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Hitting the Books: How to get a date online
Welcome to Hitting the Books. With less than one in five Americans reading just for fun these days, we've done the hard work for you by scouring the internet for the most interesting, thought provoking books on science and technology we can find and delivering an easily digestible nugget of their stories.
Facebook can flesh out your Dating profile with existing Stories
If Facebook Dating is going to compete with the heavyweights of the hookup world, that means offering livelier profiles -- and it won't surprise you to hear how it's going to accomplish that. You can now share your existing Facebook or Instagram Stories in Dating to give potential partners a sense of who you really are. If they're enamored, they can send a Like to (hopefully) get the sparks flying.
The League adds video speed dating to help users find better matches
When it comes to dating apps, swiping has taken over. Whether it's Tinder or OkCupid, most dating apps have defaulted to the gesture as the de facto way for people to express their interest in someone else. And for a lot of people, it's one of the main reasons they hate dating apps, since it exaggerates some of our worst tendencies when it comes to dating -- and often leads to hit and miss first meetings. The creators of The League, an app that's described as "Tinder for the rich," think they've found a better way to help you go on first dates you'll actually enjoy.
FTC sues Match for allegedly using deceptive love interest ads
If you've ever been irked by dating service ads claiming that someone was pining for your affection, you're not alone. The FTC has sued Match Group for allegedly using fake love interest email ads to goad customers into paying for Match.com subscriptions until May 2018. "Millions" of the accounts generating the ads had already been labeled as likely frauds, the Commission said, but they were still used to generate "you caught their eye" ads for free users -- you might pay for a subscription only to find the bogus courtier deleted. Match's own studies showed that nearly 500,000 people signed up within a day of receiving one of these ads, according to the FTC.
Tinder’s ‘Swipe Night’ show lets users swipe to control the plot
Tinder is about to modernize the choose-your-own-adventure plot. Today, the company confirmed rumors that it's launching an original show, Swipe Night. In true Tinder style, you'll watch on your phone and decide how the story unfolds by swiping left or right at key points. Your decisions may improve your dating matches.
Tinder's first TV show will make you swipe to advance the story
Even Tinder might have trouble resisting the allure of creating an original show to boost its bottom line. Variety tipsters claim the dating service will release an original, six-episode video series in early October that riffs on its app's well-known swipes to drive the story forward. The show is reportedly set in an "impending apocalypse" and asks you who you'd spend your last night with -- a swipe left or right makes your choice. It's even optimized for vertical viewing, the sources said, and could come to other services later.
Try to court Colonel Sanders in KFC's dating sim
KFC does weird stuff all the time -- from a line of KFC-flavored nail polish to a chicken wing box that doubles as a drone. But it's really outdone itself this time. Today, a listing for a KFC dating game, I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin' Good Dating Simulator, appeared on Steam. Created with the help of Psyop, the game is a work in progress, but KFC promises it will be "the most delicious dating simulator ever."
Facebook Dating launches in the US today
More than a year after Facebook announced its dating service, the company is finally bringing it to the US today. Nathan Sharp, product lead at Facebook, revealed the news at an event in New York City, making the US the 20th country where Facebook Dating is now live. In addition to coming to the States, Facebook Dating is available in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Guyana, Laos, Malaysia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, Suriname, Thailand, Uruguay and Vietnam. Facebook says the service will be coming to Europe, too, "by early 2020."
Group dating service 3Fun exposed data for 1.5 million users
Yet another dating service is learning about the dangers of data vulnerablilities. Pen Test Partners discovered that threesome-oriented app 3Fun left 1.5 million users' data exposed, including precise locations, sexual orientation and even private photos. You only needed to spoof your location to glean information from people in a given area. While you could restrict positional info from the app, that filtering didn't apply on the servers -- a nosy person just had to query the service's framework to find someone's claimed whereabouts.
Tinder rebels against Google Play app fees by taking direct payments
Tinder is exploring a different approach to fighting app store fees -- it's simply ignoring what the store operators want. The dating giant has introduced a default payment process into its Android app that skips Google Play's system entirely, instead taking payments directly. And if you go this route, you lose the option of switching back to Google Play after the fact.
