What is Tinder? Here's what you should know about the popular dating app - Business Insider - Business Insider

What is Tinder? Here's what you should know about the popular dating app - Business Insider - Business Insider
‘Searchers’ Review: Perceptive Doc About What People See When They Swipe Through Dating Apps - IndieWire
Pre-Civil War hotel reopens in Alabama after $5 million renovation - Chattanooga Times Free Press

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 09:31 PM PST

Founded back in 2012, Tinder is a dating app site that matches singles in your area and around the world virtually.

On launch, Tinder was a pioneering app in the online dating sphere. Following its massive success, similar dating apps, including Hinge, PlentyOfFish, and OkCupid — all owned by the same parent company, Match Group — began to appear.

In general, Tinder's app functions pretty simply: you swipe to indicate who you are most interested in. Anyone can sign up for free, but Tinder does offer some subscription-based premium features.

Here's everything else you should know about Tinder.

How does Tinder work?

Tinder is commonly referred to as the "hookup app," but at its core is a dating app that, like competitors, aims to offer a gateway to relationships, and even marriage, for a more tech-savvy generation.

It upends traditional dating culture, which typically requires you to go out and interact with strangers in physical spaces. Instead, it brings that diverse dating pool that you may — or may not — have had access to at a bar or club straight to you.

To use Tinder, you must create a profile, noting your current location, gender, age, distance, and gender preferences. Then you begin swiping. After you see someone's photo and a small biography, you can either swipe left if you dislike them or right if you do like them. If another person swipes right, both of you are matched, and you can begin chatting with one another.

Enabling your location helps Tinder find singles in your area.

Tinder previously used a notorious Elo rating system to match users, essentially ranking people by a user-driven attractiveness algorithm. The more people who liked and swiped right on a person's profile, the higher they were ranked. That profile would then be displayed alongside those with a similar rank.

As a result, it created dating bubbles, defeating a dating app's purpose and advantages, which is to more quickly and efficiently find the perfect match beyond the simple physical attractiveness factor.

It has since abandoned this method, and in a 2019 blog post, the company revealed some of what goes into its matching system. "Our algorithm is designed to be open," the company wrote. "Today, we don't rely on Elo — though it is still important to consider both parties who Like profiles to form a match."

tinder_1 — This is where the conversation begins.

According to Tinder, the app prioritizes users who are most active and matches you with others who are active at the same time. It doesn't collect race or income data but considers those details you inputted when you signed up — how far someone is from you, their gender, and age.

With the help of newer features like Smart Photo, which identifies the photos that Tinder thinks work best for you, Tinder can spit out your next potential date.

How to create a Tinder profile

To create your Tinder account, you will need to download the mobile application for iOS or Android or access the site from a web browser. You will then need to link a mobile phone number, Facebook, or Gmail account.

The tutorial will show you the functionality and basic features of the application.

During sign-up, you'll be prompted to input information on your gender, date of birth, interests, and sexual preferences. Users are even able to include external links like Spotify and Instagram. Also, be prepared to give Tinder access to your location while using the app, and upload photos.

After, you'll begin a tutorial on how to use the app, which will show you the application's functionality and basic features. Once on the app homepage, you can see that there are buttons that affect how you interact with a potential match below every profile. Here's what they are and how they work:

Rewind: The yellow rewind allows you to reverse a potential match you skipped on. Rewind only works if you are a Tinder Plus or Gold subscription member.
X: The red X skips the person you don't have an interest in and dissolves any chance of matching. You can also do this by swiping your finger to the left on your mobile device.
Star: The blue star is for when you "Super Like" someone. It's a premium feature that lets you show a potential match your interest before the swiping process begins.
Heart: The green heart indicates you have an interest in someone. You can also swipe on a profile picture with your finger for the same effect.
Lightning Bolt: Boost or Super Boost is a premium feature that puts your profile at the top of the list in your area for 30 minutes so that your profile can get more views, which can lead to more matches on Tinder.

tinder_2 — These controls affect the success of your profile.

Once you've made a match, both parties will be notified, and you can video call with one another Tinder user or send messages using Reactions, which are Tinder's version of emojis.

Tinder Premium Services

Although Tinder is free, there are tier-based subscription options that you can pay monthly or yearly for. You can subscribe to premium services for Tinder in increments of one month, six months, or a year. To upgrade your Tinder account, you'll need to go into your Settings.

Tinder_Image4 — The subscription you choose depends on how active you'll be on the app.

Tinder Plus

At $9.99 a month, this tier allows for unlimited swiping, the ability to change your location with Passport, more "Super Likes," an additional "Boost," and "Rewinds" each month. You can also limit information people see about you, like your age and distance, and navigate the app ad-free.

Tinder Gold

Starting at around $18 a month, you get all of the Tinder Plus benefits but can also see the profiles of everyone who liked you before you say yay or nay, as well as a curated selection of top picks for potential matches that change daily. They'll come with particular labels that describe them with a selling point like "Creative," "Adventurer," and "Fashionista."

Tinder Platinum

Priced at the higher $32 to $40 a month depending on age, all the Tinder Gold and Plus benefits are included at this tier. Additionally, when you "like" someone, you have priority over those who are not subscription-based, and when "Super Like"-ing someone, you can send a message before a match. This option is currently only available as an upgrade from the other two tiers and can't be purchased outright.

‘Searchers’ Review: Perceptive Doc About What People See When They Swipe Through Dating Apps - IndieWire

Posted: 30 Jan 2021 08:31 PM PST

Pacho Velez's breakthrough documentary "Manakamana," which he co-directed, consists entirely of people (and goats) riding a cable car up and down a Nepalese mountain. So while he might not seem like the most natural candidate to make a light-hearted documentary about internet dating, "Searchers" dismantles that dumb assumption from its very first shot. Velez is fascinated by how people perform the idea of themselves, whether they're crammed into a gondola suspended hundreds of feet above a wild valley or swiping through Tinder on their bed in Brooklyn.

