MASHABLE – Feb 23 – According to OkCupid, Aug. 1 will be "the hottest day for dating in 2021," after Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to offer all UK adults the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by July 31. Vaccines are a hot topic among online daters at the moment, according to OkCupid data. The dating app reports a 137% increase in the mentions of 'vaccine' on OkCupid profiles between November 2020 and January 2021. 42% of OkCupid respondents said they'd cancel a date with someone who didn't want to take the vaccine.
Category: Outlets – Mashable
Bumble Bans Fatphobic Messages and Body Shaming
MASHABLE – Jan 28 – Bumble will be modifying its terms and conditions to prohibit unsolicited, pejorative, disrespectful comments about someone's body shape, size, health, or appearance. Comments that are fatphobic, ableist, racist, colourist, transphobic, or homophobic will also be prohibited. The ban will apply to comments made through the dating app's chat function.
Hinge Rolls out New Features Including Roses
Bumble Report: How Single Indians Dated in 2020 Amid the Pandemic
MASHABLE – Dec 3 – The pandemic has led to a paradigm shift in people's lifestyle where everyone is now working, socializing, and dating from home. Bumble has recently conducted a study to understand how dating in 2020 has been redefined and what the trends have been like for daters in India this year. 40% of daters in India said that they are no longer confident about dating successfully and 70% of single Indians say they are not comfortable navigating dating in 2020, while one in two claim they are ready to go on a date in-person. Bumble daters in India are increasingly open to virtual dating with 1 in 5 up for using Video Chat heading into the New Year.
Bumble Has a New “How to Date” Guide
MASHABLE – Nov 21 – 40% of daters don't know how to date anymore, according to Bumble. Also, 2 out of 3 daters aren't comfortable navigating the dating landscape COVID has left in its wake. This is the reason Bumble created Dating 101 to help boost daters' confidence as the new year rapidly approaches. It includes articles and videos on important topics, like having the "COVID conversation" with a potential date, or how to navigate sex and intimacy during this time.
Dating App Usage Is Changing for the Better
Hinge and Headspace Launch Free Pre-date Meditations
MASHABLE – Oct 6 – From today, daters can access Hinge and Headspace's pre-date guided mediations on hinge.co/headspace at no cost. The meditations last around five to six minutes and they tackle a number of emotions singles might be feeling before a date, from self-doubt to negative self-talk.
HotOrNot Shaped the Social Web as We Know It
MASHABLE – Sep 28 – Created in 2000, HOTorNOT became an overnight viral hit by letting people upload pictures of themselves so total strangers could rate their attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 10. Twenty years later, HOTorNOT's DNA is embedded into almost every major platform that defines how we interact online today. "Everything about HOTorNOT was about finding ways to connect people. We really saw ourselves as trying to build the ultimate people router," said one of HOTorNOT's two co-founders, James Hong. "It was a different internet at the time," said Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter. A good friend of Hong, he called him one of the smartest people he knows in Silicon Valley. "Most people hear HOTorNOT and think of the ranking feature, which is crude and sort of questionable in today's light," he said. "But there was always a deep caring and humaneness in how they did things." HOTorNOT made ~$4M by 2003 (with ~88% of revenue coming from auto-renewing subscriptions). The site's downfall began with the arrival of Web 2.0, when web platforms with "venture money started pouring back into startups again. HOTorNOT couldn't compete with services that were free and relying on cash from investors to pay their bills," Young said. He also cited the loss of their talented and ambitious employees who left to start their own companies, like Crunchyroll. HOTorNOT was sold to Avid Life Media for ~$20M in 2008. In 2012, it was sold to Badoo. Badoo only revived HOTorNOT to turn it into another Tinder app clone launching in 2014.
Match Is Launching New Feature Called Dates
MASHABLE – Sep 15 – Match will prompt users and ask if they're ready to move to the next step if a conversation looks promising. The pop-up allows them to share how they're feeling about someone without the potential awkwardness of their match not reciprocating. According to Match's recent survey, 93% of users said they'd like to know if someone on a dating app is as into them as they are. 66% have wrongfully assumed a match's interest level. Once both people are ready, the profiles move to "Dates," a dedicated section of the app. From there, they'll learn about their match's dating preferences like how they prefer to social distance, and what their ideal first date is.
OKCupid Survey: Singles Don’t Want to Date Non-voters
