Bumble borrows a major feature from social media to shake up the dating landscape

Forget stumbling across your perfect match on a dating app by chance. Thanks to a new Bumble feature, you can look them up directly—as long as you know their username. With Bumble’s new Handles feature, the app is taking a page from the social media playbook. For the first time, prospective matches can opt in to having unique user IDs (similar to usernames on apps like Instagram or X) that can be found via search, giving users added control to a dating landscape dominated by algorithms. How handles work Bumble users in the United States on iOS can create their own handles now in the app. But what benefit is there to making your dating profile shareable? Bumble imagines a few scenarios where handles might come in handy. If you meet someone in public, you could give them your handle instead of your phone number. If you want to set up two friends, you could let them check out each other’s Bumble profiles instead of having them stalk each other’s socials. Or if you want to advertise your Bumble profile more broadly, you could post your handle to another social account and let your followers find you. [Image: Bumble] The feature relies on users agreeing with Bumble’s leadership that sh…

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