By focusing his camera on the faces of 30 (or so) app users as they peruse the digital meat market and reflect on their perfect match, Velez allows their phones to become as much of a looking glass as they are a portal. The result of his little experiment is a warm and compulsively watchable movie that flirts with modern ironies (e.g., our dystopian reliance on algorithms to find real human connection) and asks timeless questions ("u up?") in order to shine a softer light onto the same tech-era truth that already gave birth to the likes of "Black Mirror": What someone is searching for can tell you everything about how they see themselves.

Back to that first shot: "Searchers" opens on a 24-year-old guy named Shaq Shaq as he stares just off-camera and passes judgment on the women whose Tinder profiles someone is scrolling through for him offscreen. Velez's decision to take his subjects' phones out of their hands is a masterstroke, as that added gap in the decision-making process leaves all sorts of room for the kind of self-reflection that people would rather delegate to their fingers (a faint image of their screens is superimposed over the interview footage). It isn't long before Shaq Shaq is opening up about getting dumped, as his thoughts on each profile sketch into a quick self-portrait of his own vulnerability. It's possible he didn't have a clear sense of his own hurt until he found himself looking for something casual and low-risk — something that might restore the confidence he's just realizing has been lost.

"Searchers" is full of gently humane moments like that, as Velez's static camera and sympathetic bedside manner invite his diverse cross-section of subjects to volunteer their most personal feelings by rendering a stream of verdicts about other people. We meet a 35-year-old gay man named Ruddy who rolls his eyes at a tacky picture of a guy posing in front of a super basic tourist destination, only to remember how much he loves to travel. We meet a girl in her 20s who swipes through SeekingArrangement in search of a sugar daddy whose pockets are deep enough to pay her a decent "allowance." Cathleen, 74, focuses our attention on the involuntary sounds people make as they look for a partner, and the extremely voluntary euphemisms that men her age use when they're talking about sex. Velez interviews straight men, trans women, people who still live with their parents, parents who still live with their kids, and even "I Am a Sex Addict" filmmaker Caveh Zahedi, who some cinephiles will recognize as a demographic unto himself. Some of them are on Match.com, others on Grindr, Hinge, Bumble, and a handful of apps that will leave coupled viewers feeling like they managed to sneak aboard the last chopper out of Saigon.

All of these people are looking for different things, but all of them are reflecting on themselves; if most of us default to a self-conscious mode during in-person dates, always wondering if we're doing enough to make a good impression, the app experience seems to give users the space to put themselves first, and filter the strangers inside their phone through the prism of what they want. Velez doesn't worry too much about the potential implications of that phenomenon (could it inspire people to obsess over their own shadow or miss the forest for the trees?), as he's more interested in the idea of these apps as a funnel that challenges people to think about how they'll fit themselves through it and what they'll look like when they come out the other side. In an endearing touch, it helps that Velez isn't just a director — he's also a client. Seeing the filmmaker get hung up over the profile prompt "I like to make…" is a bittersweet testament to how deep these innocuous questions can dig. It feels telling that he lands on "New York Times recipes" and not, say, "films." This documentary might do more for him in the dating department than OKCupid ever has.

And here's hoping that it does, because finding a partner has never been this hard before. "Searchers" appears to have been shot entirely during the pandemic, and despite only featuring a few errant glimpses of the city in motion — or perhaps because of that — Velez's documentary gradually doubles as a vivid snapshot of the isolation that stretched across New York's (first?) COVID summer. For all of the warmth in Velez's film, the glimpse of the Free Hugs people doing their thing in Washington Square Park during the middle of a pandemic might be the single most frightening thing you see on a screen this year. But that cursed image aside, this sweet nothing of a movie never sinks into despair. Online dating probably seems like a dead end in the middle of a purgatory, but there's something hopeful about the idea that — if you search for people on your phone for long enough — there's a chance you could end up seeing yourself. At the very least, it's comforting to know that so many other ghosts in this town are stuck inside and looking for the same thing.

Grade: B

"Searchers" premiered in the NEXT section of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

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Pre-Civil War hotel reopens in Alabama after $5 million renovation - Chattanooga Times Free Press

Posted: 30 Jan 2021 08:14 PM PST

SELMA, Ala. (AP) — A hotel dating to before the Civil War has reopened in Selma near the bridge where demonstrators seeking voting rights for Black people marched in 1965.

The St. James Hotel, with a courtyard and rooms overlooking the Alabama River, resumed business Tuesday as part of the Hilton chain following a $5 million renovation that updated the old building in the heart of Selma, where the hotel first opened in 1836 when the city was a hub of Alabama's plantation region.

The Selma Times-Journal reported that it took two years of planning, negotiations with the city of Selma and extensive refurbishments to return the three-story hotel to its former glory.

The head of the Birmingham-based Rhaglan Hospitality, which purchased the hotel from the city for about $300,000, was happy to see the project completed.

"I can't properly express how thrilled I really am," said President Jim Lewis.

Civil rights sites including the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march crossed in 1965, have become a draw for tourists, but the city has had few hotels to accommodate visitors, many of whom stayed in Montgomery.

The St. James Hotel opened with 42 available rooms and 13 more on the way. The hotel also has a full bar and restaurant.

The building has operated on and off as a hotel and other businesses after closing. For a time, the hotel was owned by the city in an effort to bolster downtown before going out of business a few years ago.

"A lot of work has gone into this. The interesting thing is that this is not my first ribbon cutting for St. James. I was around when we did it before," said Mayor James Perkins.

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