Types (Niche)

While Tinder is expanding its market share in the dating industry, Whitney Wolfe, one of Tinder’s ex co-Founders and now CEO of dating app Bumble, wants to take her app in a new direction outside of dating: business networking.

Bumble began as a dating app where women make the first move. Guys aren’t allowed to message or see a woman’s profile unless she allows it first, putting her in control of the interaction. Her app has gotten some buzz (excuse the pun), and has in the past year expanded its search and connection capabilities for friendships as well as romantic hook-ups with its feature BumbleBFF.

And according to recent articles in Gizmodo and The Verge, it seems the app wants to help you in another aspect of your life: your career.

Big changes and big problems are on their way for Ashley Madison. The hits keep coming after the adultery dating site’s high-profile hack last year.

First, the bad news. Ashley Madison is back in hot water thanks to a U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigation and a flood of lawsuits over the site’s use of “fembots” to lure cheating men. An Ernst and Young report confirmed that Avid Life Media, owner of Ashley Madison, used fake dating profiles to impersonate women and scam unwitting male users into entering their credit card information.

According to Gizmodo, Ashley Madison created more than 70,000 female bots in a “sophisticated, deliberate, and lucrative fraud.” The faux females would initiate chats with men by saying things like “Hmmmm, when I was younger I used to sleep with my friend’s boyfriends. I guess old habits die hard although I could never sleep with their husbands.”

Avid claims it shut down the bot accounts in the United States, Canada and Australia in 2014, and by late 2015 in the rest of the world. However, some U.S. users say they exchanged messages with foreign fembots until late in 2015. Now a handful of such users have filed class action suits against the company.

A recent statement from Avid Life Media indicates how the company plans to proceed. The statement announces "a new direction and total repositioning" of the service, with newly appointed chief executive Rob Segal and president James Millership at the helm.

"Our new team is committed to taking care of our members and to building on our portfolio of unique and open-minded online dating brands," said Millership. "Millions of people have continued to connect on our sites during the past year and they deserve a discreet, open-minded community where they can connect with like-minded individuals."

Millership reinforced that bots will no longer be used at Avid Life Media and Ashley Madison. The company has also stepped up security and hired a cyber-security team to implement new safeguards and monitoring. Both Millership and Segal say they do not know the focus of the FTC investigation.

Former users of Ashley Madison may notice other key changes. The site has undergone significant makeover, with a new “look and feel” that is distinctly less obvious about the adultery theme.

"Ashley Madison today is about so much more than infidelity, it's about all kinds of adult dating," the website says. It remains to be seen if its 46 million members agree.

Wear your politics on your sleeve along with your heart. In the wake of Brexit, a new dating app hopes to bring together British singles who voted to remain in the European Union.

"Why wait until you’re halfway through an evening before finding out your date voted Out?" says the site. “Better Together Dating is a unique dating service for the 48%; for those who know that Britain is stronger within Europe, for those who celebrate the diversity, joy, and love that our great continent provides, and for those with Bregret.”

Better Together has already been hailed as the Tinder take on Brexit. The service is the brainchild of M14 Industries, a Manchester-based startup founded by John Kershaw. Kershaw previously created Bristlr, a tongue-in-cheek dating app for singles with beards and those who love them. Though it was originally intended as a joke, Bristlr took off and how has about 20,000 monthly users.

Could Better Together become the same? Kershaw told The Atlantic that the site was designed to be a way to support the Remain cause, though it’s probably too late.

“We’ve got Europe in our DNA; half my family are French, we’ve got staff here on an EU visa, and some of us are the children of immigrants,” Kershaw said. “I wanted something to cheer us up.”

Several hundred users have joined the site so far, primarily from the United Kingdom. The gender split is 60% male and 40% female, numbers equivalent to Tinder. Better Together’s interface also resembles Tinder. New users sign up with Facebook, and can only chat with people when they have mutually matched or both starred each other.

When it comes to profiles, Better Together is slightly more extensive than its predecessor. Members are asked to answer questions like: “What is your favorite city to visit in the EU?” “What languages do you speak?” and “What countries have you visited in the EU? Tell your favourite story!”

Like many mobile dating apps, Better Together targets a younger market. It’s a smart move for the company, considering that 75% of British citizens between ages 18 and 24 reportedly voted to Stay, along with 56 percent of voters between ages 25 and 49, according to a YouGov exit poll. It could be a sign that Better Together will find the same unexpected success as Bristlr.

As for Kershaw’s favorite creation, he hesitates to choose. ““The beard is less of a deal-breaker,” he told the Evening Standard. “If you had someone with a beard who wanted to vote Leave, that’s probably a no. But someone who wanted to back Remain but didn’t have a beard, that’s maybe OK. But it depends on the quality of the beard and the conviction of the politics.”

