Jamie F
It’s been a busy time for dating app news recently, with Tinder reviving an old favorite function, plus the usual slew of new dating apps hoping to make a mark on the scene.
Tinder relaunches ‘desk mode’
Tinder has relaunched its ‘desk mode’ feature, allowing you to use a desktop version of the dating app and quickly hide your swiping activity from prying eyes aimed at your monitor.
First launched in 2017, the revamp of the function features a small briefcase icon on the top left corner of the desktop. Click on it, and a fake, innocuous-looking ‘meeting notes’ webpage comes up, hiding your Tinder activities.
With many members of the Millennial and Gen-Z generations, the two targeted most keenly by Tinder, continuing to work from home after remote working stints during the Covid pandemic, there might not be quite a huge amount of demand for Tinder ‘desk mode’. Still, it beats faffing around with spreadsheets.
Meanwhile Tinder’s first female chief executive, Renate Nyborg, recently spoke to BBC News about plans to improve women’s safety on the app.
Russian court fines Match Group
Not so positive news for Tinder in Russia, however, where a court fined Match Group, the company that owns the dating app, two million roubles ($32,000) last Thursday (July 28, 2022). Tinder had allegedly failed to store user data within Russian territory, resulting in the ruling and fine.
Meta (owner of WhatsApp) and Snap Inc (owner of Snapchat) were also among a group of companies fined by the country’s authorities for allegedly refusing to store user data within Russia, according to Reuters.
Foreign tech companies have often clashed with Russian authorities over data storage, even before the country invaded Ukraine in February this year. Russia passed a new data law in 2015 that put it on a collision course with organisations with a less… authoritarian view of user data than Vladimir Putin’s mob.
Matching with memes
‘Swipe memes, not people!’
That’s the slogan of new dating app Schmooze, which matches people based on what memes they like, rather than whether they like each other’s faces or swimwear selfies.
The app shows you a series of no-doubt-hilarious memes, which you choose to ‘like’ (or not) by swiping, like you would on a profile on many other dating apps. You’re then matched with people based on having similar tastes in memes.
Schmooze claims to have clocked up over 500,000 matches and 15 million meme swipes already, and has been mentioned by Stephen Colbert (watch from 02:20, below) on TV.
“The theory here being that if you share a sense of humor, you’re more likely to find someone sexually attractive,” explained Colbert. “For instance, you here in the theater laughed at many of my jokes in my monologue, and that’s why they had to shoot me from the waist up.”
Zing.
TranX marks the spot
Also entering the dating app arena is TranX: a new app aimed at the transgender community and “their admirers”.
Promising a digital space with “more than just a picture and a name”, TranX facilitates video chats, plus asks users a series of questions designed to put them at ease with the app.
“We understand that it’s very hard for transgender people to find friends, romance, or LTRs [long-term relationships] in the real world, or even during online dating,” the company said. “So, we’re specifically geared to be very welcoming to our transgender clients, of course, but also to their admirers.”
“TranX is a premium dating app for cross dressers, bisexuals, and many others who all share one passion: their love and appreciation for the unique, distinctive beauty of trans people,” the firm added.
App dating meets IRL dating in Manchester
A new template for combining app-based and IRL dating could be forming in the UK. Specifically in Manchester, where the dating app Thursday, which only works one day per week (that would be Thursdays), recently hosted a big singles party (it was last… Thursday), reported the Manchester Evening News.
The holding of a singles party might not be huge news, but it made us wonder why more dating apps don’t put on IRL events. Thursday is aimed at people sick of ‘dating fatigue’ through the week, and promoted itself in London and New York before announcing the Manchester bash.
Will the act of socialising at a party with other single people take off? It’s a revolutionary idea, but one we like the sound of.
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