Tinder has to invite you first.

Snapchat’s success has influenced everyone from Instagram to Facebook, and now Bumble is getting in on the game. The dating app will soon launch BumbleVID, a feature that allows users to create stories with unlimited 10-second videos that automatically delete after 24 hours.

BumbleVID will be familiar to singles who already use Snapchat and Instagram. Users can record their videos from directly within the Bumble app, and personalize their clips by drawing on the videos. Eventually the company plans to introduce additional features, like filters and geotagging, that will also be recognizable to regular social media users.

After a video is posted to a profile, it can be viewed by anyone who comes across the profile while swiping. The videos will also appear on the connections and conversations page, providing easy access to the video stories of anyone you’re connected with or currently talking to.

How to use BumbleVID

Do you think a few photos provide enough information to determine whether or not someone is a good match? The makers of dating app Bumble think they aren't, and that video can help.

The popular female-centric dating app will soon release BumbleVID, which will allow users to create a video "story" with unlimited 10-second videos, which will each delete after 24 hours. According to Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe, the video feature was inspired by Snapchat.

To make sure the videos are current, Bumble asks users to record their 10-second features within the app, which then posts to their profiles. If someone wants to use a pre-recorded video from their phone or another source, it has to have been recorded within the last 24 hours. These videos will also be marked with a tag saying they weren’t posted “live.” The new BumbleVID feature also lets users send their videos to specific matches.

Bumble made it easy to swipe for dates. With BumbleBFF, it also made it easy to swipe for friends. Now, with the launch of BumbleBizz this past summer, the app hopes to work its magic on the job market.

Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe told the Observer that BumbleBizz will be “the hyper-local version of LinkedIn, but with really clear connections versus missed opportunities.”

The format is familiar to anyone who has used Bumble or BumbleBFF (or really any other swipe-based dating app). Users can create a separate BumbleBizz profile and indicate preferences like location and industries of interest. The same swiping mechanism is used to make matches, except in this case, those matches are potential connections and mentors for on-demand networking. And, as is famously the case for the dating app, female users have to make the first move.