Author: Matthew Taylor

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Tinder India Launches New Dating Safety Guide

Tinder this month has launched its full Dating Safety Guide for singles in India. Created in collaboration with the Centre for Social Research (CSR) – the guide walks users through community guidelines, security features, and advises on ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ when using the app. 

The collaboration with the CSR is an apt one. CSR was founded in 1983 in India and is a non-profit organisation that fights for a ‘violence-free and gender-just’ society. The guide will be pushed in-app to all users in India throughout September and October, is freely available to download, and will be shared by both Tinder and CSR as widely as possible. 

Some 98 per cent of Indian Tinder users rate security as vital to the platform. Perhaps the most effective and simple security feature is the photo verification – that ensures safe profiles. In fact, 65 per cent of young daters in India said a verified profile, where the person matches with the pictures they share on their profile, makes a match more attractive and is a valued safety feature.

The guide outlines the app’s community guidelines, and highlights all the reporting and blocking features available to users. This includes AI features that automatically identify potential dangerous and harmful messages. When sending a potential dangerous message, users are challenged with a ‘Are you sure?’ pop up and when receiving, a similar ‘Does this bother you?’ pop up gives users a chance to report potential dangerous actors on the site.

The guide features advice about best practices, sexual well-being, education around consent, among many other things. Dr. Ranjana Kumari, Director, Centre for Social Research, India said:

“This comprehensive guide is designed to empower individuals to use dating apps like Tinder safely. It serves as a reminder for daters to exercise thoughtfulness, act responsibly, and treat others with respect. Our collaboration with Tinder underscores our joint mission to promote online safety and digital well-being and we are pleased to be partnering with them to support their safety efforts in fostering a safe dating experience for the youth in India.” 

You can check out the full guide here. 

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SmackSocial Aiming to Be the Anti-FOMO App

A new social Discovery platform called SmackSocial has publicly launched this month. The idea behind the app is to make social meet ups and activities easier and seamless to organise for friends. 

Co-founder of the app Whitney Graham described how organising a social activity across multiple different apps was a frustrating experience. The idea behind SmackSocial is that everyone gets the information about the hangout, even if they are not on the app – and puts them in a group chat that disappears once it is over. So there is no need for the mundane admin of leaving or archiving multiple group chats.

The app started as a Birmingham Young University master’s project but has evolved into the business and app launched this month. Alongside fellow alumni Kent Broadbent, the app has won a number of pitching competitions and has raised funding in the six figures. Whitney Graham said:

“Depression rates for Gen Z are through the roof, and people are struggling to connect in person. I’m hoping the app can help people reconnect, and that we’ll see greater diversity and inclusion in friend groups. Users now have the tools to cross over and combine their groups in an organic way.”

She goes on to describe more as a social coordination app – one that helps ensure plans between friends come off, and that friendship groups can be integrated with other friendship groups for activities more seamlessly. The app hopes to help friends avoid that FOMO feeling and make sure they are at every meet-up. 

The app is available now on the App store and already has over 500 downloads in the Google Play store. It’s a free to download app, but does offer in-app purchase for specific types of post and boost to your posts for social events.

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Socially – New App For Building Social Connections Launches in UK

A new social discovery app, aptly named, Socially, is launching next month in October across the UK. It rejects endless profile scrolling and tedious messaging, and instead embraces AI and the power of real meetups. Socially is available on both the App store and Google Play and free to use. It hopes to help fast track social connections beneficial to people’s health. 

Socially is activating its initial launch in the UK and specifically in the town of Brighton. It’s a common approach taken by social discovery apps to focus marketing efforts and reach in a single area. This helps build up a user base and a proof of concept. The expansion of the app can then be managed. It’s no good signing up 10,000 members, if those 10,000 members are not actually near each other for meet-ups. 

Socially will focus on organising both in-real-life and virtual hangouts for small groups. It limits organised activities to a max of five people, to try and hit that sweet spot where meaningful connections can be created in every event planned on the app. Users are advertised events and activities, not people, on the app. The real getting to know someone can be done in person at a shared interest – rather than judging someone’s ability to write an engaging profile page. 

Darren Newman, Co-founder and CEO of Socially, who spoke at last week’s Social Discovery Insights inaugural conference, highlighted the importance of apps that nurture and foster social connections. He said:

“It just takes so long to make new friends these days! I wanted to create an app that replicated that experience of building social connections and friendships through the participation of mutual interests but that expedited it. Where everyone is there to widen their social circle through the enjoyment of mutual interests and where there’s no fear of rejection or embarrassment.”

An app like Socially can take the awkwardness and ambiguity out of a situation. There’s no umming and erring if the person you have met is interested in making friends when you find each other on Socially, as opposed to when you have made friendly passing conversation at the gym, or at a gig with a person. The app also makes use of AI technology to reduce the barriers and awkwardness of setting up an event. AI will help auto generate a description for the event you want to set up. You can then of course edit to perfect it, but the initial work of getting something down is relieved. 

Additionally – the app will have a dedicated student pathway, to help university students connect with each other on their own campus or further afield. 

Socially can be downloaded for free on both the App store and Google Play Store.

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CrimsonZip Tackles Fitness and Loneliness at Harvard

CrimsonZip is a new mobile application for the university community at Harvard. It’s a social discovery app that combines exercise and social connections. Whether it is an intense work-out, an intro session to a new sport, or just a casual study break walk, the app is trying to encourage users to improve both their physical and mental health.


The app is rolling out this fall and currently aimed at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard College. The app will allow users to create and sign-up for a range of physical activities. More important than the activities themselves are who you do them with. That’s key to the psychology behind the app. It is hoped that by creating social connections, it will encourage the uptake and maintenance of healthy habits.


Richard Lee, professor of medicine and stem cell and regenerative biology, and co chair of the CrimsonZip program said:

“We’re not looking to turn everyone into long-distance runners, but if we can get 10 percent to 20 percent more activity from people — and then they stick with it — the implications for their lives will be substantial.”

Fostering social connections are just as important to living healthy lives as keeping active and physical. The app is rolling out at Harvard, but the minds behind it have their sights set on loftier goals, and will be making the software publicly available to be adopted elsewhere. Much like Facebook started in Harvard and spread, many social apps take this campus-like approach.

It’s by no means the first app targeted at combining physical and social activity. Apps like Strava, Stridekick, Stepbet, and Squaddy mix social aspects and the work-out world already. Apps that focus on a specific communities however that encourage a range of different levels of physical activity are potentially powerful and exciting. It could encourage those who would not normally, to get involved in the physical and mental benefits of exercise and friendship.