Types (Niche)

Just when you thought you'd mastered the swipe left and the swipe right, Tinder throws a curve ball into your love life: a swipe up.

Meet the 'Super Like,' a brand new feature that takes the grand romantic gesture into digital territory. By swiping upwards on a potential date instead of left or right, you can show them that you're interested – like, super interested – before they decide which way to swipe on your profile.

After Super Liking someone, a blue banner declaring “So-and-so super liked you!" will appear underneath your name and age in their list of matches. If the attraction is mutual, the super-swiper will have a blue star next to their name in your list of matches.

Super Liking is not something to take lightly. Each user gets a limited number of Super Likes per day – only one – so use them wisely.

"Because they're so limited in number, a Super Like, or a 'swipe up', sends a more powerful signal, conveying an especially high level of interest," Tinder CEO Sean Rad told Engadget. "People like to know that someone finds them special, and we think this will lead to even better matches."

Tech analysts have dug deeper into the intention behind the new feature. Many believe the Super Like was introduced because Tinder has deviated from its original purpose. Instead of using the app to find real dates, many are using it only to kill time. Super Like may help restore Tinder's lost value.

“I can't help feeling the fact that Tinder has to keep imposing limits on swiping and adding features to encourage selective swiping suggests the swiping system is feeling the strain,” writes Rich Trenholm for CNET. “With many profiles complaining their matches never actually chat with them, it seems the Super Like is an attempt to restore some of the weight of a match.”

Tinder has celebrated the arrival of the Super Like with a cinematic superhero-themed advertisement featuring models Erin Heatherton and Nina Agdal (see below). The feature will launch first in Australia and is slated to roll out globally later this year.

Alongside the Super Like, Rad has also stated that the Tinder Plus version will launch soon. The new version limits the number of right swipes a user can make in a 24-hour period, and introduces Undo and Passport options. These advanced settings will be available for a monthly fee.

For more on this dating app your can read our review of Tinder.

We all have that friend: the one who dates jerk after jerk, ending up in a string of relationships so bad they make you question why anyone bothers dating at all.

A new app helps you give that friend's hopeless love life a lift. Spritzr allows you to refer potential love interests to single friends using Facebook. With you as matchmaker, you no longer have to put up with your friend's endless parade of unsuitable suitors.

To sign up for Spritzr, you must first indicate if you're a Dater or a Matchmaker. If you choose the latter, start suggesting friends to each other. Friends who indicate mutual interest will be sent notifications and can connect. If mutual interest isn't established, no notifications are sent and no one is the wiser.

Online dating fatigue: it sounds silly, but it's a real phenomenon. You can only spend so much time in cyberspace before your head starts to spin and arthritis sets in on your swiping hand.

When burnout begins, it's time to take a hiatus from the smartphone. Do yourself a favor and delete your dating app.

Yes, I said it. It may sound drastic, but it's the only way to be 100% sure you won't succumb to temptation and start swiping again.

How do you know it's time to take such a radical step? If any of these signs sound like you, your dating app belongs in the bin.

You're logging in out of habit, not out of interest.

It's hardly news that we're addicted to our devices. We check Facebook every 30 minutes and our email every hour. And our online dating apps? They're right there in the same boat, squeezed between Instagram and Vine. Dating should never be done on auto-pilot. When checking your app becomes a habit or an obsession, not something you're actually invested in, it's time to take a break.

You've resorted to stock messages.

The copy/pasted greeting is never a good look. Creating a great introduction isn't easy for everyone (or maybe anyone), but it's essential. If you're not taking communication seriously, you're not taking dating seriously. Go on a dating diet until you're ready to read profiles and put real thought into your messages.

You immediately look for what's wrong instead of what's right.

Being too picky can be just as bad as not being picky enough. If you're experiencing online dating burnout, chances are your subconscious will subtly sabotage your efforts. Instead of looking for the good in each potential date, you'll zero in immediately on the negatives. Your brain is looking for any excuse to avoid yet another tedious date.

You're desperate for a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Wait, isn't finding a relationship the point of online dating? How can wanting one be wrong? Well, it isn't. “Desperate” is the key word here. If you're too focused on that specific outcome, you're more likely to settle for someone who isn't right for you. A title should never be more important than actual compatibility.

You're on there for a reason that isn't dating.

Be honest. What are you really looking for? Do you respond to messages? Do you go on dates? If not, you're wasting your time and everyone else's. It's tempting to use dating apps for validation – who doesn't love be on the receiving end of a right swipe? – but it's unfair to users who are looking for real connections. And don't even get me started on the evils of catfishing.

