Canada

Tinder has announced that users will be able to add Bitmoji when messaging matches.

The popular dating app is utilizing the personalized-avatar service Bitmoji to help users be a little more creative and expressive when they communicate and share with their matches. Previously, Tinder did not allow users to send any images in messages to other matches because of potential abuse and sensitive content (a.k.a. “dick pics”). Users had to rely on curated photos (up to nine total per profile) to express their personalities and preferences, which many people felt was insufficient for something as personal as online dating.

Adding Bitmoji cartoons and caricatures allows users to be creative and express themselves to matches without worrying about the potential problems of sharing photos.

Popular dating app Tinder is testing a new feature called Feed, aimed at providing users more insight to their matches, and to help spark conversations.

Feed consists of a real-time feed of social media posts from a user’s matches, specifically posts from Instagram and Spotify. The idea is that users can look at what their matches are virtually sharing moment by moment to get a better idea of what they are like – what they are listening to at any given time, where they are, and what they like doing.

The new feature will appear as a tab in the messages screen, according to website Tech Crunch. Users can respond directly to posts in their Feed without having to go back to the profile screen, making it easy to interact. Instead of having to be too descriptive in the profile, or thinking of something unique to say as an introduction, users can let their Instagram photos and playlists speak for themselves.

Though the US Presidential Election is over, the nation remains deeply divided along party lines. Many Americans have made jokes about moving to Canada in the past, but this week, the Canadian immigration website’s server broke down because of all the traffic from unhappy American voters.

Enter Maple Match, a dating app which matches Americans and Canadians for potential romance. The company took an opportunity to make lemonade out of political lemons.

Maple Match was beta testing its service earlier this year, and this month seized the opportunity to launch its new app to help Americans feeling less than happy with their country’s choices. The app's tagline is “make dating great again,” similar to the slogan for President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign.

Maple Match’s technology is straightforward. It offers the same photo-based profile that Tinder does, but there is no swiping. You indicate your citizenship and your desired citizenship, and then you can look through potential matches and start messaging whomever you like.

Love Donald Trump or hate him, there’s no denying he ignites passionate responses from both sides. But could the Republican presidential candidate ignite a passion of a different kind? Two new dating sites think the answer is yes.

In the pro-Donald camp is TrumpSingles.com, founded by a 35-year-old Republican hailing from Santa Clarita, California. Goss was inspired to create the site when he realized how difficult it can be to date someone with opposing political views.

“I think there’s a special stigma when people say they’re supporting Trump, because of some of the brash things that he’s said,” Goss told the New York Post. “That immediately gets [projected] on his supporters, and it makes it hard for them when trying to date.”

More than 500 users have reportedly joined TrumpSingles since it went live in May, primarily located in New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC. Goss expressed fears that people would think it’s a parody site, but so far enough seem to understand his original intentions.

“People have told me that they’re so happy they can finally go on dates without worrying about political differences,” he said.

On the other side of the political spectrum is MapleMatch.com, a site that hopes to make dating great again by helping Americans find a Canadian partner in the event of a Trump presidency.

A 25-year-old Texan named Joe Goldman is the brain behind Maple Match. Goldman told NBC News that he was inspired by repeated threats from friends to flee the country if Trump wins the election in November.

"I have always been fascinated by Canada," he added. "So I thought to myself, 'Given the current political situation, this could bring Canadians and Americans closer together'."

His hunch may have been a good one. In just a week, a reported 13,000 people have signed up for the site. "The response has been tremendous,” Goldman said. "I'm getting people from all over, but the strongest responses have been from Seattle and New York City.”

Trump isn’t the only presidential candidate inspiring love. For Democrats, there’s BernieSingles.com. The site promises to “connect progressives beyond social media to inspire chemistry among folks who share similar visions of the future.” It also comes with the most memorable tagline of the bunch: “The 1% are not the only ones getting screwed this election season.”

Trump? Check. Sanders? Check. Hillary - it’s your move now.

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.

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