Tag Archive for online friends

Hinge: A friendship, romance, dating app all rolled in one

Posted on May 4, 2014 by

Hinge is a mobile dating app that piggybacks on your Facebook network to find & match you up with like-minded people based on your profile, interests & preferences.

Shades of Tinder, no doubt, but this is a much more refined concept. Someone, somewhere has given an analogy that if Tinder is akin to meeting up with someone in a bar in your neighborhood for a one-night stand, then Hinge would be the equivalent of going to a friend’s home for a party or dinner, & ending up going steady with one of their other friends who also attends the party.

The way Hinge works is pretty simple. You sign in with Facebook & set your preferences, including age, sex & location. You may also add your interests or hobbies so that others will know what kind of a person you are.

The mobile dating app will then go to work, using its algorithm for hunting for like-minded people in your Facebook network who match your profile & preferences. It will give you up to seven matches per day – all found from your own network, meaning that they will be friends of friends.

The fact that you are only given Facebook-validated contacts who are friends of your friends means that the names, pictures & profiles can be relied on, & you don’t have to do any verification or pre-screening yourself. You don’t have to worry about whether the sweet person you are being matched up with turns out to be someone else entirely.

Hinge was founded in Washington D.C. in Feb 2011 by Justin McLeod, who is the company’s CEO. In Aug 2011, the app expanded its reach in the Northeast to New York City & Boston, & the company is now headquartered in New York City.

Hinge.co has been funded to the tune of around US $5.2 million, including a recent $4 million Series A funding round from Great Oaks, Social + Capital & others that enabled the company to expand its reach beyond the Northeast. Hinge is now available in DC, Philadelphia, NYC, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, & most recently launched in Los Angeles.

Click here to download the Hinge mobile dating app on your iOS device.

Click here to download the Hinge mobile dating app on your Android device.

Image Credit: Hinge

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Share links and start a discussion with Potluck

Posted on January 14, 2014 by

It is estimated that over 80% of Internet users do not use social networking sites. Potluck is a social networking web & mobile app targeted at this vast market & it strives to motivate the average Internet user to share links with his/her friends.

Potluck is a product of New York City-based Branch Media Inc. whose other popular social networking web app is an Online publishing platform also named Branch. Potluck was launched in June 2013.

Features of Potluck

On Potluck, you can post links to photos, music, videos & articles for your friends. Similar to Facebook’s ‘Like’, Potluck allows you to ‘Heart’ links that interest you. If you are enthused by a link you can comment on it or simply Heart it. Potluck pages are intimate as they cannot be accessed by those outside your group.

social networking appPotluck is intended to be a less stressful & more personal place to hang out with your contacts compared to Facebook or Twitter which reveal your identity. It enables you to be less self-conscious about the content you browse.

Potluck focuses on the Content & not on the users who created it. Users are first shown the Content & the number of people who have Hearted it before the identity of the friends is revealed.

Potluck’s website offers a tour to help users familiarize themselves with the product’s features. You can connect your Potluck account with Facebook & Twitter & add friends who you think will be able to share interesting content.

Sharing a link is easy as you simply need to copy & paste the link in your interface & click on the ‘Share’ button. You can recommend a link to specific friends by sending them a notification which would prompt them to take a look at it. Potluck has a preview option which displays the initial few lines of text-based content. You can click through to read the full article & share it through your other social networking accounts.

There is also a platform for comments & discussions to bring users together. Potluck is an ideal social networking app for those who have a good number of friends who can provide a regular stream of links & content.

Potluck for Mobiles

Potluck is available as a free iOS app in iDevice format. You can share a link as well as browse through posts & links shared by your friends. Potluck enables you to connect with new people as the conversations also include the friends of your friends. Similar to other social networking apps, Potluck also has activity alerts, notifications & profiles.

Potluck advertises itself as “A house party on the Internet”. This slogan aptly sums up the app’s usefulness as you can get a glimpse of the articles & posts, & engage yourself in those that interest you as you would at any party. The friends of friends option ensures you have a whole lot of people to connect & converse with.

Click here to download Potluck on iOS.

Image Credit: Potluck

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