THE VERGE – Nov 9 – Tinder is getting new features that will "blur lines between the physical and digital world for dating." Greg Blatt, the CEO of Tinder's parent company, Match, says the new features will make the app less boring. Match posted its Q3 earnings yesterday, noting that overall revenue of $343M was up 19% YOY. Blatt attributed the higher numbers to the success of Tinder Gold, and hinted at new features expected to hit Tinder in a few weeks, including AI and location-based functions. Tinder has also gained 476K paying subscribers in this quarter. "Until now, Tinder has basically been a swiping machine," said Blatt during the call. "It's effective and simple but ultimately limited." He outlined a plan to change the whole Tinder experience after a match is made. Even less detail was given about Tinder's future AI features, except that they will be consumer-facing and reliant on user data to personalize app experiences.
Category: Tinder
Match Group Q3 Results: Revenue Up 19%
MATCH GROUP – Nov 7 – Total Revenue was $343M, a YOY 19% increase. Direct Revenue grew to $330M, an increase of 21%, driven by 18% growth in Average PMC to 6.6M and a 1% increase in ARPPU. Average PMC at Tinder exceeded 2.5M, adding a record 476,000 PMC during the Q3, driven primarily by product changes and technology improvements. Operating income was $91M, flat to Q3 2016, and Adjusted EBITDA increased 12% to $120M, both burdened by $11 million in expenses related to the Tinder option conversion and exercises.
How A Matchmaking AI Conquered And Was Exiled From Tinder
MOTHERBOARD – Nov 7 – Bernie was the latest technological development in boosting human connection, until the AI-enhanced app was kicked off Tinder. It all started in a bar in 2014. Weary of watching his friends spend their nights swiping left or right on dating apps like Tinder, Justin Long of Vancouver decided to automate the process. He developed Tinderbox that used simple facial recognition software to find a match and craft an introductory message. By 2016, he launched Bernie AI to the public, an improved version of Tinderbox named after a friend who died in 2009. Bernie abruptly shut down in June. Tinder simply decided they didn't want Bernie around anymore. The app used artificial intelligence, deep learning technology, and more advanced facial recognition than its Tinderbox predecessor. It eventually learned to identify other objects in the photo aside from the person's face and could develop introductions based on those objects. While Bernie may have shut down, other apps have stepped into the void. Hily takes a slightly different approach in that it disregards visual attractiveness as the basis of its search and instead looks for similar interests, word choice, and mutual likes. It had ~35k users in a closed beta earlier this month.
by James Jackson
See full article at Motherboard
Tinder Goes Down Worldwide
by James Brennan
See full article at The Liberal
Mark Brooks: Tinder went down in March for a few hours as well. C'est la vie. They're being kind to their users by giving them a break from their addiction a couple times a year. The question is, when Tinder goes down, does your service see a blip upwards?
YouTube’s Making A Tinder Comedy
CNET – Oct 20 – YouTube Red is turning Tinder dating into a television show with 2018's "Swipe Right" starring Carly Craig, from "American Housewife". The eight-episode series is based on a true story by the actress, in which a 35-year-old workaholic decides to go out with all 252 of her Tinder matches. The YouTube Red show is set to debut sometime in 2018.
Researchers Say It Is Easy To Hack Tinder, OkCupid, And Others
GIZMODO – Oct 25 – Using exploits ranging from simple to complex, researchers at the Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab say they could access users' location data, their real names and login info, their message history, and even see which profiles they've viewed. They tested Tinder, Bumble, OKCupid, Badoo, Mamba, Zoosk, Happn, WeChat and Paktor. Most apps have minimal HTTPS encryption, making it easy to access user data. The researchers say they have already sent their findings to the respective apps' developers.
Tinder’s Web App Is Now Widely Available
How Tinder Scaled Up
PCMAG – Oct 20 – Tinder held a networking event at its West Hollywood headquarters recently, where CTO Maria Zhang and her team tackled the complexities of running a popular dating app. China-born Zhang studied computer science at Tsinghua University in Beijing before completing her education in the US. She joined Tinder in April 2016. Within six months of joining Tinder, she tripled her engineering team and opened a satellite tech office in Silicon Valley. Tinder currently handles 1.6B swipes and makes 26M matches per day and has delivered 20B total matches to date. It has ~200 employees.
Tinder Is Reinforcing Ancient Mating Habits, Study Finds
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK – Oct 19 – Men favour beauty whilst women look for brains. Tinder is making us behave like cave people. A team of psychologists at the University of Aberdeen have found that Tinder is bringing out basic mating urges. However, their research highlighted key disparities in how people use the app, with men making their selections based on appearances whilst women favoured intelligence, career prospects and stability. These discrepancies mimic ancient survival tactics, explains Dr Mirjam Brady-Van den Bos, Psychology lecturer at the University of Aberdeen.
‘Tindstagramming’ Is A Gross New Dating Trend
JUNKEE.COM – Oct 12 – 'Tindstagramming' was coined by New York Mag to refer to the act of a person sliding into users' Instagram DMs if they didn't swipe to them on Tinder. It started becoming a thing in mid-2015 when Tinder allowed users to link Instagram to their profile. It's downright predatory. And people have a right to be freaked out. Tindstagramming doesn't happen simply because it's easy, or because the app's algorithm is subpar; it happens because a lot of guys still don't trust in a woman's ability to say no and mean it.