Five new Hong Kong dating apps, from Coffee Meets Bagel to Tastebuds

Long gone are the days when online dating was the purview of the desperate and promiscuous. Today everyone knows someone who met their spouse online. A recent study reports that more than 90 million people use dating apps and the tell-tale swiping of someone lost in Tinder is as common on the MTR today as the incessant tapping of Angry Birds fanatics was a few years ago.

Of course, finding love is big business: many think Tinder will reach a US$1 billion valuation this year, and the Chinese equivalent has already broken US$3 billion. Still, as with all tech trends, the mechanisms of online romance are constantly changing: meeting a lover on OKCupid seems as outdated today as making a friend on MySpace. Want to know which app is right for you? With some help from our serial-dating friends, we check out the latest generation of dating apps and see what all the fuss is about.

Grouvly

Grouvly is the Hong Kong-based version of a dating app model that, with apps like Grouply, has proved extremely popular in the West. Instead of matching people one by one, it puts two groups of three in touch for a group date.

It asks for more personal information (job, height, race, religion) than other apps such as Tinder. People working for the app choose the location for your date, which is great if you don't like making decisions but not so good if you like to control these things. They also require you to prepay for the first round of drinks, the idea being that it helps ensure everybody shows up.

this model takes a lot of the pressure off the first date, and it is much safer than meeting a stranger one on one. That said, the process is a bit involved: we signed up and were told to wait for two weeks while they found a match. We're still waiting. All in all, it has a lot more moving parts than just swiping and hooking up, but the pay-off - when it finally happens - promises to be much more rewarding. grouvly.com

Paktor

If Grouvly is the Asian answer to Grouply, then Paktor is the Asian answer to Tinder. The Singapore-based company - paktor is Hokkien for going on a date - has added a few features that distinguish the app from its most obvious competitor: you can apply filters for height, job and education etc. There is also a group chat function. The company that runs Paktor also has a bespoke dating service called GaiGai, with a focus on Southeast Asia, so you can get right to a match.