For more dating services you can check out our UK dating sites and apps category. Of those Match UK is one of the most popular among singles.

As Pride Month ends in America, there’s big news for the country’s LGBT singles. Faith-based dating site ChristianMingle.com must now allow users to look for same-sex matches following the settlement of a class-action lawsuit in California.

The site, which bills itself as the largest online community for Christian singles, currently requires new users to select one of two options when creating an account: man seeking woman or woman seeking man. That is now set to change, following a three-year fight for equal rights.

Two gay men filed class action claims against ChristianMingle’s parent company, Spark Networks, in 2013. The suit alleged that the dating site excluded same-sex users, thereby violating the Unruh Civil Rights Act, California’s anti-discrimination law.

The State of California's website states: "Under the Unruh Civil Rights Act, all persons are entitled to full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments, including both private and public entities. The Unruh Civil Rights Act protects all persons against arbitrary and unreasonable discrimination by a business establishment."

Spark Networks agreed to the judge-approved settlement on June 27. Under the settlement, Spark Networks will only require users to identify themselves as a man or woman. The company also agreed to add new options for gay and lesbian users within two years. The settlement applies to ChristianMingle.com as well as its sister sites CatholicMingle.com, AdventistSinglesConnection.com, and BlackSingles.com.

During the two years, “Spark will ensure that the ‘man seeking woman’ and ‘woman seeking man’ options on the gateway/home pages of the Mingle sites ask only whether the user is a ‘man’ or a ‘woman,’” reads the judgment. Spark Networks must not change the match prompts to “man seeking woman” at any time in the future, unless it also “provides similar prompts which allow individuals seeking a same sex match to enter and use the sites without having to state that they are seeking a match with someone of the opposite sex.”

Additionally, the judge ordered Spark Networks to pay $9,000 to each of the plaintiffs who brought the suit, as well as covering the full $450,000 in attorneys fees incurred by the two men.

Vineet Dubey, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, expressed gratitude for the case’s resolution. “I am gratified that we were able to work with Spark to help ensure that people can fully participate in all the diverse market places that make our country so special, regardless of their sexual orientation,” he said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Spark Networks told The Wall Street Journal that the company was “pleased to resolve this litigation.”

It’s almost unfathomable: a dating app with no swiping and no ability to chat with other users. Is it possible for such a service to break into the crowded online dating scene? helloTruly hopes so.

The new Chicago-based app is taking the Goldilocks approach. helloTruly wants to give singles just enough technology to get the ball rolling, but not so much that they’re glued to the app and neglect actual, in-person meeting. Not too much, not too little - just right.

Father-and-son founding team Andy and Jack Kenoe describe the app as a “digital icebreaker” focused on connecting people in physical spaces like coffee shops and bookstores. Users of the free iOS and Android app are alerted when another user is in the same location and matches their indicated preferences.

If you are a millennial, chances are you’ve heard of an app called Venmo, even if you haven’t downloaded it. It’s a peer to peer app owned by PayPal that lets you split things like cab fares and utility bills, to make it easier to share expenses among roommates, family and friends.

But now, there’s a phenomenon reported by The New York Post that claims Venmo is being used by stingy daters to get out of picking up the check.

When you have a Venmo account, it can be linked to a bank account or debit card, or you can keep money directly in your Venmo account to draw from (much like PayPal). The app allows you to connect with people so you can easily split expenses for things like a birthday gift or sharing a hotel room with friends when you go on vacation together.

But daters are starting to take advantage of this app, too. Guys are inviting their dates out to dinner or drinks, paying for it initially, and then after the couple says their goodbyes at the end of the night, the guy sends a Venmo request to ask the girls to cover their half of the bill.

It’s a passive aggressive way of simply asking to split the check. The guy gets to look good buy pretending to buy the drinks while he’s face to face with his date, but then he backs out as soon as she’s gone. This is a good tactic for men who aren’t interested in a second date.

The good news? The dates who are sent the Venmo request for payment can refuse to pay.

Money and dating has always been a sensitive topic in dating. Many men wonder if it’s appropriate to ask to split the check, or if the woman should offer to go dutch. Guys also worry they will look cheap if they don’t pick up the tab, but if they can’t afford this ritual 2-3 nights per week, it can get awkward.

Still, Venmo makes it easy for people to get away with some bad dating behavior. Instead of being upfront and honest about splitting the check, they are avoiding any type of direct confrontation or conflict. It would be much simpler to avoid any confused, hurt feelings if he was upfront and asked his date to split the check before they part ways.

It is similar to the influence texting has had on dating behavior. Texting has made avoidant behavior easier. Instead of having a difficult or uncomfortable conversation in person or over the phone, daters are instead choosing to “ghost” their dates by simply not returning any messages, hoping their dates get the hint that they aren’t interested.

Using Venmo is another avoidance tactic in dating – please, just ask to split the check.