Types (Niche)

Turns out, Valentine’s Day is not just about couples, hearts and chocolates – it’s about swiping left and right with your dating app to see who's out there. Singles are optimistic about love on this particular holiday - and are saying yes more often to potential dates.

According to popular dating app Tinder, activity from users on Valentine’s Day this year surpassed any day since its launch back in 2012 – that is, the total number of swipes, messages, and matches were at the highest count in the app’s history.

The increased activity in advance of Valentine’s Day began on February 6, leading up to the all-time high on V-Day itself. Overall usage ticked up 7 percent week-over-week from the last couple of years, resulting in a 15 percent increase over the company’s long-term trends. Message activity was up 5.2 percent week-over-week, and matches were up by 6 percent.

Vanity Fair reported that the company found a 60 percent increase in matches per user who logged in to the app on Valentine’s Day from the previous Saturday. Unfortunately, the love didn’t last – user activity was back to normal by Sunday February 15th. It seems the pressure of romance’s biggest day contributed to the app’s popularity, but fizzled out just as quickly. It is also interesting to note that more men were on the app than women on Valentine’s Day, perhaps a reflection of Match.com’s latest “Singles in America” study, where they found that men were much more likely to believe in love at first sight than women.

Critics have been quick to point out that Tinder users are primarily looking for last-minute hook-ups, which might explain the Valentine’s Day craze. The company’s founder Sean Rad however, disagrees – noting that people go to bars and clubs all the time looking for potential for hook-ups. So why choose Tinder? According to Rad, Tinder is helping people overcome the challenge of approaching a stranger to say “hi” because the app makes it less intimidating, and the sting of rejection isn’t quite so high.

“People don’t realize this, but we’re an order of magnitude bigger than any other dating app,” Rad told Vanity Fair. “You really have to ask yourself, if that’s the critique of Tinder, are you critiquing Tinder, or are you critiquing society?”

Tinder is rolling out its new premium service Tinder Plus in the U.S. in March, which will allow paying members to go back and rekindle things with someone they initially rejected, and let users browse through profiles of people in other cities. The new service has already rolled out in the U.K.

For those who have been following the trajectory of the phenomenal success of dating app Tinder, for the founders of the app, it wasn’t such a successful match.

Whitney Wolfe was one of the founders of Tinder along with Justin Mateen and Sean Rad, who were the face of the company  as it launched to great success. Then Wolfe and Mateen became romantically involved and when that ended, so did their professional relationship – through reports of abusive behavior and a lawsuit that ended in a $1 million settlement for Wolfe.

The young entrepreneur wants to put all that behind her however. In a recent interview with Business Insider Australia, she addressed the lawsuit, her critics, and the launch of her new dating app Bumble.

Wolfe claims she has moved on, but her history with Tinder is still a bit convoluted. According to Wolfe, she came up with the name and first shepherded the dating app herself by reaching out to students on college campuses, urging them to try it. However, Mateen and Rad have stated that Mateen was the one who brought Tinder to potential users, mainly through the fraternities and his contacts with large social networks at college campuses.

The fight between Mateen and Wolfe got nasty, with text messages back and forth that were exposed in the media. From an outsider’s perspective, neither one of them looked innocent, but in the end, it was a case of he said she said.

Wolfe took her experience at Tinder and decided to try her hand in launching her own female-friendly dating app called Bumble. Although it has the same user-friendly photo-based structure and ease of Tinder, Bumble encourages women to make the first move by giving them 24 hours to reach out to a match before he disappears. (The guys have to sit back and wait for the women to message them.)

Other female-friendly dating apps have come before Bumble with their own spin – like LuLu, which allows women to rate their dates and discuss them with other women on the app. There’s also JessMeetKen, which allows women to promote one of their single guy friends to other women on the site, in order to give them a little endorsement for potential dates. But Bumble is showing promise too, with Wolfe reaching out to college students and encouraging them to give it a try.

“We’re definitely not trying to be sexist, that’s not the goal,” Wolfe told Business Insider. “I know guys get sick of making the first move all the time. Why does a girl feel like she should sit and wait around? Why is there this standard that, as a woman, you can get your dream job but you can’t talk to a guy first? Let’s make dating feel more modern.”

According to Wolfe, 60% of matches on Bumble turn into conversations, and in a little over a month since the launch, there have been more than 100,000 downloads. 

It was only a matter of time before a Denver-based app developer would take advantage of the city’s new legalized pot industry. High There! - a new dating app specifically for weed lovers, launched this month for Android and will be debuting in the iTunes store soon. In addition to the mile-high city, the app is also available in 23 states that have legalized medical marijuana laws.

High There has been described as “the Tinder of pot smoking,” although instead of matching according to proximity and age preferences, the app asks for your weed preferences, such as vaping or smoking, and what your energy level is when you are imbibing – “low energy couch potato or high energy explorer,” according to a report on Mashable.

The design of the app is similar to Tinder, with photos as the main feature and the ability to accept or reject a match by swiping left or right. Besides how you consume your pot, a few extra questions are added to enhance your profile, including what you are in the mood for – “go out, stay in, or chat?” and your interests (“culture, outdoors”).

