9 questions about the dating app Hinge you were too embarrassed to ask

9 questions about the dating app Hinge you were too embarrassed to ask :

Tinder — the massively popular smartphone app that has radically simplified the process of online dating — is becoming a household name. But it's not the only location-based dating app. Hinge, for example, is also on the rise. For now, it's much less popular than Tinder, but dominant social networks have been dislodged before, and Hinge's focus on making connections through people you already know could win out. "The best analogy is MySpace versus Facebook," Hinge founder and CEO Justin McLeod said on CNBC in February. That's a pretty rosy assessment, but the analogy is not all wrong. Hinge is growing fast, and it's worth getting to know it.

1) What is Hinge, in a sentence?

Hinge is a smartphone dating app, available for iPhones/iPads and Android devices, that's oriented toward relationships rather than hookups and tries to match you with people your friends know and can vouch for.

2) How does Hinge work?

The basics of Hinge are very similar to Tinder. When you sign up, you are presented with a list of fellow users according to criteria you specify (age, gender, physical proximity to you); if you like them and they like you back, you're matched and can message each other. In both apps, you build your profile by importing pictures and other personal information from Facebook.

But that's where the similarities end. While Tinder gives you a never-ending stream of nearby users, Hinge only provides a select list. Previous iterations of the app gave users new potential matches once a day, but now matches come in a regular trickle, like Tinder but with lower volume.

The main difference, though, is that Hinge focuses on matching you with people you share Facebook friends with, if you have a Facebook account. If nobody is friends with your friends — or if you've already made your way through all those potential matches — the app starts recommending more tangential connections, like people whose Facebook friends share Facebook friends with you. But the focus is on finding people who are somewhere in your social network. Tinder will tell you if a user happens to have mutual friends with you, but you can't screen to see those users first.

3) Okay, what does this look like in practice?

Here's a typical screen a Hinge user will see upon opening the app: