Mobile

Ever wanted to be set up by a friend? Or have you been introduced to a potential date over Facebook by a mutual Facebook friend? If you prefer meeting dates through friends rather than strangers, you might be interested to know there’s now an app for making these types of introductions.

This idea isn’t a new one. Jess Meet Ken is an online dating service that allows you to set up your single guy friends by recommending them to your Facebook friends. Hinge and CoffeeMeetsBagel are both matchmaking apps that introduce you to potential dates via your circle of friends on Facebook. Even Tinder got into the matchmaking game over a year ago with its service Matchmaker, which allowed its users to introduce their Facebook friends to each other. Tinder has since phased out this feature.

But Mashr insists it is doing things a little differently and will be successful, because unlike Tinder, it is making matchmaking the core of its user experience.

Mashr is pretty straightforward. One user pairs two of her friends together, offering an explanation on why they should meet. If both of them agree, Mashr makes the connection, much like Tinder.

Although this can get embarrassing for the matchmaker. If one friend passes, the other friend knows it, and what if they happen to run into each other in real life, since they are in circles of mutual friends? It could get a little murky, as with any friendship-based set-ups.

It could be argued that this is a model that works in the real world in an organic way, so over an app, it just increases your chances to meet a good (and vetted) match. Mashr Co-Founder Brian Nichols told Tech Crunch in a recent interview, “I know Tinder is all the rage these days, but does it really make sense to meet with a complete stranger? Wouldn’t it make sense (and be safer) if you were connected by a friend to your future significant other?”

Nichols maintains that people are more likely to say “yes” to a date if their friends are recommending them, rather than easily rejecting a stranger after looking at a couple of pictures over Tinder.

“People are on Tinder for themselves, to play the game of Tinder,” Nichols tells Tech Crunch.

But Mashr is also making a bit of a game out of its app with MashPlay, which is a timed game where you try to match as many of your friends together as quickly as possible. MashFeed shows all the matches people are making, not just the ones that say “yes” to each other, which seems a little TMI for users.

Hinge, CoffeeMeetsBagel, and JessMeetKen are all matchmaking-based apps competing for the same users. We’ll see how Mashr stacks up.

A recent report of Tinder’s financial worth shows that its users aren’t going away anytime soon. The massively popular dating app is poised to increase its value and market share further over the next year. According to Market Watch, Tinder is growing at such a rate that Barclays predicts its valuation will reach $1.1 billion by the end of 2015, adding to IAC’s current $5.68 billion market cap. IAC owns many of the most popular dating sites, including Match.com.

What makes its value so high, considering the app is free for download? The answer is in the sheer number of users who download the app. As with most online dating sites, perception is key: the more users a site has, the more people will gravitate to it because they think their chances of getting a date, relationship or even hook-up increase.

Tinder’s popularity has taken off thanks to younger daters who embraced the mobile technology and liken Tinder to a game that is easy and fun to use. Plus, it has taken the stigma that is part of online dating away, because the app is mainly to support single people meeting each other casually as opposed to those looking to find serious relationships.

Tinder’s popularity is not just PR buzz. Its growth in the past year has been explosive, with 750 million swipes per day reported in February of 2014, up from 5 million in December of 2013. Today, it manages more than a billion swipes per day (resulting in 12 million matches each day). According to Market Watch, Barclays expects Tinder global daily active users to reach 20 million by April, or 40 million on a monthly active user basis. It also expects Tinder to generate as much as $180 million in revenue in 2015.

How Tinder will get this kind of revenue is unclear. Lately though, they have been floating a few ideas, including a “freemium” service where basic use of the app is still free but restrictions are in place that can be lifted for a fee - like the number of matches you get, or how many photos you see, or the ability to communicate. The founders don’t want to advertise on the app, but they are open to partnerships that would generate revenue from “real world behavior,” though they don’t define what that looks like. They are also focused on the age of Tinder users, and how they might evolve in their dating preferences as they get older. Right now, Tinder is mostly a product that young people use, especially teens and young twenty-somethings - those who might later graduate to a more serious pay service like Match.com.

Eyeballs are currency however, at least to investors, who see Tinder as a golden opportunity. For more on this dating app you can read our review of Tinder.

SNAP Interactive has made its online dating site Are You Interested (AYI) a priority, and it looks like it’s paying off. The company announced that AYI has become the number one grossing application in US Lifestyle category in the Apple iTunes Store as of August.

The company hit other big milestones, too. In July, its mobile apps contributed to the highest percentage of total logins ever, at 38%. New mobile subscription transactions were up 57% year-to-date compared to the same period in 2013, and total mobile logins were up 33% YTD compared to the same period in 2013.

AYI began as a Facebook-based online dating site, and has since expanded to its service to develop its mobile platform. SNAP said that it has put a huge focus on mobile in the past year, specifically improving the user experience for iPad, iPhone, and Android phones. The goal was to create a seamless cross-platform experience for everyone, no matter what device they were using.

Mobile has become a crucial part of the online dating market, and its numbers are only going up. Traditional online dating sites have been developing and marketing their mobile platforms for this reason – many daters want more ease and accessibility - and don’t want to have to sit in front of their laptops when they can use their phones to connect with potential dates. Popular apps like Tinder, Hinge and Grindr have also created a new market of younger daters who find dating via phone apps to be the most convenient way to meet people.

Snap's Chief Executive Officer Clifford Lerner commented, "Mobile is the primary platform for an increasingly large segment of online dating users, and we were determined to create an excellent experience on all mobile platforms to take a leadership position in the market.  We're excited to be the #1 Top Grossing application in the US Lifestyle category in the Apple iTunes store.  It shows that iPhone users have really embraced the AYI app and user experience we worked so hard on.  We believe mobile is an important engine of growth in the online dating industry, and we're pleased to be one of the leading providers of online dating applications."