CEO Todd Mitchem says he was inspired to create the app after his date called it quits when she found out he smoked pot. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, so he decided he’d rather only date pot smokers – but needed a way to meet them. He wanted to build a community around people who might otherwise feel shunned for their habit. He told Mashable that the app “can also act as a kind of social network for smokers who are seeking recommendations on local dispensaries, to share tips or just make friends with other like-minded folks.”   

High There however is not the first dating app to cater to this particular clientele. My420mate launched last year, and 420Singles has been offering their pot-friendly app for a while as well, though High There seems to be getting a lot more attention in the press.

So far, the reception to High There has been mixed, according to reviews in the app store. The main reason for users’ frustration is that they download the free app and then can’t use it because of the marijuana laws in their particular cities. (If it isn’t available to purchase legally in your town, you can’t use the app.) Many people complain that they do have medical marijuana cards from another city, but can’t use the app because of the legal status in the city where they live.

High There is free and available for Android users, and will soon be available for download from the iTunes store.

Luckily, we live in the age of technology – so if you forgot to make plans for Valentine’s Day (and unfortunately it lands on a Saturday this year) – you might want to look to the app store for help.

If you are looking for a last-minute gift or card, here are some apps to try:

Red Stamp Cards - Need a thoughtful Valentine's Day card in a hurry? Snap a photo and you can quickly create a unique card for your Valentine with this free app. Cards can be tweeted, texted, emailed or posted to Instagram and Facebook.

BloomThat - If you forgot to order flowers and the local grocery store’s selection looks a little tired, this app can help you out of a last-minute problem. (And they can deliver their hand-crafted bouquets via bicycle in under 90 minutes, as opposed to florists where there is an 8-hour delivery window.) For iPhone users only.

This month, Tinder began rolling out its new premium service Tinder Plus in select European markets, and the feedback hasn’t been good.

The popular dating app surged to the top of the online dating market when it launched in 2012, attracting users who had never thought of signing up for an online dating site. Its easy-to-use format and free game-like service offered more entertainment than dating stress, and users flocked to check it out.

But in an effort to make money from this hugely successful endeavor, it was only a matter of time before Tinder’s owners developed a paid model for the app – opting for a premium service over adding distracting in-app advertisements. (Although the company has strategically lent its brand to marketing campaigns, like Gillette’s facial hair survey and Domino’s Pizza Valentine’s Day campaign.)

But Tinder Plus has not been greeted favorably, at least in its initial roll out – and the free service is suffering as a result. Although Tinder Plus is not set to launch in the U.S. until March, and prices are still to be determined, the company needs to find a new strategy - considering the backlash it has gotten in markets where the roll out has already taken place, such as the U.K. Tinder users who are not opting to pay for Tinder Plus and want to stick to the old free version of the app have been leaving bad reviews in the iTunes store (enough to drive the free service’s rating down to one and a half stars).

The problem has to do with new restrictions to the free service. Once a user has swiped a certain number of times, they are blocked for 24 hours from seeing any new profiles, unless they want to pay for the new Tinder Plus service. Since most users log in to Tinder multiple times a day to swipe through matches, this puts a serious hindrance on Tinder’s competitive advantage. Other dating apps that have restrictions on the number of profiles a user can see per day – like Hinge - have been easing up on their requirements, and seeing a surge of new downloads as a result.

With all the promising new free apps coming on the market, such as Bumble (started by an ex-Tinder employee), Tinder will need to think outside the box to keep its market share. After all, any online dating app or site’s currency is their user base. If Tinder loses theirs, then they stand to lose a lot more than the revenue from the premium service. Perhaps they should stick to advertising deals, or instead of taking away features from loyal users, offer more enticing new features.

Coffee Meets Bagel, the service that could win the title of “simplest dating app of all time,” has launched on Android.

Like most dating services, CMB swears it's all about introducing high-quality singles who are on the hunt for meaningful relationships. So far, so good, so blah.

What makes Coffee Meets Bagel stand out is its approach to doing it. CMB operates on three guiding principles:

1. Unless you want to tell others, your dating life should remain private
2. Your friends are the best conduits for your dates
3. Meeting quality people doesn't have to be so awkward or complicated

Those principles became a stripped-down take on the dating app. Users sign in through Facebook, and are matched with one person (their “Bagel”) every day at noon. All they have to do is LIKE or PASS on their Bagel, then kick back and wait patiently until the next noon rolls around.

“We wanted our service to be something that people look forward to everyday, something that can spice up their lunch break,” explains CMB on the About Us page. “Most of our members are busy young professionals, and we know that one thing everyone looks forward to daily is coffee breaks. That led us to choose coffee. There are many things that go well with coffee but we chose Bagels because we launched in New York City!”

If you and your Bagel mutually indicate interest in each other, you're immediately connected by a text message sent from a private company phone line. CMB will also hook you up with free stuff from popular local spots for your first date. How's that for a sweet deal?

If, on the other hand, your Bagel doesn't look like something you want to sink your teeth into, you must wait another 24 hours for your next potential match. It may not be the best app for the impatient, but it's an ideal setup for a busy professional who barely has time to eat lunch, much less surf through hundreds and hundreds of online dating profiles.

Coffee Meets Bagel launched on iOS in August of last year and has since seen double-digit growth and solid engagement from users, TechCrunch reports. Although the mobile market is far from sparse these days, CMB's fresh launch on Android should only boost its already-promising numbers.

Download the app for Android on Google Play and for iOS on the iTunes Store.