BLK, the dating app for black singles, has announced a new feature to help alumni and students who attended HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) connect with each other.

Homecoming Mode lets users add a sticker of their HBCU, allowing them to discover others who attended their college and show their school pride, according to Afro.com. BLK created the feature as a way of creating more ways for singles to strike up conversations, as communities are a big focus of the app. The goal is also to encourage each other to make plans as homecoming season is around the corner.

The stickers are available now, and so far, the company says that the top three stickers that users are adding include Florida A&M University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and Howard University. Currently, BLK offers 15 stickers for HBCUs but plans to expand to include more in the future.

In response to increasing scrutiny of its Play Store practices, Google has announced it is opening up its platform to third party payment systems in 35 additional countries.

Currently, Google is the only option for an in-app payment provider on its platform in most countries aside from South Korea, which means it can charge commission (as high as 30 percent) to app developers for every single in-app purchase made by their users. Developers began to fight back, and along with help from European regulators who began to crack down on Apple and Google for their App Store and Play Store practices, they are finding success.

This new initiative has opened up platforms in the US, Brazil and South Africa, in addition to those markets which had already required third party payment system options to be available for developers, such as the EU, Japan, Australia and India.

The value for dating app Bumble’s stock has dropped 14 percent after the company lowered revenue forecasts for the fourth quarter, and Gen Z users have increasingly stopped renewing their subscriptions.

Bumble expects Q4 revenue to be between $232 million and $237 million according to Reuters. This is lower than Wall Street projections of $254.5 million, according to Refinitiv data. Still, the company pointed out that paying users for the third quarter increased to 3.3 million from 2.9 million last year, a sign of growth despite the downturn.

According to Motley Fool, on a call with investors, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said that the economic slowdown affected spending for “certain segments of its user base,” notably younger daters, who were not renewing subscriptions at the normal rate. Motley Fool also noted that shares had already fallen 38 percent this year as investors fled dating and tech stocks in general, following a surge of interest and rising subscriptions in dating apps during pandemic lockdowns.

Image: Grindr

Dating app Grindr announced the launch of its new video series Play Safe, intended to educate dating app users about its safety policies and practices. The videos will be available in the app as well as across the company’s social channels.

According to the company’s press release, the safety features the dating app will be highlighting include the ability to mute, block and report bad actors on the app. Grindr says its team of “human moderators who have been trained on LGBTQ-specific cultural sensitivities and gender-inclusive content moderation” will be reviewing all reports around the clock.

“We work day-in and day-out to make Grindr a place where our users can feel safe and supported, because we know that the world at large is not always accepting of the LGBTQ community,” said Alice Hunsberger, VP of Customer Experience at Grindr.

Dating app Bumble announced it will be cracking down on false reports from users who target gender non-conforming and other LGBTQ+ users.

According to CNET, Bumble moderators are already dismissing close to 90 percent of violation reports directed at gender nonconforming members, not because they violated rules as the report points out, but because these reports aim to force LGBTQ+ people off the app. Bumble announced that it will not be tolerating this type of behavior, and they will be removing users who repeatedly engage in the practice of submitting false reports.

"Identity-based hate is an issue that negatively affects many communities and is something that increasingly many gender-nonconforming folks, like trans and nonbinary people, have faced in online dating," the company said in a statement.

Dating app conglomerate Match Group reported third quarter earnings that beat analyst expectations, with more of its users paying for subscriptions on dating app Tinder. The company’s stock rose 16 percent in response.

Despite the effects of inflation and a slow first half of the year, along with poor execution of some new features and executive team changes made by new CEO Bernard Kim, Match Group turned things around and impressed investors and analysts with better-than-expected revenue gains. Match Group revenue reached $810 million for the quarter ending September 30th, beating analysts’ estimate of $793 million according to Refinitiv data.

Tinder’s revenue grew 6 percent and its paying users jumped 7 percent according to Reuters. Tinder users account for the vast majority of Match Group’s estimated 100 million active users.