Chemistry Forever aims to “disrupt” the dating app market in India by offering AI Face Verification to curb the proliferation of fake profiles.

The new app is coming out strong in terms of security, which has plagued the dating app industry for years. According to The Hindustan Times, the app has had over 10,000 downloads in its first two months (it had a soft launch in September of last year). So far most of the profiles on the app are verified, though users have the choice to opt-in for Face Verification. 

According to the company’s website, the registration process is simple. After downloading the app, it asks the user to upload a recent profile photo (to be verified later in the process), and offers users “stars” for each completed step of the process to make their profiles more appealing and complete.

Image: Vox Media

Vox Media’s award-winning podcast series Land of the Giants, which is about the biggest tech companies and their impact on our culture, will focus on dating apps for its second season.

Hosted by Lakshmi Rengarajan, who spent several years at Match Group, and The Cut’s Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz, the two explore the industry as a whole and the experience of dating app users. The series delves into how dating apps have changed how we approach dating, and how the dating app industry designs apps to keep people coming back.

The series was inspired by New York Magazine’s special issue evaluating the last ten years of dating apps, according to The Cut. After surveying thousands of daters about their experiences with popular dating apps like Tinder, Hinge and Bumble, New York Magazine found that people felt caught in a cycle where they enjoyed the swiping experience for a few weeks, but then when nothing much changed, they deleted their dating apps - only to return to them again.

Hinge Wrapped Homepage

A new TikTok-inspired website can help singles to examine their dating life over the past year to help them have a better experience in 2023.

Hinge Wrapped was inspired by the TikTok viral videos dubbed Dating Wrapped that had users posting their best and worst dating experiences in 2022.

According to HITC.com, a TikTok user posted a video where he showed a dating recap of his time on Hinge, captioning it “Hinge is unhinged.” He shows himself to be a “night owl swiper” and goes over the number of likes he sent and his most-liked photo. He said he’s been to seven different places trying to find love.

Thanks to this viral video, Hinge Unwrapped was born, though the actual website was created by Canadian software engineer Niko Draca (not the company Hinge). He said that he created the website to help daters reflect on the highlights of their experiences on the app, and so far, people are flocking to use it.

Executives from dating app companies operating in Australia have been called by the country’s officials to meet and discuss how to address safety concerns and the high rates of assault on their platforms.

According to Epoch Times, the talks will take place in early 2023, and focus on both legislative and security measures to address the problem. This comes in the wake of the Australian government’s move to allow its eSafety Commission to “regulate illegal and restricted content no matter where it’s hosted including on online app distribution services and search engines.”

The push for action come about because of a report released in October by the Australian Institute of Criminology, according to the Epoch Times, in which a jaw-dropping 75 percent of respondents said they had been subjected to some type of sexual violence via dating apps over the past five years. Researchers also found that a third experienced abuse from someone they met online dating, which included “sexual assault or coercion, reproductive and sexual-health-related abuse and in-person image-based sexual abuse.”

After a rough patch at the end of November where the newly launched stock for dating app Grindr hit an all-time low, it is now looking more promising for potential investors.

Seeking Alpha reported that shares on November 29th opened at $8, reaching a high of $9 before falling to $6.52 in the late afternoon. The stock had only debuted on November 18, following its merger with SPAC Tiga Acquisition Corp which valued the combined company at $2.1 billion. Shares of the combined company rose over 500 percent before closing its first day at $36.50, but then plunged the next day and did not recover through the end of November and into December.

Grindr however released its third quarter earnings report in early December, noting that revenue for the quarter was up 32 percent year-over-year to $50.4 million, and year-to-date revenue was up to $140.5 million. 

Tinder has launched a new ad campaign in India called You Up, aimed directly at young singles to show them the fun, adventurous side of dating apps.

The ad focuses on a young woman looking for exciting new experiences, not necessarily a relationship, and there’s a magical element to her journey. The ad opens with her matching with a man, and she reaches into the app screen to take his hand as they jump off a building and into a karaoke bar where they have a fun, flirtatious night.

The next scene shows her matching with a woman, where they are in a parking lot dancing and then take a drive together, a slower and more romantic experience. She matches with another man after this, where they take a swim in the ocean before she drops him at the train station - and before meeting her next date.