Finances

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, will be expanded to include a dating app feature.

According to Fox Business, Musk recently held a company-wide meeting on the anniversary of his acquisition of Twitter to announce where he sees the platform headed. At the meeting, employees report that he said that X will become a “fully fledged” dating app in 2024, according to Business Insider.

At the meeting, he also mentioned that banking and transaction features will be added to the app in the near future, referring to these two major moves as being part of the new “everything app” he envisions for X.

Bumble’s founder and longtime CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd will step down from the helm, and Lidiane Jones, the CEO of workplace messaging tool Slack will take over in January. Herd will move to Executive Chair of the company.

The news comes as Bumble’s stock price has fallen over 80 percent since it went public two years ago (from $76 to below $14). The dating app is not alone. Match Group is also going through a rough period, thanks to inflation and other economic concerns. Members are dropping their subscriptions and not using paid services on the apps, causing a decline in revenue the last few quarters.

Herd supported Jones in a statement: “This move to Executive Chair gives me the ability to step forward into a new and exciting role, get back to my founder roots and bring immense passion and focus to this next chapter of growth,” According to CNN, Wolfe Herd also added that she and Jones would be “fantastic partners.”

The stock price for dating app conglomerate Match Group dropped after the company revealed that its Tinder app saw a significant drop in paying users. Shares went down more than 15 percent to $29, the lowest price it has traded for since the company spun off from IAC in July of 2020.

According to Newsweek, Match Group sent a letter to shareholders in early November with the news that Tinder had lost 826,000 paying customers. CEO Bernard Kim said in the letter: "While our collective efforts have put the company on much improved footing, there is still much work to be done.”

Match Group’s reported third quarter earnings were a highlight - they beat analyst estimates ($881.6 million compared to the expected $880.6 million), according to LSEG, formerly Refinitiv.

Dating app company Match Group announced it had settled a lawsuit with Google concerning the tech giant’s payment requirements for its Play Store.

Under the terms of the settlement, $40 million currently in escrow will be returned to Match, according to The Verge. Interestingly, Match Group also agreed to Google’s “user choice billing system,” which still allows for Google to get a cut of all transactions, even if Match users pay via Match Group’s payment systems.

Specifically, the settlement notes that by the end of March 2024, Match’s apps will implement the user choice billing system, which means that when dating app members opt to pay using Match’s payment systems, the company will give Google an 11 percent cut of its subscription fees and a 26 percent cut of all purchases. Or for users that go through Google’s in-app purchase system, Match Group will pay Google its standard fees (15 percent and 30 percent, respectively) for transactions.

Tinder announced its new exclusive VIP service Tinder Select, which will cost members almost $500 per month (which works out to $6,000 per year!).

The new service will give top-tier members access to new features like a “VIP search, matching and conversation,” according to Bloomberg, none of which are currently available in Tinder’s existing paid subscription plans. Tinder did not reveal any details about the features.

The new service might have some similarities to exclusive dating app The League, which Tinder’s parent company Match Group acquired last year. There’s a market for exclusivity on dating apps, and the company is betting that offering a premium service will work for Tinder, too.

Tinder has been testing the VIP service, but now it’s an official subscription tier, at least for those invited to join. The new service was only offered to less than 1 percent of the most active Tinder users, according to Bloomberg News.

Nearly half of Grindr employees quit the company after they were given an ultimatum to return to work in the office.

Company executives announced the new workplace policy on an all-employee call in early August, and gave employees two weeks to decide whether they would agree to work in the office or hand in their resignation. Executives demanded employees relocate to one of the Grindr offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, or Washington D.C.

According to CNN, 80 of Grindr’s 178 workers who had turned down the in-office mandate were forced to quit by the end of August. Most of these employees were remote workers, and many said that this would put an undue burden on them, including finding housing and schools for their children to attend in a new city.

Employees have also been vocal about Grindr executives using the new policy as a retaliatory tactic against employees, who only weeks before voted to organize a union, demanding fair wages and equal treatment for all employees. Grindr employees worked in partnership with the CWA (Communication Workers of America) to initiate.