Tinder redesigned its app to put more emphasis on its social, interactive features with the introduction of Explore, Interest-based matches and immersed in quick chats before a match is found. Taken together, the changes help move Tinder further from its roots as a fast, match-based dating app and make it something more like a social network designed to help users meet new people.
This shift could be better received by a younger generation who may feel that traditional online dating has lost its novelty. Today, these users are turning to apps that market themselves as places to meet new friends, while newbies to the dating app industry are experimenting with other ways to connect users – for example, with short, TikTok-like videos, as in Snack, or even audio, like in SwoonMe. For Tinder, these market changes could pose an existential threat to its own business. Instead, the company has doubled interactivity as the core of the Tinder experience to maintain its dominant position.
At launch, Tinder Explore will include a handful of existing features in addition to a new way to meet people. The latter allows users to connect with others based on interests – like foodies, gamers, music lovers, social causes, entrepreneurs, and more. Over time, more interests will be added that will allow Tinder members to find someone based on their appearance.
Credit: Tinder
Explore will also be home to Tinder’s Swipe Night, the interactive series launched in 2019 as the in-app story Choose Your Own Adventure, which helped increase Tinder engagement by giving users a reason gave time to restart the app at a specific time. Tinder hailed Swipe Night as a success, saying the feature attracted over 20 million users during its first run and resulted in a 26% increase in matches. The series returns in November – this time with new characters and a new storyline in the “Whodunit” style. It will now also utilize the “Fast Chat” feature that powers Tinder’s “Hot Takes” experience, allowing unmatched users to chat.
“Hot Takes” will also appear in Tinder Explore, which the company describes as a rather low-grade way to measure yourself against other users. While a timer is counting down, users chatting can choose whether to match. When the timer runs out, they get to know someone – much like an online version of speed dating. Since launching this summer, millions of Tinder users have tried hot takes, which are only available from 6 p.m. to midnight local time.
The bigger story of Tinder Explore, however, is not just what kind of features it will host now, but what the company has in store for the future. Earlier this year, Tinder parent Match bought Korean social networking company Hyperconnect for $ 1.73 billion – its largest acquisition to date. And it’s gearing up to leverage Hyperconnect’s IP to make the online dating experience even more interactive than it is today after plans were announced to have audio and video chats, including group live videos, to several of its own Add top dating app features including Tinder.
Tinder Explore provides a platform on which features like this could be added later – Tinder points this out and advises that the section is intended to give users access to a “growing list” of social experiences with “many more to come”.
“A new generation of daters is asking more of us in the post-Covid world: more ways to have fun and virtually interact with others, and more control over who they meet on Tinder,” said Jim Lanzone, CEO of Tinder , in a company announcement. “Today’s launch of Explore is an important step in bringing our members a deeper, multi-dimensional, interactive experience that expands the capabilities of Tinder as a platform,” he added.
Tinder Explore began rolling out to major English-speaking markets on Wednesday, September 8, and will be available worldwide from mid-October.
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