Communication

Are you debating joining an online dating site? You’re in luck. Now’s the best time to take the plunge.

According to Zoosk, Match.com and Plenty of Fish (the sites that arguably see the most traffic), the Sunday after New Year’s is the biggest day of the year for online dating – with more people logging in and signing up than any other time. While that day has come and gone – at least for 2015 - the excitement hasn’t. The days between New Year’s Day and February 14^th are the peak days of the year for online dating, so it’s not too late.

As it turns out, there’s something about this time of the year that causes people to make changes in their lives, or at least try something new. According to Facebook, January is the month when we see the most relationship status changes (and coincidentally when the most divorce papers are filed). On the flip side, the peak season for engagements is around the holidays, so don’t feel it’s all about “out with the old.”

Another unusual New Years’ trend – there are more conceptions and more condom sales in January than any other time of the year, according to a recent article in The Washington Post. And according to researchers, there’s a post-holiday spike in searches for porn.

While we can attribute it to the post-holiday slump, the weather, or maybe just the thought of the year stretched out in front of us, with summer months so far away – there seems to be something else going on. We want a change. We want our lives to improve. We want more happiness, more excitement, more adventure. We don’t want to feel stuck.

So when the New Year rolls around, we break up with a significant other, we decide to move in with a girlfriend, or we go looking for the right person on an online dating site. We buy gym memberships, take that pilates or yoga class, start that new diet, and in general, try to make some significant changes. The New Year gives us a chance to start again, to wipe the slate clean.

Which is why people might feel more inclined to online date – after all, it takes courage. Perhaps they were waiting for the right time or situation. Or maybe they decide this time will be different. Regardless, you’re in good company. You’ll probably run into a lot of other people trying it for the first time – or maybe the first time in a long while.

Happy dating in 2015!

Bye Felipe has become an Instagram sensation, with female daters posting their awkward, annoying, uncomfortable and sometimes even harassing message trail with other online daters, mainly men. It seems that in the wake of Tinder’s popularity, there have been a few casualties and women are looking for a more genuine tool to meet guys, sans the weird pick-up lines.

While there isn’t a dating app that can screen or prevent all creeps from making their way into your matching possibilities, at least some apps give women the power to decide what we will and will not tolerate.

Following are a few to watch for in 2015:

Bumble. While I’m not a fan of how this app came about – it’s the brainchild of Whitney Wolfe, one of the former Tinder executives who also filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against co-founder Justin Mateen. And since she walked away with a bit of money from a settlement, she has decided to launch her own dating app, where women decide who they want to meet (and have 24 hours to make that decision before the option disappears). According to its marketing, the app “promotes a safe and respectful community…Bumble suggests matches based on more relevant signals than other, more shallow apps.”

LuLu. This has been around for a couple of years, allowing women to rate their dates and share information about men with other female app users. While LuLu sounds like it has the potential to be a giant slam book, many women also use it to promote their guy friends who are looking for love – kind of an online voucher for a guy’s character. The Grade is another new app that has a similar kind of review system through – you guessed it – grading them. If you get an “F” guys? You’re off the site.

Siren. True to its name, Siren allows women to put a question out to men they choose on the site (or to all men in their area) to schedule a last-minute date. For instance, a woman could ask: “want to meet up for a jog?” - and then see who responds. She can also browse profiles in private without revealing herself.

JessMeetKen. This online dating site works through Facebook connections, and allows women to post a profile of their male friends who are looking for love, recommending them to other women. (Think of that guy you really like but just aren’t attracted to.) The guys all come recommended by a woman, so it’s less likely the men you’ll be meeting will be creepers, which makes it worth it even if you aren’t a match.

Happy dating!

New Year's Day is about more than nursing a ferocious hangover. For many people, it's also a symbol of new beginnings and a time to make resolutions for the year ahead. And what better way to start than with your love life?

The road to the right relationship isn't always smooth. Frustrations and disappointments are guaranteed, like potholes and traffic jams. But sometimes the road is clear, and if you drive for long enough, eventually you'll reach your destination.

