www.ozy.com Open in urlscan Pro
13.225.71.55  Public Scan

Form analysis
2 forms found in the DOM

<form class="sc-dkIXZx hvVZyZ">
  <h4 class="sc-XhUvE dOYKbK">Sign up for the weekly newsletter!</h4>
  <div class="sc-ikPAEB gzCcjx">
    <div class="sc-tYqdw ebhone">
      <div class="sc-bsipwG gcHoFR"><input type="email" name="emailAddress" placeholder="Enter your email address" value="" class=" js-bound"></div>
    </div>
    <div class="mobile-none tablet-landscape-block"><button type="submit" class="sc-gsTEea bNCaph">SIGN UP</button></div>
    <div class="sc-xyEDr cBxcwV mobile-block tablet-landscape-none"><button type="submit" class="sc-gsTEea bNCaph"><i class="sc-hKgJUU dNCKzl Symbol Symbol--left-arrow-white Symbol--left-arrow-white-dims"> </i></button></div>
  </div>
</form>

<form id="adl-user-report-form" novalidate="">
  <div style="padding:0; margin: 0 0 0;">
    <div style="width:100%;display:none;height: 35px;line-height:35px;font-size:13px;padding:0 12px;color:white;background-color:#FF3860;border-radius:2px;margin-bottom:10px; " id="adl-category-error">Please make a selection.</div>
    <label style="display: block;line-height: 0; font-size: 16px; margin: 15px 0 15px;">
      <input style="margin:0 8px 0 0;vertical-align: middle;transform: translateY(-0.15em);-webkit-appearance: radio;box-sizing: border-box;" type="radio" name="category" value="Plays Sound" required=""> Plays sound </label>
    <label style="display: block;line-height: 0; font-size: 16px; margin: 15px 0 15px;">
      <input style="margin:0 8px 0 0;vertical-align: middle;transform: translateY(-0.15em);-webkit-appearance: radio;box-sizing: border-box;" type="radio" name="category" value="Adult Content" required=""> Contains adult content </label>
    <label style="display: block;line-height: 0; font-size: 16px; margin: 15px 0 15px;">
      <input style="margin:0 8px 0 0;vertical-align: middle;transform: translateY(-0.15em);-webkit-appearance: radio;box-sizing: border-box;" type="radio" name="category" value="Covers the Page" required=""> Covers the page </label>
    <label style="display: block;line-height: 0; font-size: 16px; margin: 15px 0 15px;">
      <input style="margin:0 8px 0 0;vertical-align: middle;transform: translateY(-0.15em);-webkit-appearance: radio;box-sizing: border-box;" type="radio" name="category" value="Other" required=""> Other </label>
    <h2 style="font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;color:rgb(58,58,58);text-align:left;margin:25px 0 15px;">Additional Information</h2>
    <div style="width:100%;display:none;height: 35px;line-height:35px;font-size:13px;padding:0 12px;color:white;background-color:#FF3860;border-radius:2px;margin-bottom:10px; " id="adl-text-minlen-error">Please help us by describing the ad.</div>
    <div style="width:100%;display:none;height: 35px;line-height:35px;font-size:13px;padding:0 12px;color:white;background-color:#FF3860;border-radius:2px;margin-bottom:10px; " id="adl-text-maxlen-error">Only 500 characters are allowed.</div>
    <textarea id="adl-user-feedback" style="box-sizing:border-box;resize: none; margin:0;width:100%;font-size:14px;line-height:18px;height:100px;border:1px solid #B0B0B0;padding:11px 15px;border-radius:2px;" minlength="3" maxlength="500"
      placeholder="What does the ad say, who is the advertiser, what does the ad look like?" name="user_feedback"></textarea>
  </div>
  <button type="button"
    style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;margin: 20px auto 0;width:200px;cursor:pointer;background-color:#7c6bf7;display:block;color:#fff;border-radius:2px;border:none;padding:15px 40px;font-weight:700;text-align:center;box-sizing:border-box;font-size:16px;"
    id="adl-report-ad-modal__submit-button">Report ad</button>
</form>

Text Content

X
OZY

Live Curiously
Newsletters
Profile
About
Search
TV
PODCASTS
NEWS
NEWSLETTERS
AWARDS
FESTIVALS


The New + the Next


91M PEOPLE TAP THIS DATING APP OF DESTINY

 * Facebook
 * Twitter
 * Love this?share
 * Email article
 * Copy link
   
   Copy link to share with friends
   
   Copy link


The New + the Next


91M PEOPLE TAP THIS DATING APP OF DESTINY

By Fiona Zublin

 * Facebook
 * Twitter
 * Love this?share
 * Email article
 * Copy link
   
   Copy link to share with friends
   
   Copy link


WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

The pandemic is forcing this romantic dating app to explore new paths.