Snap's Chief Operating Officer Alex Harrington added, "Mobile is not only strategically important, but also a very lucrative platform for the Company.  In July 2014, approximately 52% of our user acquisitions occurred on mobile platforms, which helped diversify marketing sources and increase marketing efficiency."

SNAP Interactive hasn’t mentioned any future development plans for AYI. For more on this dating service you can read our Are You Interested review.

For the single women reading, how many lewd messages have you received on OkCupid in the past month? How many guys have stalked you over Tinder? If you answer “too many” for either one, you might be ready for a new kind of dating app called Siren.

Siren is an alternative to the typical dating apps like Tinder, where many men swipe right to have more women in their cue - meaning, they play the numbers. They make the first move, often approaching women in a way that makes them feel pressured, uncomfortable, or just plain creeped out. It’s become a kind of risky game for some women, where they aren’t sure if they will meet someone and feel safe. If they don’t, the whole dating app experience becomes tainted.

Like with online dating, Tinder seems to give females the advantage over males, at least in terms of your chances for getting a date.

Many guys complain that women have it better in the dating world because women can choose who they want to date, while guys are left saying "yes" to every woman's profile they view online or on an app like Tinder, just to improve their chances of meeting someone. (Women tend to be more picky, and say "no" to most men, probably because so many men just swipe right to everyone.) While online dating does seem skewed, apparently some tech geniuses have decided to make the odds work in the guys' favor.

Instead of manually going through all the matches Tinder sends his way, one techie decided that he could automate responses. According to website ValleyWag, former Microsoft developer Yuri de Souza details "how he reverse engineered Tinder to mass-like every girl on the network." He was sitting around one Sunday afternoon mindlessly swiping right on all of his female matches, hoping that one would swipe right back, when the idea struck him.

" [I] recalled my friend telling me how he would spend hours swiping right on Tinder just to accumulate as may matches as possible," de Souza told ValleyWag. "This had me thinking, why can't I reverse engineer Tinder and automate the swipes? After all, I'm pretty darn good at taking things apart!"

He was successful, and went to share his idea with other guys, only to find he wasn't the only one or even the first to try to game the system.

While it seems counter-intuitive to accept matches that you don't even see in the hopes of having more choice in who you want to date, this is the thinking behind guys looking to game the dating app system. (An article in New York Magazine last year naming the most successful online daters included a guy who admitted to saying "yes" to all women on Tinder to improve his chances, so this might have inspired a lot of guys to follow his lead.)

Other tech-savvy users have created shortcuts and automation to help them (and other guys) avoid the challenging task of looking through so many women's profiles. It turns out, people aren't even willing to spend the time to look at photos anymore, let alone read words in a profile.

What does this mean for dating? While it's understandable that guys are frustrated with their lack of choice (and womens' general avoidance of swiping right unless a man really intrigues her), is reverse-engineering the best way to meet a woman? Maybe apps like Tinder, fun and game-like as they are, are not the best avenue for many people. Instead of casting a large net and hoping to catch someone - anyone - why not try to focus on what you want? If you're putting it out there that you can't seem to meet a woman, then likely creating an automated way to say yes to everyone on Tinder isn't going to improve your game.

Maybe it's time to try another site or app that is more conducive to your search. Better yet, try something more old-fashioned. How about you approach a woman in person and ask her out? That will make you stand out from the Tinder crowd.

For more on this dating app please read our Tinder review.

Dating is a mystery, even for those who have been doing it for a while. Men and women misunderstand each other all the time when they are in relationships, so it’s only natural that communication problems would occur while you are just getting to know each other. Even before the first date!

Texting is a great tool to help us keep in touch, but it’s also created a whole new level of second-guessing and misunderstanding when it comes to dating. How many times have you stared at a text, trying to interpret it – even if it’s only “hey, what’s up?” We might think – is he asking me because he wants to see if I’m busy, or is he just being casual and reaching out to say hello? Then we might wonder: when should I text him back? Should I wait another five minutes, another hour, another day??

We drive ourselves nuts sometimes trying to figure out what’s going on in someone else’s head. But the truth is very simple: we don’t know. We can’t make assumptions. But we should also listen to our intuitions. If we find ourselves wondering too much about his motivations but afraid to ask, we should probably take that as a hint that you're not on the same page romantically speaking.

Following are some typical texts that men send, and what they really mean:

Hey, want to meet for a drink in an hour? [It’s 9:00pm.]

We might think he’s interested in us after all, but chances are, he’s not looking for anything serious and is seeing what you might be up for. Know what you want before agreeing or getting excited about seeing him again - the ball is in your court, so don't settle for less than the relationship you want.

It’s been fun hanging out, but I’m really busy right now with work. Maybe I’ll call you when I’m back in a couple of weeks.

Translation: I’m not really interested, but if I haven’t met anyone else I find attractive in the next two weeks I want to leave my options open. Time to date other people.

I don’t know…where do you want to go tonight?

This might be frustrating if you feel you are always planning the dates, but probably the guy hasn’t put much thought into where to go or what to do. He might spend a few minutes on Yelp before the date, or he might just want you to pick a place because he doesn’t want to take you somewhere you’ll hate. If you feel strongly about planning, then pick the place. If not, just leave it open and see what happens.

I had a nice time with you tonight.

This is a good thing – even if he doesn’t make plans right away for a second date, he’s letting you know he had a good time. Don’t get anxious about the timing, just let him know you had a good time, too. Then if you’re feeling motivated, ask him out instead of waiting for him to make the next move. It’s liberating.