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Are you a Republican or Democrat? According to a study by dating website Match, most people looking to date wouldn’t care one way or another, but something has changed in 2016, and people are becoming more polarized and politically active.  

Perhaps it’s the entertainment aspect that Donald Trump has brought to the campaign trail, or the enthusiastic support of Bernie Sanders among young liberal voters, but something has shifted in the collective American psyche---so much so, that it has inspired two new dating apps.

So now the question has become: Are you a fan of Bernie Sanders, or not a fan of Donald Trump? Regardless of how you feel, there are two new dating sites you should know about.

Bernie Singles launched a few months back, when app developers found that there was a real market for young activists looking to meet each other – for friendship or something more. It seemed that many Bernie Sanders fans on Facebook were eager to meet like-minded activists in person, and there was an instant show of support for the dating app.

Bernie Singles definitely embraces the progressive slant of the candidate who first inspired it. When you join, you can register as male, female, genderqueer or transgender - and as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, queer or asexual. There’s no gender bias, which also seems to be a good selling point.

In fact, so many people downloaded it when it first launched that the site crashed in the first week. Several thousand have joined to date.

Not to ignore the dating app potential with the current political groundswell of young activists, there will soon be an app for those looking to avoid a Trump Presidency. Maple Match, whose tagline is “Make Dating Great Again” – a play on Trump’s campaign slogan of “Make America Great Again” – has been making headlines with the announcement of its product, coming soon to market.  The app promises to find Americans who are looking to flee a potential Trump Presidency some Canadian matches. Even before its launch, 5,000 people have signed up for the site.

As it turns out, Trump isn’t the only reason Americans want to flee the country. According to a recent interview in The Guardian, Joe Goldman, Maple Match’s founder said: "This site shows that a lot of people are frustrated with the current dating options. A lot of Americans really want to meet Canadians. They're looking for something new and something better."

Bernie Singles is coy in its approach, noting on its website: “The one percent aren’t the only ones getting screwed this election season!” 

Either way, politics has entered the mix in online dating. We'll see what happens in 2017.

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"Are you an overworked tech industry employee? Does it feel like you are spending more of your precious time putting out fires than searching for sparks in your own life? If potential suitors are struggling to understand your SQL skills, or if trying to explain Java over an Americano is leaving you feeling frustrated, we can help."

Thus begins the homepage of the newest company to join the jam-packed dating industry. DateADev promises to be the professional version of the friend you go to for dating advice. The company, launched by two Amazon employees this month, aims to help struggling techies find love online.

Becca Goldman and Mahvish Gazipura came up with the idea for DateADev after hearing countless stories from frustrated colleagues who had no luck in love, especially when it came to online dating.

“We both work at Amazon and are surrounded by software developers and project managers all the time,” Goldman told GeekWire. “We just noticed their need. We talk to them all the time about their frustrations with dating — they are a great target audience.”

The process begins with a consultation ($99 for 1 hour) in person or via video chat in which a DateADev coach reviews a client’s profile - aka their online brand - to suggest improvements. Coach and client also discuss dating history, strategy, and goals. Upgrade to the “Perfect Match” option for a more in depth, 2-hour consultation.

For additional help, the company offers three monthly membership packages:

• Silver Membership: Designed for the casual dater, a Silver membership includes 8 interactions per month, a personal brand review and optimization of 2 accounts, and 24/7 support from coaches ($259/mo)
• Gold Membership: A Gold membership, meant for singles with long-term relationships in mind, promises 16 interactions per month, a personal brand review and optimization of 4 accounts, and 24/7 support from coaches ($399/mo)
• Platinum Membership: Platinum members are serious about finding a soulmate - with that aim in mind, they receive unlimited interactions each month, a personal brand review and optimization of unlimited accounts, and 24/7 support from coaches ($599)

For now, the service is aimed at residents of Seattle, where Goldman and Gazipura live. “Seattle has the most online daters of any other city, even San Francisco,” said Gazipura, “which is shocking.”

Given that Seattle the home of multiple tech companies - including the aforementioned Amazon - it’s a smart move. “It makes it harder to stand out amongst all of the quality candidates,” Gazipura said. “There are a lot of successful, smart people with great jobs, a good personality, and a good education, but how do you set yourself apart from such a great pool? That’s why we are focusing on tech workers.”

DateADev is currently only a side project, but both founders are open to pursuing it full-time if the idea takes off.

Last month on the Canadian TV show The Disruptors, an unlikely interview took place between host Bruce Croxton and Markus Frind, the founder of popular online dating site Plenty of Fish. (Broxton was the founder of dating site Lavalife, which raked in members until POF’s free service hit the market.)

For the first time, the two former rivals were sitting down together to discuss the current state of the dating industry, and the history of their two companies.

Broxton noted the quick success of POF, which because of its free service, quickly gained a lot of users – many of whom hadn’t tried online dating previously. Typically, dating sites made their money through selling subscriptions to members, but POF tried a different model to attract a larger audience, and it worked. Instead of selling subscriptions, the site made its money by selling ad space. After all, they had an engaged audience.

