Features

Another new dating app has hit the market to compete with Tinder, the ever-popular app that is both cherished and demonized for changing the landscape of dating. Precisely takes the user-friendly format of Tinder (swiping), and combines it with a clickable menu of over 200 filters across 25 different categories, so you can select descriptions according to your preferences.

Dating sites like OkCupid and Match are two successful yet traditional online dating platforms, and their matching algorithms also use descriptions. However, these sites rely on users answering questions and writing detailed profiles, which can take a lot of time. Precisely aims to take the time-consuming part out, but still maintain the helpful filters.

So instead of writing about who you are or what you want, you can choose to “activate” or include in your profile adjectives that the app provides in a ready-made list. For instance, you can choose descriptors like: “vegetarian,” “blonde,” “curvy,” “freckles,” “tattoos.”

The app provides a variety of personality-based filters in addition to physical descriptors, covering art, fitness, politics, diet and religion, for instance. If your religious or political views are important in your relationships, you can make your beliefs known to others. Or you can choose to not make them part of your filters.

Happn, a France-based dating app that uses geolocation to connect singles who cross paths in everyday life, has reached a major milestone: 10 million members.

The app works much like Tinder, but on a hyperlocal scale. When you walk by another user, their profile is added to the top of your feed. Every potential match you see was near you at some point during the day. The more you scroll, the further back in time you go. Tap a heart to like the profiles that catch your eye and dismiss the rest by tapping a cross. If there's a mutual match, you can start chatting for free.

“When we launched Happn in 2014, we aimed to fill a void in the online dating scene by offering a way for people to connect with those they’ve crossed paths with in real-life – and really, a way to put the spontaneity back into dating,” said co-founder and CEO Didier Rappaport, in a statement.

The strategy seems to be working. Happn is reportedly on track to reach 30 million users by the end of the year.

Millions of happy daters aren't the only big news for the app. Happn has also announced a new voice feature that will allow users to send audio recordings up to one minute long to each other. Happn hopes that the clips will make it easier for users to showcase their unique personalities before meeting up.

Rappaport said in a statement: "This new voice feature provides our members with another opportunity to connect on a more personal level and create meaningful relationships."

To use the new feature, click the mic icon that now appears inside a conversation chain. Hold the button down while recording and release it to finish. When it's complete, you can either send the message or cancel it. On the receiving end, a user simply needs to click on a recording to listen to it. The feature has already rolled out to all iOS and Android users.

Rappaport told Business Insider last November that a number of new features are planned for Happn in hopes of catching up with rival Tinder. "For us, the evolution of our product is really important," he said. "We want to make a service that is more and more rich for our users and one that allows them to express themselves much more."

"The voice is something that is very emotional," he continued. "Just listening to the voice of someone else can give you a lot of impression."

As for what else the future holds for Happn, we'll have to wait and see.

You might not have known this if you’ve used popular dating app Tinder, but the service secretly calculates a score that ranks the most (and least) desirable people swiping on the service.

And every single Tinder user has a score.

In an article for Fast Company, reporter Austin Carr was interviewing Tinder founder Sean Rad, who let him know this wasn’t some urban myth. In fact, Rad went so far as to admit that not only does each user have a desirability score, but that the company spent more than two months developing the algorithm for rating people. According to Rad, it’s more than a popularity contest of which users get the most swipes or matches, or who has the more attractive photos, but a combination of factors that make a more complex overall view.

Still, the swipes probably have something to do with your desirability score. In fact, every time a Tinder user swipes right or left on you, that is factored into the equation – how often you are liked, versus rejected. And how many times there is a mutual swipe, versus a one-sided rejection or like. Then there are the more intangible factors, like career choice, words used to describe oneself in a profile, and educational background.

Carr got to look at his own desirability score, which was just slightly above average to his dismay. He cautioned his readers to avoid looking at their scores, as they could potentially end up even more self-conscious daters than they were already. Tinder wouldn’t give him any details besides a top line number of how he compares to everyone else using the app. Tinder does have more detailed breakdowns and analyses, but they chose not to share.

While it might be interesting to learn your Tinder desirability score, it doesn’t help if you end up on the lower end of the spectrum. It certainly doesn’t mean anything in terms of your ability to connect with that one special person – people are attracted to one another based on that intangible known as chemistry, for one.

Also, people have a wide array of tastes – what might seem attractive to one Tinder user might turn off another. OkCupid discovered this in its own study, where it researched the most-messaged users. More often than not, the ones with more unusual features tended to get more messages, and more people considered them attractive compared to those who were considered more "ordinarily attractive."

So if you are on Tinder, just keep swiping and dating without worrying about how you stack up against the competition. It’s just an algorithm, after all. For more information on this dating app you can read our Tinder review.

OkCupid has built a reptuation as one of the more open-minded dating services available for singles. In their latest progressive move, the site is adding a feature designed to help users explore nonmonogamy.

The new setting became available for some beta users last December and rolled out site-wide in Januray 2016. Polyamorous daters who are listed as “seeing someone,” “married,” or “in an open relationship” can now link their profiles with their partners' profiles and search for new additions to their relationship.

The decision to add the option for polyamorous users comes after OkCupid noticed an uptick in interest in nonmonogamous relationships. According to the company’s data, 42% of its users would consider dating someone who is already involved in an open or poly relationship. Another 24% say they are “seriously interested” in group sex. Combined, reports The Atlantic, those two numbers represent increases of 8 percentage points from five years ago.

