Bumble now lets either person send the first message after matching

Bumble is making a big change to how messaging between matches works in its dating app. Rather than requiring a match of a specific gender to message first -- Bumble launched with a "women message first" setup -- now any person of any gender can send the first message, but the conversation doesn't open until the other person chooses to reply. Whitney Wolfe Herd, Bumble's founder and current CEO, teased that the company was doing away with strict gendered rules around messaging in May, but the actual implementation goes a bit further. To encourage users to avoid lazy one-word openers, Bumble will now detect when users are trying to send a one-word message and nudge them with an onscreen prompt to write a more intentional first message. The research the company shared alongside its announcement is specifically focused on male and female users, but it does sound like the rule change should create better outcomes overall.