At its peak and before its sale in 2004, Lavalife had over four hundred employees. Frind launched POF in 2003 and operated the service alone from his apartment for the first five years, without hiring another employee despite the service’s rapid growth. He managed to turn it into the largest dating site in the world by focusing on the US market (even though he was based in Canada), and by keeping the service free despite the naysayers.

Frind’s experience wasn’t in the dating industry when he first thought of the idea for POF. In the interview, he admitted that he just needed to learn a new programming language and the best way to do that would be through creating a dating website.

Croxton was complimentary in the interview, admitting that Frind was incredibly innovative in the dating space, despite the endless number of dating apps launched in the last few years claiming to change the online dating industry. “I find it ironic because many of the tech ideas on the show really emphasize that it’s not about the technology anymore because you can be up and running very quickly, it’s really a marketing barrier to entry. But you were pioneering that back in 2003,” Croxon said.

Frind Agreed, noting that he sold his company (for $800 million) because he was tired: “There isn’t really much innovation in the dating space; the features we have today are the same features we had five years ago. It just got kind of boring and I wanted to do something new.”

You can watch the whole interview here. To find out more about POF you can read our review on Plenty of Fish.

Reports of online dating-related rape have risen by more than 450 percent in six years, according to the UK's National Crime Agency.

Between 2009 and 2014, the number of reports of serious sexual assaults during first face-to-face meetings following initial contact online rose in the UK from 33 to 184 – a nearly sixfold increase. With around seven million UK residents currently using dating sites, that number is a small fraction of total online encounters – but its growth is still a reminder that safety is an important concern when dating online.

“Early analysis indicates that the online dating phenomenon has produced a new type of sexual offender,” reads the NCA's report on the subject. “These offenders are less likely to have criminal convictions, but instead exploit the ease of access and arm-chair approach to dating websites. This is aided by potential victims not thinking of them as strangers, but someone they have got to know.”

Becaue online relationships tend to progress more quickly than those that begin offline, online daters often have a heightened (and misleading) sense of emotional intimacy. By the time they meet in real life, they falsely believe they are at a more advanced stage of the relationship than they really are. In turn, they are comfortable taking more risks than they normally would and can find themselves in vulnerable situations. That, the NCA posits, is why attacks are most often committed during the first face-to-face meetings.

Looking deeper at the stats, the majority of the victims were women. Eighty-five percent of those reporting rapes were female and 15 percent were men. In spite of safety warnings issued by dating services, police and rape-prevention groups, many opt not to hold their first dates in public spaces. As a result, 71% of the alleged rapes were committed at the victim's or offender's residence.

The National Crime Agency strongly emphasized that the increased risk associated with certain online dating behaviors does not mean blame should be placed on victims.

"A rape victim is never at fault and we do not want the circumstances in which these assaults take place to cause any victim to doubt that," said Sean Sutton, Head of the NCA's Serious Crimes Analysis Section. "Sexual assault is a crime, full stop, and we want victims to feel confident reporting it to the police."

For more information on preventing rape and sexual assault in an online dating context, the NCA recommends visiting Get Safe Online, an initiative supported by the government. The initiative's extenstive guidelines can help daters stay safe when meeting face-to-face.

The business of online dating continues to grow, as more apps enter the market and compete for funding from investors ready to cash in on the next Tinder. The latest financial news in the industry involves popular gay dating app Grindr, who just announced that Chinese online gaming titan Beijing Kunlun Tech has taken a “majority investment” in their app.

According to The New York Times, Beijing Kunlun’s stake in the company will be about 60%, with the remainder to be owned by Grindr employees and Joel Simkhai, the company's founder. The valuation of Grindr seems to be about $155 million according to the same article, although the actual amount invested was not disclosed.

Interestingly, Grindr had not raised capital from outside investors prior to their deal with Beijing Kunlun. The company was started and funded by Simkhai himself, who began with only a few thousand dollars. He grew the company and the brand: according to PC Magazine, the average user spends up to 54 minutes a day on the app – a figure that exceeds Facebook’s 42 minutes and Instagram’s 21 minutes.

According to leaked documents back in August, Grindr predicted pulling in about $38 million for 2015.

According to Financial Review, Carter McJunkin, chief operating officer of Grindr said in an interview: "We have users in every country in the world, but in order to get to the next phase of our business and grow faster, we needed a partner," McJunkin added that the relationship made sense for Grindr because of Beijing Kunlun's digital expertise, and because the company agreed to let Grindr's founders continue its operating structure and retain its current team.

Beijing Kulun saw Grindr as a good opportunity to expand beyond its core gaming focus, into more of an overall “lifestyle” brand. 

It’s interesting to note that Beijing Kunlun’s choice to purchase stake in a gay dating app seems incongruous, since homosexuality is still a taboo subject in China, and many gay people face widespread discrimination. It is not clear if Grindr intends to expand its business into the Chinese market, but there would be social stigma to overcome.

Beijing Kulun might see Grindr as a sound investment above all, despite its target market. Or perhaps they are paving the way for other Chinese investors to expand and reach out to invest in more diverse, successful brands outside of China. "We have been very impressed by Grindr's progress to date and are extremely excited about the future of the company," Yahui Zhou, chairman of Kunlun, said in a statement. "We will continue to seek out and invest in high-quality technology companies led by top-tier management across the globe.” For more information on this gay dating app you can check our our Grindr Topic.