Marketing

Dating app Tinder is expanding its original content, partnering with Netflix India to produce a new reality dating series.

According to Variety, the show IRL: In Real Love, will take place in India and is produced by Monozygotic. It caters to the country’s growing younger population who are single and have become avid users of dating apps. 

There will be an in-app casting call – so instead of aspiring actors there will be real Tinder singles to star in the series. Promotional swipe cards will appear as users sift through potential matches, allowing them to swipe right to be directed to a registration page to try and become a cast member.

Dating app Hinge is doubling down on its “designed to be deleted” tagline to offer a series of new ads featuring users deleting their profiles after finding love.

According to Ad Age, there will be four spots, each featuring a humorous take on a Hinge user trying to “break up” with their old Hinge profiles because they have met someone special and no longer want to date. The global campaign was created with creative agency partner Opinionated.

One ad shows a young man at a restaurant surrounded by his alter ego profile pictures, including one of him with a surfboard, holding a dog, and one where an ex-girlfriend had been marked over with a sharpie. He’s breaking the news to them that despite the fact that they created “the perfect profile” he would have to delete them. The alter egos think he’s joking, asking if he is joining a monastery, but he reveals he met someone special and they have to go – at which point they disappear.

Tinder Are you Sure?
Feature for sending Messages

Image: Tinder

Dating app Tinder unveiled a new feature as part of its effort to step up safety measures on its platform. “Are You Sure?” or the AYS? feature will deliver a pop-up to question a user before they send a potentially harmful message.

According to Mashable, AYS? utilizes AI in real time to detect inappropriate language, based on what users have reported to Tinder in the past. When a user types a message that is flagged or noticed by the AI, an AYS? prompt will automatically appear before the user can press “send.” According to Tinder, in early tests this feature reduced harmful language in messages by as much as 10 percent. The company also said that members who saw this pop-up were less likely to be reported for sending inappropriate messages, an indication that it could curb this behavior.

The goal with using an AI-driven feature is that it will improve and become more effective in countering harmful messages over time as it gathers more input.

CEO Adam Cohen-Aslatei on S’More TV

Image: S'More

Dating app S’More is testing a new feature called S’more TV, offering users access to celebrity interviews and other videos the company has produced.

S’More TV was inspired by the company’s Instagram Live feed, where CEO Adam Cohen-Aslatei has been interviewing reality TV stars, WWE athletes and models about their dating lives and other dating-related topics. After gathering more than 50 hours of content according to Tech Crunch, he decided to launch the new feature and provide the content directly to users from the app as a “conversation-starter.”

To promote the new feature, S’More users will now receive prompts directing them to watch S’More TV, where they will be able to comment on the videos. Commenting is encouraged, because the feature is intended to help users attract potential matches as well as giving them a starting point for conversation.

Apple announced in early April that it will soon be rolling out its new privacy notification for users who download any app from its store. The company didn’t give a specific launch date but said that it would happen “in the coming weeks” according to Reuters. 

Apple has created a one-time notice that requires an app developer to ask for the user’s consent before the app is able to track personal data and share it with third parties, according to Reuters. CEO Tim Cook described the notification in a podcast with tech journalist Kara Swisher, saying it will appear as a short checklist of how the app will use data, to make it easier and more transparent than sifting through the standard pages-long privacy policies that most people do not read. 

Digital advertisers and app developers are worried that the notification would cause many more users to decline permissions. 

Dating app Grindr announced the premiere of its new comedy special called Gag Reflex, featuring a lineup of up-and-coming LGBTQ comedians, who share stories of dating and the queer experience.

The special originally aired as a livestream on April 1st on YouTube and the Grindr app, and is now available to watch anytime on YouTube. According to Variety, the featured comedians include Joel Kim Booster (NBC’s Sunnyside, Hulu’s Shrill), Sydnee Washington (Broad City), Jay Jurden (The Tonight Show), Jaye McBride and Zach Zimmerman.