Tinder

Match Group has named new key executives, including its first CTO and a new President and CFO, as well as a new focus on four key businesses – Tinder, Hinge, Asia and Evergreen & Emerging.

According to the company’s press release, Gary Swindler was named to the top position of Match Group as President and CFO, and Will Wu joins as chief technology officer, a newly created position, to oversee product innovation across all apps. Swindler was promoted from his position as CFO and COO and Wu joins from Snap Inc., where he oversaw the commercialization of Snap’s developer platforms and spearheaded the creation of its most famous features like “Discover” and the “Chat” messaging feature, as well as Snap’s social gaming feature. 

Match Group is betting big on Wu, who brings an impressive background with developing one of the earliest revenue streams for Snap, as well as developing Snap’s primary social engagement driver.

Dating app Hinge has introduced a $60 per month subscription plan for “highly motivated daters,” offering the app’s most premium service for a hefty price tag.

The new plan will offer subscribers more exposure and better recommendations for potential matches, according to Bloomberg who broke the story. For example, top-tier subscriber “likes” will be seen before others’ likes, giving them quicker access to people who interest them.

The new tier pricing almost doubles the cost of the existing premium service of $35 per month, but is still well below matchmaking rates, which run thousands of dollars per month. The new plan was mentioned in an earnings call in November, and while the company confirms it will be launching, it has not been officially announced.

Tinder appears to be losing its steady growth of not only paid subscribers, but also new app installs. Bernard Kim is heading the dating app as well as its parent company Match Group and has installed a new executive team he hopes will turn the ship around.

According to Bloomberg, Tinder hit a high of almost 80 million users in 2020, in part due to a global pandemic and more people turning to dating apps while they were in lockdown. Since, the app has declined to 75.7 million users in 2021 and just last year fell to 71.1 million users.

At the same time, new users for Hinge and Bumble have increased. For Bumble, new installs of its signature app have jumped over 60 percent, from 18.1 million in 2020 to 29 million in 2022. And Hinge is showing strong growth as well, with 11.1 million new users in 2022 compared to 8.4 million in 2020.

Image: Tinder

Romance scams have risen sharply in the last two years, so dating company Match Group is launching an awareness campaign across many of its apps to address the issue.

The company announced that its campaign will introduce in-app messages and email notifications, offering users tips on how to protect themselves from online scammers according to Tech Crunch. Tinder and Meetic will offer the tips via in-app messages, outlining behavior that could be red flags. When users come across someone that might be a scammer, the app will offer suggestions like making sure their profile photo is verified or video chatting with them before making plans to meet in person.

Match, Hinge and Plenty of Fish will send message notifications with the same tips but will send emails to users as well.

Image: Vox Media

Vox Media’s award-winning podcast series Land of the Giants, which is about the biggest tech companies and their impact on our culture, will focus on dating apps for its second season.

Hosted by Lakshmi Rengarajan, who spent several years at Match Group, and The Cut’s Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz, the two explore the industry as a whole and the experience of dating app users. The series delves into how dating apps have changed how we approach dating, and how the dating app industry designs apps to keep people coming back.

The series was inspired by New York Magazine’s special issue evaluating the last ten years of dating apps, according to The Cut. After surveying thousands of daters about their experiences with popular dating apps like Tinder, Hinge and Bumble, New York Magazine found that people felt caught in a cycle where they enjoyed the swiping experience for a few weeks, but then when nothing much changed, they deleted their dating apps - only to return to them again.

Tinder has launched a new ad campaign in India called You Up, aimed directly at young singles to show them the fun, adventurous side of dating apps.

The ad focuses on a young woman looking for exciting new experiences, not necessarily a relationship, and there’s a magical element to her journey. The ad opens with her matching with a man, and she reaches into the app screen to take his hand as they jump off a building and into a karaoke bar where they have a fun, flirtatious night.

The next scene shows her matching with a woman, where they are in a parking lot dancing and then take a drive together, a slower and more romantic experience. She matches with another man after this, where they take a swim in the ocean before she drops him at the train station - and before meeting her next date.