MUMBAI: The online dating industry is constantly changing. It simply has no other choice in our modern reality. Any new communication format very quickly bores users these days. Therefore, developers of dating sites and applications constantly have to add new tools and features to keep their audience.
In mid-February 2022, it was reported that Tinder was launching a new “Blind Date” feature. The format wasn’t something completely new, but it definitely arouses interest. So we decided to take a deeper look at the Blind Date feature, as well as other news from the world of online dating. We promise it will be interesting!
Why Tinder added Blind Dates and why they are relevant
If you are in your thirties or older, you’ll probably remember the popular blind date TV shows of the 90s. To describe them as briefly as possible, the creators of the show selected several potential suitors for the player and hid them behind a screen. Then the host asked the suitors various questions, and the main player subsequently had to blindly choose the one they liked the most. And only after that the screen would roll back and, and the participants would finally see each other.
The Blind Date feature works in exactly the same way, only online:
1. You are asked simple questions or prompted to fill in gaps in sentences: “You can wear a shirt ___ times without washing it,” or “I believe that ___ is the main thing in a relationship”.
2. The algorithm puts participants into groups based on their answers.
3. In chat, you’ll have a few minutes to communicate with other participants one by one. You only know them by their answers — there’s no photo or other profile information.
4. When the countdown is over, you have to decide if you want to keep chatting with this person or not. If two people have the same opinion, they’ll see each other's photos and will be able to chat without a timer or other restrictions.
This approach adds excitement, makes online dating more adventurous and sometimes completely unexpected. At the moment, the Blind Date feature is boosted by a lot of audience interest. The only question is how long this interest will last. After all, we know that even the most popular trends now can very quickly become last year’s fashion.
Other interesting news, trends and innovations in the dating industry
There has been a lot of talk in the last few months about metaverses. Interest in them began to warm up in the middle of 2021, and now this trend is only gaining momentum. Particularly pleasing is the fact that modern users are really interested in this new format of communication.
At the beginning of 2022, B&T Magazine surveyed modern Internet users on the current realities of web dating. 80% of those surveyed said they would be happy to try new metaverse-related online dating formats. This is really something new. Something that could forever change the very principles of dating on the Internet.
Another interesting trend is the struggle of dating services with a phenomenon known as Cyber Flashing. This means sending obscene images to other users without their consent. This phenomenon isn’t new, but only recently have dating sites begun to actively fight against it. One of the first dating apps in this space was Bumble, which isn’t a surprise as it has always been positioned as a dating platform created for the comfort of girls.
Dating apps are turning into services for finding friends
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An interesting observation: there are more and more people in the world who use dating services for reasons other than their intended purpose. Not everyone is trying to meet their love here. Many are just looking for new friends. As it turns out, this works!
Due to the fact that you can explain in detail about you and your interests on dating sites and apps, they can be used to find like-minded people. Tens of thousands of people around the world find new friends on Tinder, Badoo, Bumble and other dating services. And if we include another format of online dating — video chats — the numbers will be even higher.
Here it’s worth making a small digression. If you decide to sign up for a dating app, we strongly recommend that you set clear goals for yourself first and understand what you really want. Find your soulmate? Make friends with similar interests? Just chat with new people without any specific goals? Believe us, understanding your own goals will greatly simplify your life. And at the same time will help you choose the most suitable site for your aims. After all, the web dating industry is not limited to Tinder or Badoo. There’s always a choice. And now it is as huge as ever — more than 8,000 online dating services around the world.
Decline in the popularity of classic dating apps and a simultaneous increase in demand for video chat
For several months now, we've been observing an interesting paradox — the audience of many popular dating applications is decreasing, while in online video chats, on the contrary, it is increasing. This is especially noticeable if you look at the top video chat sites — Chatrandom, Camsurf, EmeraldChat, Bazoocam, Chathub, https://coomeet.com/. They managed to increase their audience by three or four times during the pandemic and they still maintain that. Indeed, the number of users continues to increase.
There are several reasons for this situation:
1. During the pandemic, people learned to value their own time more. And dating apps, as you know, do not spare time at all. Unlike video chats.
2. Communicating in online video chat is a lot simpler and more convenient. Not surprisingly, in 2020, Tinder and many of its rivals have been rushing to add video chat functionality to their services.
3. Online video chat can replace live communication much better than a dating application. Not a single text message in an application can replace a live conversation with someone face to face. Online video chat can’t replace it 100%, but it is as close as possible to this.
Add more democratic pricing in video chat apps, a huge audience, flexible search settings for other users, and we get a really great alternative to dating apps.
Try the fads but stick to the classics
Any innovation in the online dating industry is good. We can see how rapidly this area is evolving and how many new people it attracts every year. And given our current reality, interest in Internet dating will only increase.
Another question is how relevant these innovations are. For example, Blind Dates are an interesting dating format. But we cannot be sure they will be as popular six months or a year from now.
We can advise readers the following: stay tuned for updates and innovations in the world of online dating, try something new, but do not give up on proven classics. New formats can get boring quickly, but time-tested ones, like online video chat with strangers, will remain popular.
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