Month: August 2018

Facebook Dating Will Offer 5 Gender Options

Posted on August 10, 2018

Facebook dating gender optionsDAILYL – Aug 10 – Facebook is testing its newly created dating feature within the organization. Users have the ability to select the one from 5 different genders, like a man, Trans man, Trans woman, woman and non-binary people.

by Lesley Kasparin
See full article at DailyL

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Man Sets Up Agency To Verify Online Dating Users For £20

Posted on August 9, 2018

Vet your date andy bartramMETRO.CO.UK – Aug 9 – Andy Bartram set up Vet Your Date earlier this month to stop singletons from being catfished by fake profiles or scammers. The former police worker charges £20 to search details of any Tinder or Bumble match and put together a report for his customer. He is going to be introducing a monthly subscription for those who are constantly talking to new people online.

by Hattie Gladwell
See full article at Metro.co.uk

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Google Adds Digital Wellbeing Controls To Its OS

Posted on August 9, 2018

Android PieBBC – Aug 9 – Android Pie, Google's latest version of its mobile operating system, has been released. One of the new software's headline features is its new Digital Wellbeing controls. These are in part a response to criticism that smart devices can be "addictive" and disruptive to our sleep patterns. Users can see how much time they spend on their device, with a breakdown of the hours and minutes dedicated to their most popular apps. Timers can then be set to limit usage of specific programs. When the limit nears, users get a warning – and when it is reached the app's icon becomes greyed out to prevent it from launching. The lockout can, however, be overridden.

by Leo Kelion
See full article at BBC

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POF Was Down

Posted on August 9, 2018

Pof app iconTHESUN.CO.UK – Aug 9 – Dating site POF is down in the UK and elsewhere throughout the world amid complaints from users that they can't login to the site. Some users have also taken to Twitter to complain directly to Plenty of Fish's official account. One tweet dates back to August 6, indicating that the problem is an ongoing one.

by Saqib Shah
See full article at TheSun.co.uk

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Online Dating Study Looks Into Users’ Messaging

Posted on August 9, 2018

Online dating 22WASHINGTON POST – Aug 8 – A study in the journal Science Advances described "a hierarchy of desirability" in the messaging tactics of online daters. It also found that both men and women messaged potential partners who were on average 25% more attractive than they were. The study analyzed heterosexual dating markets in an unnamed "popular, free online dating service" in four major U.S. cities: Boston, Chicago, New York and Seattle. Desirability was defined by the number of messages someone received as well as the desirability of the people sending those messages. In this study, white men and Asian women ranked highest for desirability. Men wrote more first messages than women, and women were less likely to respond to a message. Men and women also wrote longer messages to potential dates who were more desirable. Older women are less desirable, while older men are more so.

by Kate Furby
See full article at Washington Post

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Match Group’s New Tinder Features After Subscriber Numbers Top Estimates

Posted on August 9, 2018

Tinder picksMARKETWATCH – Aug 8 – Strong Tinder performance helped Match Group post better-than-expected second-quarter results. The shares were up 12% in premarket trade on Wednesday. Tinder added 299k paying subscribers during the quarter, coming in ahead of analyst estimates as well as the company's own projections. Match is looking for ways to improve the value proposition of Tinder Gold. One new initiative is Picks, a Tinder Gold feature that provides a daily assortment of 4 – 10 potential suitors that an algorithm deems to be highly relevant to a given user. It's currently being tested in a handful of markets since its July launch. Other Tinder efforts include Places, another test feature that lets people see others who have frequented their favorite spots. Tinder soon plans to launch Tinder U, a college-focused product. They will be able to choose only to see matches from their universities and other nearby schools.

by Emily Bary
See full article at Marketwatch

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Can Matching Algorithms Really Help Us Find Love?

Posted on August 9, 2018

HumanPSYCHOLOGY TODAY – Aug 7 – An article published last year suggests – surprisingly – that people may in fact be just as well served by swiping through headshots on Tinder. In this study, participants filled out a bevy of psychological questionnaires, measuring everything that might influence compatibility; personality, attachment style, values, and more. These participants then went on speed dates. The authors then attempted to predict whether two people would find each other particularly attractive – indicting compatibility. They used Random Forest algorithms; high-tech statistical techniques that power things like Netflix's recommender algorithms, and allowed the researchers to search for any possible combination of psychological factors that might lead two people to be particularly compatible. While there were a number of psychological factors that made people more attractive overall, they found nothing that could predict, ahead of time, whether two people would be particularly compatible with each other. This may show that researchers just aren't asking the right questions or there just isn't any way to tell ahead of time whether two people are going to be compatible.

by Sean Murphy
See full article at Psychology Today

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Social Discovery Ventures Launches Dating Platform For All STI-Positive People

Posted on August 9, 2018

Datingpositives logoPR NEWSWIRE – Aug 7 – DatingPositives is a social discovery platform where – for $3.99 per month – people living with STIs can chat, find love, hook-up, seek advice from other people.

See full article at PR Newswire

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Dating App Bumble Unveils Winners Of Female-Focused Film Fund

Posted on August 9, 2018

Bumble filmHOLLYWOOD REPORTER – Aug 7 – Dating app Bumble has unveiled the five projects to receive funding from its first U.K.-based and female-focused film initiative. First unveiled in May in a bid to address the gender imbalance in the industry, the Female Film Force saw all-female teams of writers, directors and producers invited to submit short film projects, which would each receive a grant £20K. From ~1,200 applications, the five have now been selected.

by Alex Ritman
See full article at Hollywood Reporter

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Tinder Seeks Agency For UK PR Account

Posted on August 9, 2018

Public-relations-servicePRWEEK – Aug 8 – Tinder is seeking a new UK PR agency. The UK account for the dating app has been held by London-based PR agency Rebecca Abigail since 2013. The agency has chosen not to re-pitch.

by John Harrington
See full article at PRWeek

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