Hinge

Dating app Hinge is getting serious with its mission to help people form long-term relationships. This week, it became the first dating app to launch a breakthrough feature called “We Met,” offering its users an opportunity to give feedback on their dates.

“We Met” will allow two matched members to privately confirm if they actually went on a first date and share how the date went. Hinge will then use this information to suggest better matches, with the goal of refining its algorithms to yield better first dates – ones with relationship potential.

The information users share is kept confidential, so no need to worry about whether your date will find out what you said. The main idea is for Hinge to improve the matchmaking process with more real-world data. (Though if your date gets too drunk or stands you up, for instance, Hinge also allows its users report disrespectful behavior.)

The online dating market is hot right now and projected to grow to $12 billion by 2020. This is in part thanks to bullish analysts targeting a price point of $66 for Match Group stock, based mostly on the incredible revenue growth of Tinder.

This projection by Nomura Instinet came on the heels of a downward market in early October. Match Group stock was projected to be 28% higher than what it was worth on Thursday October 11^th before the announcement. The $66 valuation gave Match Group a bump on Friday.

Facebook’s entry into the online dating market could have an effect on these projections, though Nomura Instinet analysts say the valuation is based on Match Group’s effective strategy of buying competitors before they scale. Most particularly, Match Group was very successful in its purchase of dating app darling Tinder, which has seen unexpected revenue growth since launching its paid premium service Tinder Gold.

It’s said that you should practice what you preach. For dating app Hinge, that means supporting employees with an exceptionally on-brand workplace perk: a $200 monthly stipend to go on dates.

Companies are working harder and harder to attract and retain talented candidates. Sufficient compensation is a must, but employees are increasingly looking for positions that offer benefits beyond salary. Perks like free food and beverages in the office, flexible work hours, and gym reimbursements are practically standard for businesses in competitive industries, and startups are getting increasingly creative in their approach to employee benefits.

Hinge’s dating stipend is a unique addition to the company’s more familiar perks, which include weekly catered breakfasts and lunches, unlimited annual leave, and exercise benefits. Employees can use their monthly allowance anywhere in the United States to spark a new romance or nurture long-term love. After cashing in, they are encouraged to leave reviews of their experiences on the app to help Hinge members succeed in their own dating endeavors.

Dating app Hinge has launched a new feature called “Most Compatible” which uses machine learning to generate better matches for its users.

Most Compatible employs the Nobel prize-winning Gale-Shapley algorithm to find the most likely matches, also known as SMP or “Stable Marriage Problem.” It works like this: groups of people are pooled together, and based on their individual likes and passes (including which parts of profiles they liked or didn’t like), the pool is narrowed down so that each person is matched with one other person from the pool who seems most compatible, until everyone in the pool is matched. According to website The Verge, the AI technology “breaks people down based on who has liked them,” then tries to find patterns in the likes. If one person likes another person, then they might like another based on what the user liked about the first person.

Hinge will then recommend this “most compatible” match (you and your match will both receive the same recommendation of each other on the same day), and you will have 24 hours to message each other before the match expires. This match will appear at the top of your Discover page each day.

This week, Match Group announced it has acquired dating app Hinge. According to the press release, the deal gives Match Group a 51 percent stake in the company. Match first started buying shares in Sept of 2017 and has the option to buy remaining shares of Hinge within the next year.

Hinge has spent the last few years revamping its image and features, creating an app that countered Tinder’s hook-up reputation, and aimed to create a space for more serious daters. This included dumping its initial Tinder-like swiping feature and allowing clients to build profiles more like traditional online dating sites. Interestingly, Match Group (which owns Tinder) initially invested in Hinge in the fall of 2017, soon after it debuted its new design.

Hinge is most popular among “urban, educated millennial women looking for relationships,” according to Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg. It has also grown its user base to “five times what it was a year ago,” according to an article in The Wall Street Journal, making it an attractive purchase for Match Group.

Tinder crashed for several hours on April 4^th after Facebook implemented new privacy and security restrictions, frustrating and confusing millions using the dating app.

Facebook has been facing increased scrutiny from the U.S. government after discovering major security breaches of its members’ personal information by third parties. Most recently, Facebook faced serious accusations after it was discovered that prominent research firm Cambridge Analytica stole Facebook user information from about 87 million users, including information about their political beliefs, without their knowledge or consent.

Facebook has since taken action to correct course, implementing more restrictions on its third party advertisers and partners to limit the amount of information they can access. Facebook previously allowed apps like Tinder to request user data automatically, but now that isn’t the case. Unfortunately for Tinder, this meant its users faced login errors and weren’t able to access the app at all.