Bumble

Bye Felipe has become an Instagram sensation, with female daters posting their awkward, annoying, uncomfortable and sometimes even harassing message trail with other online daters, mainly men. It seems that in the wake of Tinder’s popularity, there have been a few casualties and women are looking for a more genuine tool to meet guys, sans the weird pick-up lines.

While there isn’t a dating app that can screen or prevent all creeps from making their way into your matching possibilities, at least some apps give women the power to decide what we will and will not tolerate.

Following are a few to watch for in 2015:

Bumble. While I’m not a fan of how this app came about – it’s the brainchild of Whitney Wolfe, one of the former Tinder executives who also filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against co-founder Justin Mateen. And since she walked away with a bit of money from a settlement, she has decided to launch her own dating app, where women decide who they want to meet (and have 24 hours to make that decision before the option disappears). According to its marketing, the app “promotes a safe and respectful community…Bumble suggests matches based on more relevant signals than other, more shallow apps.”

LuLu. This has been around for a couple of years, allowing women to rate their dates and share information about men with other female app users. While LuLu sounds like it has the potential to be a giant slam book, many women also use it to promote their guy friends who are looking for love – kind of an online voucher for a guy’s character. The Grade is another new app that has a similar kind of review system through – you guessed it – grading them. If you get an “F” guys? You’re off the site.

Siren. True to its name, Siren allows women to put a question out to men they choose on the site (or to all men in their area) to schedule a last-minute date. For instance, a woman could ask: “want to meet up for a jog?” - and then see who responds. She can also browse profiles in private without revealing herself.

JessMeetKen. This online dating site works through Facebook connections, and allows women to post a profile of their male friends who are looking for love, recommending them to other women. (Think of that guy you really like but just aren’t attracted to.) The guys all come recommended by a woman, so it’s less likely the men you’ll be meeting will be creepers, which makes it worth it even if you aren’t a match.

Happy dating!

Get out of the pajamas. Put down the Seamless delivery containers. Log out of Netflix. It's time to make a change around here.

If you've been avoiding online dating like the plague, no one would blame you. Sometimes it feels like online dating is a plague, except instead of the usual symptoms this plague comes with shirtless mirror selfies, terrible pickup lines, and unwanted dick pics.

Luckily, there's a new crop of dating apps designed to prevent exactly that. These apps hope to decrease the creep factor that's keeping many women away from mobile dating, by offering women more control over the process. Try out these five female-friendly dating apps in 2015:

Earlier this year, Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe left the company after raising a lawsuit against her colleagues over allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination. In case you need a refresher, Wolfe alleged that she was sent inappropriate messages by one of Tinder's male co-founders, who pursued a romantic relationship with Wolfe and then publicly shamed her. She also says she was stripped of her co-founder title over fears that her age and gender would damage the company's perceived valuation.

Heavy stuff, but it looks like Wolfe might soon get her revenge. TechCrunch reported that she's teamed up with Tinder alumni Chris Gulczynski and Sarah Mick to create a similarly swipe-based dating app they've dubbed Bumble. According to its Facebook page, Bumble is “an exciting, new place to meet people” and “everything you've always wanted from a social discovery app with none of the things you don't.”

Ok, sounds good so far. So how does it actually work?

According to TechCrunch, the app looks (unsurprisingly) much like Tinder. The famous swipe interface is in play, as is the basic large photo/snippet of personal info structure. A key difference is that Bumble appears to use more detailed information than Tinder – including job position, company, college, and graduation year – supporting the idea that it is intended for more serous daters.

Bumble explains its process like this:

• Two people like each other and it's a connection
• The girl has to make the first move by starting a chat within 24 hours
• If she doesn't chat, the connection disappears forever
• But... guys can extend ONE match per day for an extra 24 hours

A 24-hour rule seems a little harsh, but otherwise the idea is interesting. Will flipping the traditional dating dynamic on its head actually work, or will Bumble end up being a service where almost everyone is silent?

Bumble's behind-the-scenes structure also raises some interesting points. Competing with Tinder is no easy feat, but if anyone stands a chance, isn't it a Tinder founder and former employees? They have experience and insider knowledge that no one else has, plus enough public visibility to spread awareness quickly.

Really quickly, as it turns out. A source told TechCrunch that Bumble has already raised millions of dollars from a number of different sources, including social dating service Badoo and a multi-millionaire heir to an oil fortune. Bumble claims the app will be launching any day now, so we should find out soon enough whether that's enough to take on Tinder.