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The Engadget Podcast Ep 13: A Chicken with its Head Cut Off
Editor in chief Michael Gorman and executive editor Christopher Trout are in town this week and stop by to talk Peter Thiel, Vine and online voting with host Terrence O'Brien and reviews editor Cherlynn Low. Then, after they've had their fill of beating up on Thiel, the four will explore how dating and sex have changed in the age of apps. Warning, things get a little NSFW.
Tinder's premium Boost feature is rolling out worldwide
Tinder's latest idea to monetize its mobile matching service is rolling out worldwide, as users outside of Australia and the UK will be able to Boost to the top of nearby dater's queues. Getting Tinder to put its thumb on the algorithm is free once a week as a part of the variably-priced Plus subscription, or it can be purchased individually. Either way, it lasts just 30 minutes, so Pokémon Go players can just treat it like a lucky egg -- the company says it can result in as much as a 10x increase in profile views.
Tinder 'Smart Photos' uses swipe data to select your best pic
When you're swiping through Tinder it's pretty easy to dismiss someone based on their first photo. Maybe it's poorly compressed, from the delivery room or the church steps on a person's wedding day. Those might be red flags that push people to instantaneously dismiss a potential match before looking deeper at a person's profile. To help your right-swiping sojourn, though, Tinder is using data to make sure someone's best picture is the first you'll see.
Dating app Hinge ditches flings for relationships
Between Tinder, Bumble, OKCupid and the plethora of dating apps available, finding someone to hook up with has never been easier. But the endless supply of options has also made it much harder to connect with someone on a deeper, longer-lasting level. To tackle that problem, Hinge is rebuilding itself to focus on connecting people looking for relationships. It's also incorporating a new $7 monthly membership fee, in part to make sure that subscribers are actually invested in looking for relationships.
Tinder will 'Boost' UK profiles, for a price
"There are plenty more fish in the sea," the saying goes. But what if you're one of those millions, nay billions of fish swimming around, hoping for a little attention? What's the best way to stand out? Well, there's now Tinder Boost -- a premium feature that makes you the "top profile" in your area for 30 minutes. The option premiered in Australia a couple of weeks ago, and now it's rolling out in the UK. Once activated, your profile will be pushed to the front of everyone's queue, improving your visibility and the chance of a new match. The only catch is that you have to keep swiping yourself.
Tinder Boost puts you top of the pile for 30 minutes
Tinder's next stab at monetization is, effectively, a queue jump system. Activating a new "Tinder Boost" will turn your account into a "top profile," helping you to "skip the line" for 30 minutes. The idea is pretty simple -- Boost and you'll head to the front of everyone's queue, increasing your visibility and the likelihood of a match. If you have a Tinder Plus subscription ($9.99 or $19.99 per month, depending on your age) you'll get one "free" Boost every week. Any user can also buy Boosts individually.
How to outsource your love life
It's 5PM on a Friday. I pour myself a glass of three-day-old white wine and wait for my wing woman to call. Her name is Ally. She has a soothing voice and a gentle demeanor. She lives in Temecula, California, somewhere between Los Angeles and the hyper-conservative, bleach-blonde beaches of San Diego. Over the course of our near-two-hour phone call she will grill me on everything from my favorite dishes to dating deal-breakers, from the time I was held at gunpoint in Mexico to my affinity for gin martinis.
Land that Tinder match with your favorite Spotify track
If you, single person, often find yourself nostalgic for the bygone days of MySpace profile songs*, Tinder and Spotify would like to get you back in the mood with their latest collaboration. Starting today, anyone can add a Tinder "Anthem" to their profile page, show off their top artists on Spotify and quickly swipe through potential mates based on their music tastes.
PokeMatch is the 'Pokémon Go' dating app you've been dreading
If you're one of the millions of Pokémon Go addicts, you know that waking life carries a new, unrelenting question: what Pokémon are around me right now? The need to keep trying to catch them all has probably soured a few dates since the game launched three weeks ago, but fear not, amorous players: the PokeMatch app has arrived to set you up with the similarly poké-obsessed.
The Tinder movie no one asked for is happening
Tinder has been used to market movies like Ex Machina before, but we can't think of any that revolve around the app. That's about to change with Warner Bros.' Worst Tinder Date Ever, a film from Friends with Benefits writers Keith Merryman and David A. Newman, according to THR. The story is about a disastrous Tinder date that (of course) draws the main characters together by the end. So, it's like a modern take on You've Got Mail, if the Hanks/Ryan characters just wanted to have sex.