And here's the best part: there are shortcuts. They may not always feel short, but perfect your approach to online dating and you'll give yourself a serious leg up in the race. Here are 4 online dating resolutions you can make this year, to make 2015 the year you win big:

1. Learn to market yourself. Unless you're in the very tip-top tier of the online dating population – and maybe not even then – online dating is, at some level, a competition. The dating pool is vast, which means you need to work hard to differentiate yourself from the other fish in that sea. I'm not saying you should treat online dating as a war, or that you should be calculated in every single thing you do, but you're probably missing opportunities if you haven't learned to market yourself at all. Optimize your profile. It should be one big advertisement for why you're awesome.
2. Make the first move. Yeah, approaching someone (even if it's online) is scary – so what? Everyone – man or woman – will benefit from learning to be the aggressor. If you lack the courage to initiate, you stand to miss out on the best people. When you see someone you're into, make that first move. Don't just hit a “like” button and hope for the best. Your odds of meeting someone incredible are drastically improved when you take charge of your destiny, instead of waiting on fate.
3. Don't blame online dating when things don't work. I wish I could tell you every date would be a grand slam, but the only guarantee of a grand slam is breakfast at Denny's. Bad dates will happen. But bad dates also happen when you meet in person, and either way, you can't let those experiences turn you off. Positive vibes attract positive vibes; negative vibes attract negative vibes (and more bad dates). Keep your optimism up and keep your goals in sight. And speaking of goals...
4. Make them. The best way to avoid disappointing dates – in 2015 and beyond – is to set smart goals and stick to them. If you know that a certain political affiliation is a dealbreaker for you, for example, set it as a goal and don't waver. Dating people who don't meet your most basic criteria is a recipe for disappointment. Just make sure your preferences and the goals you set are reasonable. The goal is to be smart, not to be superficial.

Have an online dating resolution that should be added to the list? Let us know in the comments!

Tinder who? Dating app Hinge has been on a slow climb uphill, but is gathering a lot of momentum as it goes. The app has broadened its reach beyond the initial major cities, which helped build not only its user base but also its brand as a serious competitor to Tinder.

This month, the app also made Time Magazine’s “Top 10 apps of 2014,” beating out the sensationally popular Kim Kardashian Hollywood despite the fact it made $100 million this year alone. (Tinder did not make the list.) Time took a dig at Tinder, noting: “Hinge sparked a flame in 2014 as it spread to more and more cities around the U.S…[Its] matchmaking connects to your Facebook account to foster friend-of-a-friend connections, a novel concept in a sea of dating apps that prioritize immediate, nearby and mostly anonymous relationships.”

Now Hinge is launching version 3.2, and due to audience demand is starting to change some of its policies, allowing for greater access to matches. Instead of providing potential matches once a day at noon, you can now view them at your convenience throughout the day. (I’m guessing this is to get people to log in more than once a day as opposed to creating a daily traffic jam.)

Hinge is also offering more matches per day. Unlike Tinder which provides an endless array of matches whenever you log in, Hinge is more particular, mostly because it has a more limited network to pull from – namely, your Facebook social circles. In order for Hinge to match you, you have to have a Facebook friend in common. (This probably encourages users to add more Facebook friends to their network, too.)

The app began in Washington D.C. and made its way to major cities including New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Hinge has further expanded its territories in recent months – adding St. Paul and Minneapolis, Omaha, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Denver, Seattle, Houston and Austin.

According to a recent article in Wired, the company has experienced 500% growth since January. While it isn’t doing Tinder’s numbers in terms of downloads and number of matches per day, the company feels its more measured growth is a better indication of its potential for long-term success.

What is in store for Hinge in 2015? On December 11th, the company announced that it raised an additional $12 million, which will help its expansion into even more cities, including its first launch into international territory in February, when it debuts in London.

Hinge is definitely a dating app to follow. For more details on this dating app you can read our Hinge review.

Tinder only launched in 2012, but already new apps are trying to make its popular “hot-or-not” visually-based format a thing of the past. TrueView, a new location-based dating app wants its users to take dating a little more seriously.

