A Major Update For Coffee Meets Bagel
Contributed by: ElyseRomano on Saturday, June 07 2014 @ 09:42 am
Last modified on
The dating service Coffee Meets Bagel was built on three simple principles:
- Your friends are the best conduits for your dates.
- Meeting quality people doesn't have to be complicated or awkward.
- Unless you choose to share it, your dating life should be private.
Instead of offering the overwhelming number of potential matches that most dating services do, Coffee Meets Bagel sets itself apart by highlighting only one person each day. You can either "like" or "ignore" the profile, and if both parties indicate interest in each other, they're directed to a private phone line (courtesy of Twilio) where they can text message for a seven-day period. If all goes well and they choose to meet up in person, CMB offers a discount at a local restaurant or café.
The idea is a solid one, but Coffee Meets Bagel has not yet managed to achieve the mass appeal of its biggest competitor in the mobile dating sphere: Tinder. Still, CMB has received $2.8 million in funding and recently launched its largest app update yet.
The big news in CMB-land is a new IM system within the Coffee Meets Bagel app. Like before, the IM feature has a seven-day expiration date, but now users can chat immediately without having to switch back and forth between apps.
Instant messaging is hardly a revelation in the world of online dating – in fact, it's downright standard – but CMB has found a somewhat unique approach to implementing it. With in-app messaging, Coffee Meets Bagel now has far more control over its users’ experiences, and many more opportunities to learn about their users by studying behavior data.
CMB is a “quality over quantity” dating experience. The focus is on making meaningful connections between users, not on connecting as many users as possible. On top of that, users are never introduced to random strangers, but rather to Facebook friends of friends. The company has found that members who exchange text messages within the first 24 hours are more likely to exchange their real phone numbers later on. They also, on average, chat at 2.6x the volume of those who didn't swap texts within the first day.
That unique approach to mobile dating, plus the new IM system, may be what Coffee Meets Bagel needs to take things to the next level. But founder Dawoon Kang says that stigma is still the greatest challenge faced by dating services:
“What we observe is that a lot of people hesitate because they don’t want to feel like they are ‘actively’ trying to meet someone. Making people understand that a dating app is just another channel of meeting someone has been a challenge.”