Perhaps more surprisingly, the number of OkCupid users who say they are solely committed to monogamy has fallen to a minority of all users: 44%, down from 56% in 2010.

The trend on OkCupid is reflective of a larger trend throughout the United States. Psychology Today reported in 2014 that "sexually non-monogamous couples in the United States number in the millions." Surveys suggest that 4 to 5 percent of Americans are now involved in polyamorous relationships.

This isn't the first time OkCupid has made headlines for its forward-thinking take on online dating. The site added an “open relationship” option back in 2014. Last year, it increased the number of genders it recognizes to 22. Tinder and Match.com, also owned by OkCupid parent company Match Group, do not yet have plans to add a similar feature for nonmonogamous users.

Outside of Match Group, OkCupid remains a trendsetter. Though specialized dating sites for polyamorous people were already available, this seems to be the first time a mainstream online dating service has offered a feature for nonmonogamous partners. In the past, poly couples resorted to creating confusing joint profiles or describing their arrangement in their bios.

Jimena Almendares, OkCupid’s chief product officer, told The Atlantic the company isn't trying to make a statement – it's merely following the numbers and giving users the tools they need to find the relationships they want.

“Finding your partner is very important,” she said, “you should have the option to express specifically and exactly who you are and what you need.”

For more information on this dating service please read our review of OkCupid.

Online dating is big business after the holidays. In fact, user activity remains consistently high until Valentine’s Day, according to reports from online dating veteran websites like Match.

But it’s also a huge time for dating apps, especially Tinder – who had its biggest growth day in its history. On Sunday January 3rd, Tinder execs revealed that the app experienced the most downloads and the most growth of active users in a single day - ever. (Coincidentally, most online dating sites report that their biggest, busiest day of the year is the Sunday after New Year’s, when people are faced with the end of holiday revelry and the return to work.)

Needless to say, Tinder must have seen this spike coming and decided to take advantage with a new feature, which came in the form of a push notification. The notification alerted users when there was 2x to 3x higher rate of matches in their local area. It said:

Wow! Tinder is on fire in your area! Chances of a match are 3X higher right now (flame emoji)

The push notification was an interesting choice for Tinder execs to make, since the app prides itself specifically on not sending unwanted messages to its users, keeping the interaction as seamless as possible.

Tinder CEO Sean Rad looks at the feature as a win-win for users. “When there is a spike in engagement on the platform, we want to let users know so that they can take advantage of that moment,” Rad told news website TechCrunch.

The match rate is the number of swipes it takes to get to a match. When there is more engagement, the likelihood of matching with someone goes up. In a way, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you tell someone that the match rate is 2-3 times higher, then likely they will keep swiping (engaging) until they get a match.

“The most fascinating thing about this type of notification is that, by notifying users when those peak moments are happening, it increases the overall success rate for our users,” Rad told news website Tech Crunch. “It has a compounding effect and produces even more activity.”

The match alert is the latest in a series of moves Tinder has made to overcome its hook-up reputation and concentrate on more long-term matches. The company has also been sharing stories and photos of happy couples who met on Tinder, including a tweet from a couple on their wedding day, hoping to show proof that the app is helpful for finding long-term love.

Tinder faces competition from new services like Bumble, which lets the women call the shots first, and Coffee Meets Bagel, which provides one match a day to make sure people aren’t just mindlessly swiping. For more on this dating app, please read our review of Tinder.

Online daters – especially women – often complain about unwanted and lude messages they get from potential matches on dating apps. Some guys are so aggressive with initial contact that they send intimate photos of themselves - the so-called “d*ck pic” - which is offensive to many women, if not even a bit scary. But there is little control dating apps have over messages between two people who swiped right and started communicating, which is why many find it such a frustrating experience.

Dating app The Grade aims to change that. Back in October, they launched the controversial “Peer Review” feature on their dating app, essentially letting other users provide direct feedback for online and offline experiences with other singles on the app.  This move was met with skepticism, with some wondering if angry and jilted matches might lash out and tarnish the reputation of someone else on the site, simply because there was no third party witness. Essentially, users could say whatever they wanted about a date.

The Grade surveyed its users to see how they actually felt about the new feature, and according to the company’s findings, 71% of people believe that Peer Review helps weed out the creeps.

Case in point: the majority of The Grade’s female users believe Peer Review provides a safer and better-informed dating experience. And according to a statement released from the company… it finally eliminates the "d*ck pics." Of the 11% of men who admitted to sending an unsolicited photo of their private parts, 90% reported that they would stop if they knew a match could review them.

Could this lead to better dating behavior – knowing that other people are watching and reviewing you?

It seems likely. The Peer Review feature provides feedback from other singles, mainly to help inform users’ decisions to swipe right or left. In fact, The Grade reports that 78% of singles are more likely to “like” (or swipe right) someone with a good Peer Review grade, while 88% are less likely to “like” someone with a bad Peer Review grade.

Ninety-five percent of The Grade’s users are pro-Peer Review, and 85% of the 15,000 peer reviews submitted so far have been positive. Results show that the most common reason a user would give someone a negative review is if that person was already in an existing relationship or lied about their profile details.

Despite the controversy, The Grade might be on to something – accountability for behavior in online dating. That is something most of us can get behind.