Location

For the past several months, protests have been breaking out on a regular basis in Hong Kong, thanks to young student activists who want to maintain the city’s democratic leanings over the more oppressive mainland Chinese government’s rule. But along with the students who are moved to action, dating culture in Hong Kong is also changing as a result of the protests.

Many daters use popular dating apps like Momo, Tantan or Tinder to connect with each other, and aren’t afraid to list their political feelings in their profiles or when they message other daters. (Adding a yellow ribbon to your profile means you sympathize with protestors while a blue ribbon means you support the police and the mainland Chinese establishment.) Some are even posting photos of themselves at protests as a way to attract potential dates with the same political leanings.

Tencent, China’s largest social networking platform and operator of the immensely popular app WeChat, has launched a new dating app that seems positioned to compete with both Tinder and Tantan, China’s most popular dating app.

Qingliao - roughly translated as “light chat” – is kind of a hybrid of different dating app features already on the market. There is no swiping, but users can choose to “like” or “pass” on a potential match by choosing an “X” or a heart. When two users are matched, they can start chatting, according to details described in South China Morning Post.

Momo Homepage Screenshot

Momo reported financial results for the third quarter of 2019. The company’s major moments this year included topping Fortune’s ranking of the 100 fastest-growing companies in 2019 and working to get Tantan reinstated after it was removed from Android app stores by order of governmental authorities in China. Overall, Q3 was a positive period for the Chinese social networking and dating company.

Momo highlighted the following achievements for Q3 2019:

Tinder is rolling in cash at the close of 2019 thanks to consumer spending on its popular dating app. According to Annie’s List, it ranks as the number one non-gaming app where consumers are spending money, ahead of entertainment and social network giants like Netflix, YouTube and Tencent.

Video games are by far the most popular apps for consumers and generate the most revenue from in-app spending. However, outside of the gaming world, Tinder subscriptions have driven it to the top spot in consumer app spending.

Harvard Geneticist George Church

Harvard Geneticist George Church, known for his work on reversing aging, has now turned his efforts to building a dating app that eliminates diseases by matching partners based on DNA compatibility. It works like this: when two users have a low likelihood of passing diseases onto their children, they’ll be matched.

The move has drawn a lot of controversy, namely because of its nod towards eugenics, or “good birth,” an idea popularized under Nazi Germany in the 1930s to eliminate “bad genes” through selective breeding. Church however, argues that the goal is to eliminate disease by pairing people who have the least amount of risk of creating offspring with illnesses or disabilities.

Dating.com Group is expanding its suite of dating apps by acquiring Dil Mil, a San Francisco-based dating app that is popular among ex-pats from India and South Asian countries, according to Tech Crunch.

South Asian ex-pats are less interested in arranged marriages, and have turned to dating apps to help find love in the U.S. However, most popular American dating apps like Tinder and OkCupid aren’t culturally appealing to this group of daters, who are more conservative and traditional in their approach to dating.