Design

New Design

A few weeks ago POF banned face filters and it appears soon after on Sept 17 the Plenty of Fish website, blog and dating apps received a facelift. The dating service has moved from an all light blue fish logo and theme to a layered multi color almost neon look. The light blue color is still their but the brightness has been turned up along with the addition of pink and dark blue. The interface itself has changed to reflect these colors with a few tweaks here and there to the layout. As far as we can tell no new features have been added and none removed.

You can also see the new look reflected in the Google Play and Apple App stores POF app install pages. One thing I notice on the App store is that POF is pushing a new statistic of 17 million conversations are exchanged everyday on the service. They still list the same stat of 4 million visitors everyday from 2017 (among others like 150 million registered users and 57 million new connections every week) so it looks like the dating service POF growth has stagnated. This is in part probably the result of Tinder becoming so popular and is also probably responsible in part of the updated design (which I am still getting use to).

Russia’s largest social media platform VKontakte is going head-to-head with Tinder and Badoo by launching its own dating app.

According to The Moscow Times, VKontakte’s Lovina is a video-centric dating app, offering a video chat option to people who like each other over the app and a “carousel” of short videos for a quick communication between random users who are browsing through the app. Executives behind Lovina say that providing video as the main way for users to connect is a better method than what traditional dating apps like Tinder offer, because video is much more revealing than photos or a written profile. Plus, there’s less chance of someone faking a video compared to photos.

Tinder Lite on Google Play

Tinder has unveiled its new streamlined app after announcing its debut earlier this year. Tinder Lite will be available as a separate app for Android phones and can be purchased through Google Play.

The new Lite app was designed specifically for users in countries and regions where Internet connectivity is slow and most people have lower-cost phones. According to Tinder CEO Elie Seidman, who spoke at the 2019 Rise Tech conference in Hong Kong in mid-July, the new app “would run faster, consume less battery and reduce network usage by about 20 percent,” as reported by The Jakarta Post.

Facebook Dating has just expanded its service to include two more countries: Mexico and Argentina.

The social media giant’s new dating platform launched in 2018, and was first introduced to Facebook users in Colombia, and then later in Canada and Thailand. Mexico and Argentina are the latest countries to join the rollout.

According to CNET, Facebook also revealed some new features it will be adding to its dating service soon. “Auto Profile Create” does just what it implies – it can automatically generate a profile for you by gathering photos and information from your existing Facebook account, making it easier to get started. Users have the ability to edit or remove information in the auto-generated profile, or they can opt to build one from scratch.

Online dating company eHarmony, who built its reputation for more serious daters, was recently acquired by German media company ProSeibenSat.1. The media company are the producers behind “Married at First Sight,” and have already expanded beyond television with the acquisition of Parship Elite Group, an online dating platform for long-term relationships similar to eHarmony.

It left many wondering what future plans were for eHarmony, which has seen competition lately from apps like Tinder and OkCupid, and how Parship fits into the mix.

Online Personals Watch recently interviewed Tim Schiffers, the CEO of Parship Elite Group about the acquisitions and Parship’s future plans. Schiffers said Parship plans to bring eHarmony to its platform instead of offering competing services. “We have invested a lot into our technical setup over the past few years and are happy to harness synergies in that area.”

In the increasingly crowded dating industry, the only way to stay relevant is to differentiate yourself from the competition. Coffee Meets Bagel initially set itself apart by focusing on quality over quantity, providing users a limited number of curated matches each day at noon. Last year the company introduced an ephemeral video feature and an ongoing series of real-world events called CMB Experiences.

Coffee Meets Bagel’s latest updates come in response to an extensive user study conducted earlier this year. The app’s interface now boasts a cleaner, more modern aesthetic and a new comment feature has been added to help members make more efficient use of their time.

Co-CEO and cofounder Dawoon Kang told VentureBeat in a phone interview that users in the study repeatedly expressed frustration at matching with someone in the app only to have their messages go unanswered or the conversation fizzle quickly.