Let’s think about how today’s society differs, for example, from the society of the early 2000s. There are many differences, but the most significant is that we have begun to perform most of our daily activities using the internet. It is on the web that we shop, study new information, study, work, order food home, communicate with friends, relatives and colleagues. Also, millions of people meet online and start new relationships there.

This is a really important trend, because online dating is more convenient, simpler and often much more promising. There are no more geographical boundaries or other restrictions. You can easily and naturally meet a person from the other side of the world, eventually meet in real life, and then start a family. Even twenty years ago this was much more difficult. In the eighties and nineties, you could only dream of such a thing!

Today, when it comes to online dating, many immediately think of the Tinder application, although it was not at all the first of its kind. Why did Tinder become so popular in its time and what alternatives should you consider?

How Tinder became popular and why video chats are increasingly competing with it today

Tinder was launched by Hatch Labs in September 2012. If you are even a little interested in the web dating industry, you’ll know that before that there were already many similar sites. For example, online dating service Match.com has been operating since 1995. However, Tinder became something of a phenomenon by a stroke of luck.

The rise in popularity of Tinder came at the time of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. It was here that participants in the competition and guests, trying to make new acquaintances, began to massively use the application. After all, Tinder works with location, so it makes it easy to find new acquaintances nearby. As a result, already at the beginning of the year, the number of registered users of the application amounted to 450 million, and the growth of new users often reached 15% per week.

This popularity had the opposite effect — Tinder began to be called a “one-night stand dating app.” In general this was true, because most users did not consider the service as a platform for serious dating at all. The Sochi Olympics are a thing of the past, but the controversial nickname has stuck with the app very firmly.

Users who were interested in a more serious and promising relationship began to look for alternatives. And they found them in the format of random video chats, the primary one of which at one time was the Omegle website.

Omegle video chat and its impact on the online dating industry

The Omegle website was launched on March 25, 2009. But at that time it was exclusively a text-based random chat. A video chat function appeared only six months later, when functional alternatives to Omegle began to appear. It is curious that in all this time there have not been many new features in Omegle — a language filter, a search by a list of interests, and an unmoderated section. Nevertheless, the new format took off, and Omegle became a serious competitor to the popular online dating services at that time. Along with it, more functional alternatives were rapidly developing:

1. CooMeet — a great alternative to Omegle for those who want to communicate exclusively with the opposite gender. CooMeet offers a unique gender filter, thanks to which the service connects men only with girls and is never wrong. In addition, CooMeet has excellent moderation and a responsible 24/7 support team. If you want a convenient, secure, and usable video chat service, CooMeet is a great choice. And for those who like to communicate with foreign language speakers, CooMeet offers a built-in text message translator.
2. OmeTV — another good Omegle alternative with a few interesting features. Like CooMeet, it has a built-in message translator. A gender filter is also present, but it is not quite perfect. In fact, the algorithm is easy to fool by simply specifying a different gender. Users’ information is generally not verified by anyone. Therefore, bots and various advertising broadcasts are often hidden behind women’s accounts.
3. Bazoocam — a clone of Omegle, which, despite the frankly outdated design of the site, is still popular. It’s simple, convenient and quite usable. Bazoocam, among other things, offers users to play online mini-games with other participants in order to make it easier to get to know each other during the game and find common interests. Not a bad option if you’re looking for a custom Omegle alternative.

Badoo: another Tinder competitor or something more?

Tinder and Badoo are indeed very similar, but the second is positioned not just as a dating app, but rather as a social network for dating. An important advantage of Badoo is the ability to immediately indicate your goals — to chat, find new friends or meet your love. Like Tinder, you can also search for users in your local area, but this is not required. You can set up a search in a different region and get even more freedom of choice.

Among other advantages of Badoo we can note the following:

1. Celebrity lookalike search function
2. A rudeness detector
3. Ban on taking screenshots of text messages and images from chats
4. The ability for the girl to request a selfie of the other user to make sure that he is real.

Badoo’s developers place a special emphasis on the security of their service. And compared to Tinder, they really managed to make changes in this area. There are far fewer fakes and bots here, and the audience is more restrained and loyal, because it is easy to get banned for violating the rules of the site.

If you’re looking for the closest equivalent to Badoo, that would be Bumble. Technically and functionally, the sites are very similar. But Bumble puts a special emphasis on easy use of the platform for a female audience. Men here simply cannot take the first step. For example, you can’t write to a girl if she doesn’t give permission herself. For girls, this is a really important advantage, because Bumble helps get rid of excessive male hassle and obsession. On the other hand, it severely limits the possibilities for communication. But if you’re a girl, take a look at Bumble. Perhaps it will suit you

Experiment with different dating platforms

We have access to a huge number of online dating services. And sometimes choosing a suitable site takes more time than finding a soulmate. Your task is to learn how to quickly find the dating platform that is right for you. And, as you already understand, it does not have to be Tinder or Badoo.

We recommend exploring different communication formats — from classic dating sites and apps to video chats, themed forums and instant messengers. If you devote enough time to this, you can easily find exactly a dating service that will fully meet all your requirements. Good luck!