TrueView is based out of London, and its founders advocate a switch from Tinder to improve not only your dating experience, but your odds of matching with someone at all. As many people as there are logging on to Tinder regularly, TrueView points out there are 998 million rejections daily.

The app works more like a social media platform than a traditional dating app. Similar to an app like Zoosk, TrueView logs a person’s actual behavior while using the app so users have a better, “truer” view of who they really are. Users are encouraged to share things they love to do (while they are doing it), discovering people who have similar interests. The app has a “stuff to do” section which lists events, clubs, restaurants, sports and concerts in your local city. The “news” section keeps you up to date on the things most important to you, and prompts more discussions.

The idea behind TrueView is that you can have a more organic conversation online first to see if you’re interested in someone before you meet him/her – as opposed to just swiping through photos.

True View was inspired by Andrew Ibbotson, one of the founders whose real-life online dating experience left him frustrated. He was tired of the hook-up scene and a lot of matches that led to nothing, spending more time and money for very little return. He wanted to create a better experience for himself, so he teamed up with friends Matt Verity and Damian Mitchell. They came up with the idea of a service that uses what they call "real-time micro-blogging" to make two people meeting feel more organic – and True View was born.

Tinder is still the app to beat, despite all the recent apps who are trying to outdo it, like TrueView. But it seems there is room for a new player, since even the celebrities who made it popular are now starting to turn against it. As actor Sam Smith said: "No offence to people who go on Tinder, but I just feel like it's ruining romance...why would I swipe people who are 'unattractive' when I could potentially fall in love with them?" 

TrueView is betting the people who become disillusioned with Tinder will look to the app for a new experience. While this may be true, it has hit some bumps along the way. According to a dozen reviews in the Google Play store, people are encountering some bugs with the technology, but they have had a few thousand installs so far.

TrueView is available on both iTunes and Google Play. Currently, the app isn’t available yet in the U.S.

Dating apps like Tinder have taken the dating world by storm – and some argue have rendered traditional online dating a thing of the past. While sites like Match.com and eHarmony offer matches based on preferences and compatibility, Tinder offers the ability to look at a photo and instantly decide whether or not you’re interested.

In a recent article in Business Insider, eHarmony’s Vice President of Brand Marketing Grant Langston looked at Tinder’s success as a boost to his business. For instance, he’s seen a surge of new subscriptions since Tinder launched in Australia – 2.5 million members, up from 2 million the same time last year.

“The press [Tinder is] receiving is bringing lots of people to the online dating world, including people that find Tinder isn’t the right choice for them,” Langston told Business Insider. “Globally, this trend has helped us tap into new markets and led to an increase in our membership numbers.”

But why are more people choosing eHarmony when Tinder seems to be taking off? For one thing, Langston argues that people who would have never joined an online dating site before find it a little easier to start when they use a dating app. It’s made online dating in general lose its stigma.

Langston also attributes the surge in subscriptions to the high quality matchmaking that is eHarmony’s business model, compared to Tinder’s superficial match-making process. With Tinder, choosing a match is entirely dependent on photos and a couple of sentences, which aren’t much better odds for finding love than meeting someone at a bar. There isn’t necessarily any kind of compatibility – aside from that initial physical attraction.

People who are matched on eHarmony however, are compatible in specific ways. Matches aren’t made via liking the same music or TV shows or someone’s photo, but based on similar dispositions and compatible personalities – which is a bit more complex and relational. Langston says that eHarmony’s matching creates a foundation for a relationship to start, where Tinder is more fleeting, intended for a hook-up. So when people are disappointed with the matches they are meeting through Tinder, they look to other more serious online dating options, which is when they gravitate to eHarmony.

Langston also noted that eHarmony’s growth in the past year has been due to young professionals ages 23-33 flocking to the site, looking for people who are more compatible whether or not they are looking to marry.

According to Langston, eHarmony owes much of its recent success to the fact that Tinder isn’t producing many serious relationships. Then again, it seems that despite the appeal of Tinder, people are looking for something deeper.