SCTIMES – Apr 22 – Tinder, a new iPhone dating app, is popular with students at colleges and universities. The app, which uses its members' Facebook information, finds other Tinder users within a 50-mile radius and connects them if there's a mutual interest. AppData ranks Tinder as a top-200 app and estimates the app averages ~100K daily users.
by Ben Katzner
The full article was originally published at SCTimes, but is no longer available.
USA TODAY – Apr 15 – Tinder, the mobile dating app that allows users to 'like' or 'pass' on other users, seems to have inspired a new generation of apps. ExRated, founded by Tom Padazana, allows users to search for a particular love interest and see what past partners have to say. Rebound is an app that privately analyzes available data about your single Facebook friend's past relationships in the last six years. The app generates statistics, a rebound rating and advice for any friend you choose. Lulu app is the ultimate female resource where women can get this information. To date, ~4M reviews have been read and Lulu has ~35M profiles available in the app. LuluDude allows guys to get general feedback about where they stand among other guys. They can also upload their own photos and encourage female friends to boost their ratings.
FORBES – Apr 9 – Since launching last fall, Tinder’s addictive quality and explosive growth have become truisms. Tinder users have rated each other’s profiles 3.5 billion times. The company is still seeing 5% day-over-day growth, down from 10% in January. With quick success in the dating market, Tinder is beginning to think about applying their intuitive matchmaking process to other verticals. One industry in their sights: business networking. There is no rejection on Tinder, only mutual matches. Because no one knows that you “like” a profile unless they like yours back, your interest is only unmasked when reciprocated. That means users can swipe all day without feeling like a stalker or risking self-esteem. Tinder still doesn’t make any money. Rad and Mateen, the app's founders, are considering offering premium functionality for paying users.
by J.J. Colao
See full article at Forbes
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
WSJ – Apr 9 – The past few months have seen a slew of new dating apps launch, eager to cash in on the success of Tinder. The app seems to have taken off. First a hit on college campuses, the app now boasts ~20K downloads a day and ~1.5 billion profiles ranked. Another app named Bang With Friends advertises that with their Facebook-based app, you can “anonymously find friends who are down for the night.” WouldLove2 allows you to choose which of your friends you might be interested in dating by putting them in your “locker.” If they in turn select you for their “locker,” you’re both contacted. EmbarrassNot allows you to choose four options: Labeling your friends with one heart means “I’d like to go on a date with this person,” Two hearts means “I’d like an Advanced relationship with this person,” Three hearts, “I’d like to start a family with this person,” and the broken heart – “I’d like to break up with this person.” Dating apps are catching on precisely because they’re so practical.
by Eric Sasson
See full article at WSJ
LA TIMES – Mar 10 – Tinder, a new free dating app that, in a twist on the "hot or not" game, matches users with potential partners in their area without the risk of rejection. Since October, the app has helped make ~20M matches, the company said. Tinder is financially backed by InterActiveCorp's business accelerator Hatch Labs. After downloading the app, Tinder syncs to your existing Facebook profile and integrates public data about you to rate your compatibility based on your shared friends, interests, networks and location. If you're interested in a person, you swipe left; if you're not, you can move on to the next candidate by swiping right. It's all anonymous until both Tinder users say they like each other. Then they can chat using the app.
by Jessica Naziri
See full article at LA Times
CHICAGO TRIBUNE – Feb 27 – 25.3M people accessed personals sites through mobile devices in Dec, versus 21.3M through a fixed computer, according to comScore. Location-based dating apps have been wildly successful in the gay community (Grindr – 4M users) but slower to catch on among heterosexual daters, likely because women are more wary of announcing their location. SinglesAroundMe, which features a map with drop pins showing where nearby singles are, recently launched an "approximate location" option that lets users displace their coordinates by 1 to 2 miles. Tinder scours a user's Facebook connections to see which friends of friends are single and nearby. MeetMoi sends members a push notification if a match is in the vicinity, getting no more exact than "within .2 miles," and only if both parties agree to chat does the app allow a connection. The app has 3.7M users. Of the 4M active users on OkCupid, half of whom access the site through their mobile phones, 1M have the Locals app. OkCupid also recently launched the mobile app Crazy Blind Date, which sets up a blind date — no photos, no profiles. As with online dating, mobile dating started off catering to people looking for casual relationships, but as it becomes mainstream more serious relationship-seekers are using it as well, said Mark Brooks, an analyst and consultant to the Internet dating industry. "It's more natural, you're out and about," said Brooks, who predicts that dating via mobile phone will change the game profoundly because apps can gather instantaneous feedback about how a date went, resulting in better matches. "People don't really know what they want, so the best way to match people is to look at their behaviors," Brooks said. "Your phone is going to get to know you, it is going to get to know your buying behavior."
by Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz
See full article at Chicago Tribune
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NY TIMES – Feb 27 – Tinder, a new mobile dating app lets users swipe through profile pictures, tapping a green heart when they like what they see and pressing a red “x” when they don’t. Any time a user “likes” a member who has also liked him or her back, the apps declares a match and introduces the two in a private chat room. Although the app requires connecting through Facebook, it is cleverly discreet. It shows users only friends of friends, avoiding potentially awkward run-ins. Its founders say the app is downloaded ~20K times each day and to date they’ve made 20M matches through the service. It was born out of Hatch Labs, an incubator financed by IAC/InterActiveCorp, and became a stand-alone company in January.
ABC NEWS – Feb 15 – ComScore says 22.9M visitors ventured to online sites in January 2012 compared to 29.3M in 2011. Apps like Locals and Singles Around Me are making instant love connections with people nearby who want to meet up immediately. The number of dating apps is booming, according to Nielsen. In November 2012, there were 13.7M – double the rate from the previous year. The fastest growing app is Tinder, which instantly introduces you to your friends’ friends. It grew 750% just last month.
by Paula Faris
The full article was originally published at ABC News, but is no longer available.
WSJ – Feb 7 – Tinder, a dating app, launched in September by cofounders Sean Rad and Justin Mateen and is quickly picking up traction. Users connect to their Facebook profile, and it grabs four photos to use as their profile photos on Tinder. It then shows them photos of other members, and tehy swipe left to say they don’t like them, or right to say they like them. If both members say they like each other, it’ll open up a chat prompt. According to AppData, the app has ~100K users connected through Facebook. The company said it grew by 700% last month.
TECH CRUNCH – Jan 4 – Tinder is a new dating app that focuses on the social and mobile aspects of dating. It launched in October and took off on a few college campuses. The co-founders say that they’re continuing to listen to users, tweaking the experience based on feedback and, with traction building, they’ll be looking to build off their seed funding from IAC and raise a series A in the coming months. CEO Sean Rad says that Tinder is resonating with college students because the app has taken a more subtle approach to dating, it is location-enabled. The experience is anonymous until someone you like returns your interest.