NY TIMES – June 28 – Last May, the Pew Research Center surveyed ~2,2K people and found that 15% had used social media to ask someone out on a date. Apps including Secret and Whisper, that allow people to post anonymously, are also being used to make love connections. Armen Avedissian, COO of eHarmony, said the popularity of social media appears to have led to a heightened awareness of dating apps and services. Aaron Schildkrout, co-founder of HowAboutWe, said it was possible for social media and dating apps to coexist and profit.
Category: Reporters – Jenna Wortham
“You & Me”: New Couple’s App From HowAboutWe Founders
NY TIMES – Apr 5 – Apps like Avocado, Couple and Between help couples stay close. You & Me is a new app is scheduled for public release in early May. It was created by the founders of HowAboutWe. The app lets two people send photographs and voice messages and play a selfie-exchanging game called “Halfsie.” Although the app will be free, the company may eventually add features that let their users ask each other out on prepackaged evenings or events sold through the app.
Grindr’s Appeal Is Its Simplicity
NY TIMES – Mar 10 – Grindr is approaching its fourth anniversary and has amassed ~5M users who spend ~90 minutes each day using the app. Billions of messages fly across the service every year, and 76% of the company’s revenue comes from money generated by Grindr premium users. Jamie Woo, author of the book, Meet Grindr, How One App Changed the Way We Connect, says Grindr’s main purpose is to facilitate hookups that are “spontaneous and intimate". He said the primary appeal of Grindr is its simplicity. The app also focuses on proximity rather than location.
Tinder, A Dating App With A Difference
NY TIMES – Feb 27 – Tinder, a new mobile dating app lets users swipe through profile pictures, tapping a green heart when they like what they see and pressing a red “x” when they don’t. Any time a user “likes” a member who has also liked him or her back, the apps declares a match and introduces the two in a private chat room. Although the app requires connecting through Facebook, it is cleverly discreet. It shows users only friends of friends, avoiding potentially awkward run-ins. Its founders say the app is downloaded ~20K times each day and to date they’ve made 20M matches through the service. It was born out of Hatch Labs, an incubator financed by IAC/InterActiveCorp, and became a stand-alone company in January.
Meet In A Bar: The New Dating Technology
NY TIMES – Aug 21 – Both Match.com and OkCupid, which was bought by Match last year but operates independently, are getting behind the offline idea. Match bought commercial time during the Olympics to promote “The Stir,” as it calls its gatherings. Match.com has held a few hundred events each month since May in more than 50 cities. OkCupid has organized ~100 events in New York since early July and plans to bring the idea to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and a few other cities in October. Smaller services are also offering gatherings. MeetMoi has been hosting get-togethers to bring more of its users to the same space at the same time. And Nerve, a sex and dating site based in New York, says it is working on a mobile app that will emphasize nearby events. The move toward real-world meetings follows some well-publicized studies that cast doubt on whether personality tests and data can accurately predict whether two people will be compatible. “We still use our matching algorithms,” said Mandy Ginsberg, president of Match.com. “But maybe it is slightly easier to walk into a room full of people meeting and talking.”
by Jenna Wortham
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Taking A Chance On Love, And Algorithms
NY TIMES – Apr 7 – Yoke.me, a new online dating start-up, pulls in data from Facebook and then generates matches with people from users' extended social circle, based on common interests. Sites and apps like OKCupid, eHarmony, Skout, PlentyofFish and Match.com have attracted loyal followings. But in a world where we can pay someone for lunch by tapping two phones together and stream live television over a tablet computer, the de facto model of browsing through static profiles on a Web site or in a mobile app can feel comically outdated. It may not be a problem that software can solve on its own, said Eli Finkel, a professor of social psychology at Northwestern University. “Technology is not the way to figure out who is compatible and will never be,” he said. The system that eHarmony has built is “based on years of empirical and clinical research on married couples,” said Becky Teraoka, an eHarmony spokeswoman. They include “aspects of personality, values and interest, and how pairs match on them, that are most predictive of relationship satisfaction.” While Professors Finkel and Reis question the value of algorithms, they do say that online dating is useful because it can broaden the pool of people you come across on a regular basis. But Kevin Slavin, a game developer who studies algorithms, says those sites are already starting from a flawed base. The digital personas we cultivate on Facebook are often not very indicative of who we are, he said. Rob Fishman, who helmed the development of Yoke.me, says he views the service as an icebreaker.
Nerve.com Introduces A Hip Dating Site
NY TIMES – Dec 14 - Before there were hip dating sites like OkCupid, Grindr and Grouper, there was Nerve Personals, the racy dating section of the online magazine Nerve.com. They slowly faded into obscurity as younger, sleeker rivals arose. Nerve then teamed up with a site called FastCupid to handle the day-to-day operation of the personals. When that partnership expired earlier this year, the company decided to throw its hat back in the ring with a revamped site and concept, called Nerve Dating, which is available to the public beginning Wednesday. To design the new site, the company looked to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Interactions are based around status updates and mini-reports about meals eaten, concerts watched and places visited.
Instant Date With An App
NY TIMES – Nov 3 - The idea of meeting someone through a mobile app may seem like a risky proposition. But the operators of these services say they are aware of the potential pitfalls and allow users to control how much information they divulge. Some of the apps are stand-alone, while others are new features of established dating sites; including Blendr, OkCupid Locals and HowAboutWe. OkCupid Locals is part of OkCupid, a larger dating site, which says a tenth of its 2.5M active members use the location features in the mobile app. HowAboutWe began a little over a year ago as a site where people post suggestions for dates they would like to have.The trailblazer among these services is Grindr, which is geared toward gay men and has signed up 2.6M members. In late summer its creators released Blendr, aimed at a broader audience.
by Jenna Wortham
See full article at NY Times
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Finding an Instant Date Nearby With Blendr
NY TIMES – Sep 8 - There are online dating sites, and then location-based social sites like Foursquare. A new app called Blendr combines the two, letting users cut to the chase and find someone to meet nearby, right now. Users create a simple profile featuring a photo and a short description of themselves. The app then shows people nearby who have also used the app recently and share similar interests. The app’s creator, Joel Simkhai, is also the entrepreneur behind Grindr, a popular app that helps gay men locate others near them.