Tinder to debut transgender-friendly feature next month
Up until now, Tinder's gender options have been rather, well, binary. It's either men looking for women or vice versa. However, that's going to change according to Tinder CEO, Sean Rad. "There's a transgender community on Tinder and we haven't done enough to give them a good experience," Rad told the attendees at the Recode Code Conference on Thursday. To that end, the company will begin rolling out a more flexible system with which people can identify themselves and specify who they're looking to connect with. Rad did not go into much detail of how the news system will actually work, though he did confirm that the features will be implemented within the next month and a half.
Tinder user kidnapped and beaten by a man she met through the app
A Kansas Tinder user was recently kidnapped, beaten and held against her will for six days by a man she met through the app. Shane Steven Allen faces one charge of kidnapping and four more for aggravated battery. He's currently in police custody under $100,000 bond, according to NBC News. If he's convicted, Allen could serve a 32-year prison sentence. The woman, a 20 year-old student at the University of Kansas, was kidnapped on April 12th and was returned to her sorority on April 18th with multiple injuries including a pair of black eyes, broken blood vessels in her eyes and multiple bruises and abrasions, according to local news outlet Lawrence Journal World.
Over one million people swiped right for premium Tinder
According to Match Group, more than one million people have ponied up the $9.99 per month (or more, if you're over 30) for Tinder's premium service level in the first quarter of 2016. That figure is a relatively small portion of Tinder's 50 million global users, but there are still more than a million people out there whose app-based dating experience includes unlimited swipes, extra Super Likes and the ability to change their location to swipe from afar. If you want a robotic meat-swiper, however, you'll have to build one yourself.
Tinder Social helps you and your crew mix and mingle
Tinder is working on a feature that will enable groups of friends to meet groups of new people while on a night out. The idea behind Tinder Social is that you and your chums will start planning your Friday night a few days in advance. The system will then try to match your #squad up with a similar one so you can all go hang out together. By making the connection ahead of time, you'll all be able to break the ice and call shotgun on prospective partners well before the festivities kick off. The feature is currently being trialled in Australia and the company is pledging to bring it to the rest of the world in due time.
There's no perfect equation for getting laid in the Tinder age
Last July, I joined Grindr and things started off strong. I had a few good screws, a handful of hot dates and an intense summer fling. I saw more action in six months than I'd seen in the past three years. I was winning and a computer was helping me do it. Then, after an eight-day trip to Las Vegas this past January, all the action dried up.
Ohlala CEO Pia Poppenreiter on what 'paid dating' really means
Ohlala, an app that facilitates "paid dates," caused a ripple of raised eyebrows when it launched in New York last month. Despite Ohlala's insistence that it is not about paying for sex, people had a hard time figuring out what it really was for. The company maintains that line, but a few mixed signals are making it hard for the message to stick. Go to the website and you'll be greeted with an image of a man and a women just about to kiss, before an explanation of how the service works. Further down, a small note exclaims, "Ohlala is not an escort service. Escorts are not welcome." I sat down with co-founder and CEO Pia Poppenreiter at SXSW to figure out what Ohlala is, and whether it deserves its salacious reputation.
Bumble now lets you find a new BFF
Bumble, the dating app from former Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe where women make the first move, has launched a new service that will allow users to find a friend as easily as they find romance. The new BFF mode works just like the existing dating UI -- save that potential love-interests are replaced with potential friends of the same sex as the user. If both parties swipe right, then they can initiate a conversation with each other. The system will differentiate conversations by color: green for your new bestie, yellow for your new hot date. Bumble has also confirmed to Engadget that "for Bumble BFF, women see women and men see men. We approach every new product feature with safety in mind and we did not want people gamifying the system."
Play Cupid on Tinder by sharing profiles with your friends
Tinder is slowly rolling out the option to share other people's profiles with friends via text messaging. A small number of users will spot a "share" icon under some profiles -- tapping it lets you send a temporary link to that profile via text. The links expire after 72 hours or five clicks, and the person who receives it can then swipe right on the profile as he or she sees fit.
How do you get 'verified' on Tinder?
I, Mat Smith, through the gift of working as a journalist here at Engadget, am verified. On both Twitter and Facebook. It's the social networks' way of certifying that I'm better than the muggles that people are who they say they are. I get a ticket to digital VIP room. Am I somebody? Not really. But you get certain bragging rights when you have that blue tick next to your name. Now Tinder's jumped on the bandwagon: It, too, has verified profiles. To be clear, there's no honorable, journalistic reason for me to be verified, but when I joked about getting such a certification on the online dating app, I received a flood of direct messages asking for confirmation (skeptics!) and for advice on how they could get the same treatment. Can I get Tinder Famous? Do I even want to?
Ghosting redefined
They are our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our teachers, our students, our bankers, our janitors, the bathroom attendant, the perfume-counter girl, the porn star, the preacher. They are the right-wing nut job, the Left Shark and the guy in the middle seat. There's no discernible difference between us and them. In fact, there's a good chance you're one of them. They are ghosts -- or so we've been told.