By Fiona Zublin

This OZY series explores the intersection of love and science.This OZY series
explores the intersection of love and science.
 * Dating app Happn uses geolocation tools to recreate chance encounters, and
   now has 91 million users in 17 countries.
 * Founder Didier Rappaport foresees a new phase of AI-influenced online dating,
   but with real-life magic added in.

Our eyes met across a crowded bar. We were waiting in line next to each other.
We were the only two people hanging out in the kitchen at a party. He randomly
sat next to me at a play.

Or: We matched on Tinder, and now we’re getting married.

Relationships forged online are no different to those forged offline, but man,
are the how-we-met stories more boring. Dating apps are really utilitarian and
do not at all smack of destiny. Except for one.

> I wanted to bring real life back into the dating space.
> 
> Didier Rappaport

Happn, a French app (of course), uses geolocation to show you other people on
the app whose paths you crossed. The cute girl you locked eyes with on the
subway because you were reading the same book, but never spoke to? In past
years, you’d have to resort to a Craigslist missed connection. Happn’s goal is
to — if you’re both amenable — bring you two crazy kids together.

 


“I found that dating sites were too virtual. Like a catalog,” says Happn founder
Didier Rappaport from his office in Paris. “I wanted to bring real life back
into the dating space.” Rappaport, 65, a co-founder of massive video sharing
site Daily Motion, describes himself as someone who’s always “open.” Though he’s
always been focused on tech in his professional life, one day, during an
unrelated conversation about the possibilities of geolocation, he realized it
could cross paths with dating. That was the spark for him.

“Romance is about coincidence,” he says. “One day you’re in front of someone
that will become your one.” The idea behind Happn isn’t that it will definitely
find you love — it’ll just help you meet someone. The rest of your life is up to
you.

You may not actually have locked eyes with the people you meet on Happn — which
has 91 million registered users and markets itself in 17 countries — but when it
launched in 2014, you’d have come within 250 meters of them. Over time, the app
has introduced new ways to connect online, like CrushTime, a game where you can
see four nearby profiles and guess which one has liked your photo in order to
match with them.

The physical proximity aspect means that Happn needs to be vigilant about
security, never showing users their matches’ precise location and being strict
about banning people who harass others. The app also sends users advice on how
to behave, Rappaport explains, to help train people used to, say, sending
unsolicited dick pics, that “you can’t do in the digital world what you wouldn’t
do in real life.” They’re always adding new tools to deflect scammers,
including, this month, facial recognition. And for many people the romantic
spark has really worked — Rappaport has even been invited to weddings of people
who met on the app.



And research indicates that users do routinely see people on the app that they
recognize from real life. “It’s just interesting that you could cross paths with
someone like eight or nine times and never really even see them or realize that
that’s them,” explained one interview subject in a 2017 study of how users felt
about Happn’s use of location data.



 


But as the agoraphobic narrator of best-selling 2018 novel The Woman in the
Window wondered after downloading the app: “What if you haven’t crossed paths
with anyone? What if you forever navigate the same four thousand vertically
arranged square feet and nothing beyond them?” It’s a question that this spring
suddenly because relevant to a lot more users.

An app based on randomly star-crossed paths with strangers works less well when
everyone is trapped in their own apartments by a global pandemic, working from
home and only emerging once every few days for essentials. Like so many
businesses, Happn had to adapt, expanding the range at which the app detects
nearby matches to 120 kilometers in order to keep users from having to stare at
a sparse list of matches. They’re planning to keep that system even as the
pandemic passes — but sorted by distance, showing you first the people nearby
and eventually enlarging your circle.

“Before the COVID situation, only 3 percent of our users said they were keen to
use video calls,” he explains. Now that number is 60 percent, and the app
facilitates virtual video dates.

Rappaport sees online dating as existing in two distinct periods — desktop,
which was about the perfect profile, and mobile, which is all about speed and
infinite options. As mobile dating moves forward, he hopes AI will start to fill
in the once-exhaustive profiles of the desktop age, using geolocation to intuit
that you both go to the movies a lot, for example, and giving you ways to start
up a conversation. “Many people are shy,” he says, “They don’t know how to start
a conversation.” Even with that person they locked eyes with across a crowded
subway car.