Tinder Lite brings the dating app to countries with limited data
Tinder is finally ready to take the wraps off its lightweight dating app. The company has formally unveiled Tinder Lite for Android, a version of the service designed for areas with limited data and lower-cost phones. It still has the familiar swipe-based matching, chats, "super likes" and paid features like seeing everyone who has liked you. For the most part, it's just a leaner app that should perform better in less-than-ideal conditions.
Tinder will let you list your sexual orientation in your profile
With the arrival of Pride month, dating app Tinder is making moves to be more welcoming to LGBT users for the event and beyond. In collaboration with GLAAD, the company has announced it will now let users list their sexual orientation in their profile.
Grindr's owner gave staff access to sensitive user data
When the US pushed Grindr's owner to sell the app over national security concerns, it made only vague allusions to what might have prompted the decision. Now, however, the situation is clearer. Reuters sources have claimed that Beijing Kunlun triggered alarms after it gave engineers in Beijing access to Grindr's database for several months. While there wasn't evidence that the company misused the data, the tipsters believe the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) was worried that the Chinese government could comb the database to find info on US intelligence and military personnel.
Tinder preps 'Lite' version of its dating app for data-limited areas
Add Tinder to the growing list of tech giants launching lightweight apps to reel in more users. As part of an earnings call, Match Group divulged plans for a Tinder Lite app that would be smaller and better-suited to area where cellular data "comes at a premium." CEO Mandy Ginsberg made no mention of features or a release date (other than "soon"), but did point to Southeast Asia as a high priority when there's an influx of young people into packed cities.
App stores pull dating apps after FTC warning about underage users
You'd think that dating app developers would be sure to keep children from signing up, but that's not always the case. Apple and Google have removed three Wildec dating apps (FastMeet, Meet24 and Meet4U) from their respective stores after the FTC found that the titles were allowing sign-ups from kids under 13, violating COPPA and the FTC Act in the process. The developer was aware it had underage users, the FTC said, and there were "several" people who'd faced criminal charges for contacting kids through these apps.
Tinder wants to help you find a Bonnaroo boo
Tinder is rolling out a new feature for summer music festival-goers looking for romance. The popular hookup app announced a "Festival Mode" that will let users sort through matches who are attending the same music festival. If you opt-in, your Tinder profile will receive a badge identifying you to other festival-goers.
Watch Facebook's F8 2019 keynote in 13 minutes
Facebook's F8 developer conferences tend to be chock-full of news, and that's truer than ever for 2019. The company's opening keynote brought major changes to just about every corner of Facebook's universe, including a site redesign, a super-lightweight Messenger app, Instagram shopping and new features to find friends or hook up with your secret crush. And then there's the hardware -- Oculus finally committed to release dates for the Quest and Rift S, while Portal will be available beyond the US. It's a lot to handle, but you don't have to worry about wading through it all. We've rounded up the highlights of F8 in a video that will get you up to speed in short order.
Facebook’s Dating app wants to connect you with your secret crush
If you've ever wanted to let Facebook know who your romantic crush is -- and no, "poking" doesn't count -- soon you'll have the chance to do just that. Today, at its F8 2019 developers conference, the company announced Secret Crush, a new feature that will let you use Facebook Dating to express interest in someone from your friends on the site. Facebook says that users have told it they believe there's an opportunity to explore romances within their own extended circle of friends on Facebook, and that's how the idea for Secret Crush came to be.
Tinder ditches its hidden desirability scores
Tinder has revealed that it no longer relies on its top-secret "Elo" desirability score to create matches. Instead, it apparently uses a new algorithm that sounds very similar to the old one, with the most important parameter being how much you use the app. Despite saying "the case has been solved," Tinder didn't really describe exactly how the new system works, leaving jilted users to (once again) speculate on why they're failing to, well, score.
Netflix original ‘Osmosis’ is a dark take on AI date matching
If Netflix's new Dating Around reality series is a touch too maudlin for your taste, then you'll probably dig its upcoming French original Osmosis. The first trailer for the technophobic show, which premieres March 29th, just landed and it's a literal head trip. Set in a near future, it follows several young Parisians who sign up to a beta program for an experimental dating technology designed to pair up soul mates. Then things get dark.