The dating app market is flooded, so new companies entering the field and looking to make their mark have to differentiate themselves. For some app developers, it’s taking a female-centric approach, like with Bumble. Others look to social networking connections to make people feel more secure about meeting strangers, like Coffee Meets Bagel or Hinge.

The latest grab for online daters’ attention comes in the form of creating a dating app that is as exclusive as possible.

In other words, a new crop of apps are taking a completely different approach from acquiring the most users, like with Tinder. The success of an online dating company or app has always been evaluated by how large its database of users is. But these apps are banking on another measure of success - that is, how coveted the app is. They are driving demand for the app, and then being selective about who gets to use it.

Tired of Tinder and endless swiping that leads nowhere? While the dating app is popular, it’s leaving most online daters a little cold. Many come across fake profiles, or they match with someone only to have them disappear before actually meeting in person. And then there is the whole hook-up reputation.

So what is an online dater to do? New dating apps like The Grade and Bumble are setting out to alleviate online dating fatigue by putting their resources into creating more quality matches, so users can have a better overall experience. Specifically, these apps analyze and the behavior of their own members, so other users can see how they rate.

Bumble, founded by former Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe, aims to give power back to female daters. Bumble only allows the woman to reach out and make the first move – not the guy. So she is in control of the dating experience. A recent article in International Business Times revealed that a new feature Bumble will be rolling out is a verification program called “VIBee” -- a system that rewards users with a badge if they have good behavior on the app. The feature will aim to discourage users from nonstop swiping (left or right), and from spam messaging. If a match sees you have the badge, you’re more likely to be contacted – or so the thinking goes.

The Grade operates in a similar fashion, and as the name suggests – grades people on their behavior while using the app. The grading system is three-fold: you are "graded" based on how complete your profile is, how long it takes you to respond to messages, and the quality of the messages you send. In other words, the app will analyze message quality, including length, spelling mistakes, slang and hostile words and then assign you a letter grade, like in school. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really check context, so while some words might be “red flags” in certain contexts but not others, you could be penalized for using them at all.

Founders of The Grade pride themselves on the fact that they are weeding daters out based on how they behave. With about 100,000 downloads of The Grade so far, approximately 1,000 have been expelled and 2,000 are in danger of “failing.”

Cliff Lerner, founder of The Grade, told International Business Times: “We’re not saying we’re going to take on Tinder. We don’t want every user. All of our users are going to be high quality and accountable for their behavior. A lot of people will be kicked off.”

Lerner’s app focused on the complaints he kept hearing from female online daters, who were asking for an app that allowed them to handle offensive or hostile messages from men. Most women who have online dated have encountered such messages from time to time, which has created a huge trust problem with online dating apps and services.

Behavioral monitoring might be the next Tinder after all, at least for female daters.

The hack isn't the only bad press plaguing the Ashley Madison camp. Following the security breach, the leak of sensitive customer info, and a class action lawsuit, a former employee is now back in the news for claiming she was told to create hundreds of fake profiles for non-existent female “members.”

Doriana Silva, who worked at the company’s headquarters in Toronto, Canada, tried to sue the firm after claiming she suffered a repetitive strain injury after being told to input 1,000 counterfeit memberships in a short period of time.

According to court documents, Silva alleges that her job “entailed concocting phony profiles of alluring females and inputting these profiles into the appellants' online dating service in order to attract male subscribers.” She claims she was given only three weeks to create 1,000 fake profiles on Ashley Madison.

Her claim states that the purpose of the profiles is to “entice paying heterosexual male members to join and spend money on the website. They do not belong to any genuine members of Ashley Madison — or any real human beings at all." She also claims she was led to believe that the creation of fake profiles was considered a normal business practice in the industry.

Silva claimed £10 million in damages when she launched her case in 2012. Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison's parent company, counter-sued. The two sides agreed to drop their cases earlier this year, but the suit is back in the news following the big hack.

Online security experts have suggested Ashley Madison is perhaps guilty of further fraud. Some believe the company may have purchased bulk email addresses from marketing companies in order to create the impression that their user base is significantly larger than it really is.

A source involved in the FBI's investigation into the leak told The Daily Telegraph that inspections of the database suggest that a large number of the female profiles on Ashley Madison were in fact created by a relatively small number of individuals.

Ashley Madison says on its website that it cannot “guarantee the authenticity of any profile,” but it's hardly an uncommon phenomenon for an online dating site to artificially inflate its number of profiles to appear more attractive to new users. Ashley Madison may have taken publically available information from other databases to use on its site.

Alternatively, actual users may have stolen other people's email addresses to avoid giving their real name and contact info.

Either way, the news is ensuring Ashley Madison is hit even harder. Avid Life Media has scrapped plans to float on the London Stock Exchange and now faces serious legal action from those affected by the hack.