 * Fiona Zublin, Senior Editor  Contact Fiona Zublin


July 29, 2020

TOPICS

 * Dating
 * Love
 * Love Curiously
 * The Science of Dating



SIGN UP FOR THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER!

SIGN UP





RELATED STORIES

True Stories

IT'S COMPLICATED: LOVE AND SEX IN 2021

Whether you are single, married, dating or just keeping it casual, the new
pandemic normal has our relationships a little discombobulated.

The New + the Next

CAN TECHNOLOGY SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE?

Apps are increasing a growing number of couples meet.

The New + the Next

DATING APPS FINALLY TARGET THIS IGNORED COMMUNITY OF 70 MILLION

These apps are aimed squarely at the romantic aspirations of the autistic
community.

The New + the Next

THE SCIENCE OF DATING

Everything is a science, even love.

Good Sh*t

HOW TO COME OUT OF QUARANTINE IN A RELATIONSHIP

Dating during coronavirus is possible — you just need to be creative.

The New + the Next

CAN CORONAVIRUS MAKE ONLINE DATING SAFER AND GLOBAL — PERMANENTLY?

From the giants to newbies, the dating app industry is serving up new offers,
from virtual dates to remote hookups.

Good Sh*t

TANTRA-THEMED DATING: THE HANDS-ON APPROACH

When it comes to love, staring into someone's eyes sure beats staring at a
screen.

The New + the Next

LOVE IN THE ROARING ’20S

When it comes to love and relationships, get ready to hear them roar.

News + Politics

MAJORITY OF DATING APP USERS FEEL UNSAFE

Almost everyone is worried about stranger danger.

The New + the Next

HOW DATING APPS ARE CHANGING THE WAY WE FIND JOBS

Employment search services inspired by dating apps are transforming the HR
industry.

The New + the Next

LOOKING FOR LOVE? BLOCKCHAIN TO THE RESCUE

A wave of blockchain-based dating apps is promising to make finding love safer
and more transparent.

Good Sh*t

THIS SLOW DATING APP TAKES A SWIPE AT THE COMPETITION

Europe’s Once app gives you just one match per day, promising more meaningful
connections.

Around the World

SICK OF TINDER? MEET THE GLOBAL DOUBLE DATE

The old-fashioned group date is making a comeback with double dates, entourages
and wingmen … via app.

The New + the Next

THE RISE OF POLYAMORY

Several community organizers and therapists agree that a new, more expansive
dating paradigm is on the upswing.

The New + the Next

WELCOME TO HIGH-FIDELITY DATING

Some dating services want to swipe right for monogamy.


LIVE CURIOUSLY

 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

 * ABOUT
   
   * ABOUT US
   * CONTACT US
   * JOBS @ OZY
   * PRIVACY POLICY
   * SUNDAY MAGAZINE

 * TV
   
   * THE CARLOS WATSON SHOW
   * DEFINING MOMENTS
   * BLACK WOMEN OWN
   * TAKE ON AMERICA
   * BREAKING BIG
   * MORE TV + VIDEO

 * PODCASTS
   
   * WHEN KATTY MET CARLOS
   * THE CARLOS WATSON SHOW
   * FLASHBACK
   * THE THREAD
   * THE FUTURE OF X
   * OZY CONFIDENTIAL
   * MORE PODCASTS

 * NEWS
   
   * NEWS + POLITICS
   * THE NEW + THE NEXT
   * TRUE STORIES
   * AROUND THE WORLD
   * GOOD SH*T
   * SUNDAY MAGAZINE
   * MORE OZY TOPICS

 * NEWSLETTERS
   
   * WHISKEY IN YOUR COFFEE
   * PRESIDENTIAL DAILY BRIEF
   * DAILY DOSE
   * THE WEEKENDER

 * AWARDS
   
   * APPLY NOW
   * NOMINATE A GENIUS

 * FESTIVALS
   
   * OZY FEST 2020
   * LINEUP
   * ABOUT
   * AROUND THE WORLD



A Modern Media Company
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

© OZY 2021 - Terms & Conditions


Ad Services Privacy Policy | AdChoices 







WHY ARE YOU REPORTING THIS AD?

Please make a selection.
Plays sound Contains adult content Covers the page Other


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Please help us by describing the ad.
Only 500 characters are allowed.
Report ad

Thank you for letting us know.

Powered by
×