MASHABLE – CasualX is a dating app focused exclusively on casual, no-strings-attached encounters, positioning itself as an alternative to platforms where users seek serious relationships. It offers standard swiping and a social “moments” feed, manual profile review to reduce fakes, and privacy features like private albums and app locks. The app targets users looking for hookups or friends-with-benefits and gained early traction with tens of thousands of users and high daily match activity.
MASHABLE – Oct 3 – FlirtAR, pronounced "flirter," is launching for iOS. (It'll be available for Android at the end of this month.) It uses AR to help users find potential matches who are nearby. It uses geolocation to find people close by. Another feature lets users move themselves on the map to a different location and view potential matches there, though people can see that they're not actually there and are just scoping out the scene. The app is planning to introduce a premium tier of services in the coming months.
MASHABLE – Aug 30 – Taffy is a new dating and friendship app that operates on the premise that getting to know someone through text can sometimes be better than judging solely on how they look. Users won't be able to see their potential match's photos at first. Instead, they see is a catchy headline on top of a blurred out picture. They have to start a chat with them first and hope it pays off. John Schenk, the app's founder, said that the goal of this approach is "to put personality on a level playing field with physical appearances." Schenk says it currently takes ~10 messages back and forth before the image is fully revealed.
by Cassie Murdoch
See full article at Mashable
MASHABLE – Aug 10 – Cuddli is a new dating app for geeks. It's launching on iOS this week, though it's been available on Android since last year. Cuddli uses GPS matching. Users also have to respond to existing match requests before they can start matching with new people.
MASHABLE – July 25 – Blue is a new premium version of the existing dating app Loveflutter, and it promises users to match them with Twitter celebrities. Loveflutter has been around since 2013, but they recently relaunched as the first dating app to rely on tweets to find users matches. Blue is yet another addition to the increasingly long list of exclusive dating apps such as The League, The Inner Circle, and Raya.
MASHABLE – July 22 – Dating app Hater, which matches people based on the things they dislike, has discovered that a lot of users just don't seem to care where their potential matches are located — because they have no intention of ever meeting them IRL. So Hater launched Global Mode for those who want to be matched with people around the globe. ~20% of their user traffic is in Global Mode, and those people are mostly using the app just to hang out and talk. The younger a user is, the more likely they are to be on Global Mode. Plenty of people use the major dating apps as a way of expanding their social circles. In an effort to capitalize on this, Bumble added BumbleBFF in early 2016, and Tinder launched Tinder Social a year ago. But they haven't exactly taken off as the premiere way of finding new pals.
by Cassie Murdoch
See full article at Mashable
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MASHABLE – July 6 – Happn is launching a new feature called CrushTime. It's an addictively simple little game that's being tested in Spain and will be rolling out globally throughout the summer. It works by showing users four different profile pictures of people they've recently been near. One of them will be a person who's already liked them, and they have to guess who it is. If users guess right and they're interested, they can connect right then. Users can't decide when they want to play this game. It just appears by chance. When it comes they have to take it.
MASHABLE – June 27 – Hinge is launching a new video feature that will allow users to add clips to their profile. Hinge's CEO Justin McLeod says, "it adds more texture to profiles, so people can really get a good sense of you." They're not the first of the major apps to go in this direction. Match is launching Stories, a tool that lets users stitch together photos, videos, and voice to tell people about themselves. Back in January, Bumble announced it was adding disappearing snaps, but it has not yet made that feature available. So that makes Hinge the first to actually roll it out.