Sick of spending Friday nights alone? Eager to get back in the saddle, but turned off by traditional dating sites, like eHarmony, Plenty of Fish and Match.com? This lineup of cutting-edge mobile apps, which use real-time, GPS and push notifications, can help you meet new people, and maybe even score a date for Valentine's Day
BADOO: The largest social network for meeting new people locally in the world
Founder: Andrey Andreev, in 2006
No. of employees: 200 in London and Moscow, and hundreds of moderators all over the world working 24 hours a day to verify photos
No. on the network: 135 million users - big data base you can tap into
How it works: It's all about meeting, chatting, flirting and dating new people. It's what Lloyd Price, Badoo's director of marketing, calls "the opposite of Facebook"
$$$: Credit system allows users to promote their profiles, premium subscriptions and advertising
Secret to success? "The key is a good experience," says Mr. Price, "but it's our flexibility that has distinguished us"
Website: http://badoo.com
TAGGED: Enables people to meet for everything from flirting, dating and serious relationships to meeting new friends
Founders: Greg Tseng and Johann Schleier-Smith, in 2004
How it works: Free service that allows members to easily browse and meet new people through advance matching algorithms, social games and more
Target market: 80 per cent of members are 21 to 54 years old; it's split equally among men and women
Where it's used: More than 200 countries
Success rate: Tagged has more than 100 million members and makes about three million new friend connections a day
$$$: Virtual currency, subscriptions and advertising
Outlook: Excellent. Tagged recorded its fourth consecutive profitable year in 2011
Website: http://www.tagged.com/
MOONIT: Social discovery app that lets users flirt and find friendship based on astrological signs
Founders: Dana Kanze and Mason Sexton launched the alpha version in 2009 at Techcrunch and then launched a full version in 2010
How it works: User creates a profile, checks out other users, requests to connect, accepts, receives compatibility chart
Number of users: 1.3 million
Target demographic: Ages 13 to 24 looking to connect with people outside of their social network
$$$: Rolling out premium subscriptions, including $1.99 feature spots
Success rate: 70 per cent relationship compatibility based on birthday algorithm
Why it's unique: "There's a huge market opportunity and we aren't able to satisfy it quickly enough... resource constraints are the biggest challenge," says Ms. Kanze
Website: http://moonit.com/
TINGLE: Location-based app that allows you to flirt via text and make phone calls to another user while protecting real-world contact info
Founder: Ian Bell launched the company in 2010
How it works: Uses a background process to track location and passes matches through a filter. If there's a match, users will be sent push notifications. "We get that spontaneity without specifically telling people where they are...It also allows women to send messages back and forth without having to reveal their number," says Mr. Bell
No. of people on the network: Tens of thousands
$$$: Selling Karma, which are credits in Tingle's economic system that act as rewards and protect against spammers, fake profile creators and over-users
Website: https://www.tingle.com/
MEETMOI: Location-based app that has "stripped down dating to what's most essential – the introduction"
Tagline: The mobile matchmaker. Always looking for you
Founders: Andrew Weinreich and Jeremy Levy, in 2007
How it works: When a match is nearby, MeetMoi sends an alert to your phone and, if you like what you see, you can choose to connect with that person in real time
No. of employees: 10
No. of users: Millions
$$$: Monthly subscription model
Outlook: Strong, given the strength of the mobile market
Website: http://www.meetmoi.com
to get it and come back to see the ad in front of this gallery.
