Types (Niche)

If there’s one thing every online dater can agree on, it’s this: they all want more matches. More matches mean more dates, more dates mean more chances of meeting someone special, and more special someones means eventually finding the someone who takes you off the market for good.

As an online dater, you have an effect on how many matches you get. You boost your odds by choosing the right photos, writing an attractive profile, and crafting intriguing messages. But as carefully as you try to present yourself well, you know it’s not entirely in your hands. Working hard in the background of every dating site or app is an algorithm that also has a say in how many matches you receive.

Popular dating app Tinder crashed on Thursday night, ahead of a long holiday weekend in the United States.

The International Business Times reported that Tinder had crashed around 10:00pm Eastern time, and users were having problems retrieving their messages, contacting their matches and even logging in. Some users reported losing their matches as well. Users on the Dating Sites Reviews Forum also had issues with Tinder

Angry Tinder users voiced their frustration over social media, making jokes about Tinder failing just when they got some matches, were trying to contact their dates to meet, or downloaded the latest version of the app.

One user joked:

“Tinder crashes before it opens which also describes my love life ‪#tinder”

Gay men and women are now allowed to search and meet through dating site Christian Mingle, one of the largest niche dating sites in the industry. The site opened its platform to gay users after settling a lawsuit that claimed that it violated California’s non-discrimination law on the basis of sexual orientation.

According to the conditions of the settlement, Spark Networks who own Christian Mingle among other dating sites, will change their homepages to allow users to specify if they are a man or a woman, and also if they are looking for men or women. While Spark also agreed to create a more comprehensive and tailored matching service for users seeking same sex relationships within the next two years, the dating site Christian Mingle as it exists for gay singles can be frustrating.

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.