Take care with this new dating app
A NEW dating app is trying to bring back conversation and make people think about their behaviour by allowing you to immediately message anyone you like, with the catch that they can leave you a public review.
Helium, a new app from existing dating website RSVP, is the latest dating app trying to differentiate itself from the apps you already know and potentially even use.
Since Tinder was introduced in 2012, other companies have tried to piggyback on its success by taking ever so slightly different approaches.
Bumble, the Sadie Hawkins-style app started by Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe Herd ( who later sued Tinder for sexual harassment), shifted the power dynamic by making it so women on the app had to message a man they matched with first.
Hinge, which bills itself as being “designed to be deleted”, promises to set users up with their soulmates by focusing on deeper connections through padded-out profiles that go beyond some photos and a bio.
Now there’s Helium, which doesn’t bother with dictating who can message first or even require users to match.
“We’re not just another dating app, we’re bringing conversation back,” the app
VIRAL VIDEO claims on its website.
Despite its claims that it’s not “just another dating app”, it does share a lot in common with the ones we already know and use.
The most notable of these is the ability to pay in order to move your profile further up the stack, change your location, or hide your profile.
But there are also some differences.
While most of the apps out there will ask you to login using your Facebook, email or phone number, Helium is focused more on anonymity.
Your account is linked to your phone on a device level (though you can transfer it by backing up your data and restoring it on the new device).
Your age, gender, and the one (or more) you’re after isn’t displayed on your profile (it’s still used to help you match).
Neither is your location, whether you’re online, or whether you’ve seen someone’s message.
Helium has also decided to encrypt your data rather than wait to be exposed by security researchers before doing it like certain other apps.
Helium is pushing itself as a friendly place for conversations to thrive rather than a knight in shining armour, so its approach to keeping users in line is to allow you to leave reviews of each other instead.
The most common tag is displayed on your profile after receiving three or more votes from other users.