Features

Dating app Her (orginally called Dattch), designed exclusively by and for queer women, is expanding its focus to bring women together in conversation as well as for dating. Its new Community feature provides a forum for users to get updates on news and exchange ideas, expanding the app’s purpose beyond forging romantic ties.

Launched in time for Pride month in June, Her’s new feature allows for users to connect with each other around certain topics of interest to the community. In other words, a place to gather around the watercooler, but online. According to website TechCrunch, the first set of community groups includes a space for queer women of color, one centered around mindfulness and wellbeing and another for news and entertainment. App creators plan to launch more groups in the future, including pop-up forums around specific events, or even user-generated communities.

Users would be able to follow a person’s feed or post messages to a community board.

Image: MillionaireMatch

MIllionaireMatch has been busy updating their app and website these pass few months. With over 3.6 million members worldwide it is one of the largest dating services in their niche.

A number of blogs has been added to the service, this includes "Celebrity Interviews" and "Luxury Lifestyle". The celebrity blog contains interviews of entrepreneurs, fashion designers, and TV personalities. The lifestyle blog contains articles on dating tips and posts on anything that only the wealthy could afford.

The dating app recently added the option for members to become certified as a Millionaire. This feature has been available on the website for a number of years now but with the recent update users of the dating app can now provide the required documents. Once verified a members profile is marked by a badge.

Image: Recode

Last month, Facebook announced that it will be launching a new online dating feature, and since then details have come out about what it will look like. According to website Recode, an interesting benefit to users is that the new dating service won’t include ads.

Specifically, Facebook stated that it won’t be running ads alongside dating profiles, and they won’t use personal data associated with users’ dating profiles to send targeted ads to these users.

According to Recode, Facebook will provide users with a separate dating profile page, distinct from a personal Facebook page. It will match users according to location and interests, typical for most dating apps. (With Facebook, the more groups you “unlock,” the more matches you can potentially meet.) Facebook will also provide a separate messaging service specifically for dating, so you won’t have to message matches over your personal account. The dating messaging feature will be text only – no videos or images can be shared. (This seems intended to make it a more female-friendly experience, since women often get unsolicited photos and videos over online dating apps.)

Before online dating there was video dating, and as the viral clip below proves, it could be just as awkward and cringe-worthy as any Tinder swipe session.

Take one look at a montage of hapless suitors dressed in their retro best talking about being “an executive by day and a wild man by night” and their career in toxic waste management, and it’s easy to see why video dating fell out of fashion. So out of fashion, in fact, that while video has exploded across almost all major social media platforms, it has yet to make a triumphant return to the dating mainstream.

Startups have tried for decades to update video dating for modern singles with little success, but thanks to new features from some of the industry’s most reputable names, the tide could finally be poised to turn.

Did you eat at a new neighborhood cafe for lunch? Do you want to share this over Tinder? There’s a new feature the dating app is testing called “Places,” which lets potential matches know where you’ve been.

Website The Verge broke the story with screenshots of the new feature, showing how GPS tracking can now be used as a way to connect with your dates. The idea behind Places is similar to dating app Happn, where users can see if they had any missed connections during the day, depending on where they’d been. Let’s say you stopped for morning coffee at your local shop and one of your potential matches also happened to be there. Places will alert you so that you can message your match to let her know you were there too, and start a conversation.

Image: Verge

A concerning issue with the new feature is that Tinder is in charge of documenting and revealing your locations to other users. Instead of allowing users to “check in” when they want to share their location, Tinder automatically chooses to reveal or hide the location. For example, you might go to your dentist appointment and then stop for coffee on the way back to work. Tinder won’t report that you’ve been to the dentist, but it might choose to reveal the coffee shop you visited.

Finding love on Facebook? It’s complicated.

At least, it used to be. At this year’s F8 developer conference, Mark Zuckerberg took the stage for an announcement many would call long overdue: Facebook is launching a dating feature.

“We’re building a feature for dating and relationships within the Facebook app. People already use Facebook to meet new people, and we want to make that experience better,” the company said in an announcement. “People will be able to create a dating profile that is separate from their Facebook profile — and potential matches will be recommended based on dating preferences, things in common, and mutual friends.”

The social networking platform is rife with matchmaking potential. According to Zuckerberg, one in three marriages in the U.S. begins online and 200 million Facebook users list themselves as singles. Facebook’s dating feature “is going to be built around long-term relationships, not hook-ups," he insisted, taking subtle aim at competitors like Tinder.