Tinder

Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg

Tinder announced that Renate Nyborg will be taking over as the company’s CEO as Jim Lanzone departs to serve as Yahoo’s new chief executive officer.

The news, announced Friday September 10th, means that Nyborg will be the first female executive to head the popular dating platform. She joined Tinder in 2020 as the general manager of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Nyborg’s background is in growing mobile and subscription business, according to the company’s press release. She previously worked for Headspace, where she built the company’s first international product and marketing divisions.

Tinder India has created and released a new film for its users about consent and what it looks like in modern-day dating culture. The purpose of the new film Closure is to spark conversation among daters and to help them create healthy boundaries. 

According to Business Insider India, the film centers around a young woman named Ria and her estranged ex-boyfriend Ved. The film starts with the two of them meeting on a beach and flashes forward through their budding romantic relationship. Then the movie cuts to a disturbed Ria and confused Ved sitting across from each other after some time has passed, having a difficult conversation about what drove them apart. We soon learn that Ved didn’t ask for her consent on their last night together. “You didn’t say no,” he insists, where Ria says “but I also didn’t say yes. I wish for once, you had asked.”

Ved later asked if she was seeing anyone, and it flashes to her budding new relationship with a man who does the things she longed for Ved to do – he asks permission before he kisses her or holds her hand. She also exercises more power in this new relationship by voicing what she wants, something she realizes she didn’t do while she was dating Ved. She has moved onto a happier, healthier relationship. 

Dating App Tinder launched its new Tinder Explore section, where users can find a more interactive matching experience that is focused on events and areas of interest where users can make connections.

According to Tech Crunch, the new section will offer an events space that includes Swipe Night, its popular interactive series where users can watch and strike up conversations, and “Hot Takes,” the app’s virtual speed dating experience. Swipe Night returns to the platform for a second season later this year, featuring a who-dunnit style mystery. This time, the series will include a “Fast Chat” feature where users can interact with each other without having to match as they watch the story unfold together. 

Tinder’s Hot Takes feature will also be housed in Tinder Explore, where users can start chatting with anyone who’s there. As a timer appears, they will be given a limited time to decide whether to match before their chat expires and they are sent to the next potential match. This feature was tested earlier this year for limited periods of time, and the company says millions have used it so far.

Tinder CEO Jim Lanzone

Tinder CEO Jim Lanzone said the company is focused on more “immersive” experiences to appeal to a growing, younger Gen Z user base, including creating more original content for its platform. (note: a September 11, 2021 announcement stated as of September 27, Jim Lanzone will be the new CEO at Yahoo!)

Lanzone sat down with entertainment industry magazine Variety to explain why the company invested in its original interactive series Swipe Night, and how the response to it is helping shape the company’s focus moving forward. 

Gen Z users are looking for more “immersive” experiences, as Lanzone told Variety, and not just scrolling and swiping through profiles. He hinted at the company’s shift towards more of an entertainment platform to engage these young daters. 

Tinder announced that it will roll out its ID verification system worldwide so users can verify their ages. This follows the app’s photo verification feature to address the issue of eliminating fake profiles propagating the app.

ID verification will be prominently displayed on a user’s profile, similar to the blue checkmark currently used for a verified photo, according to Tech Crunch.

Tinder began beta testing ID verification regionally in 2019 and said it will be rolling it out worldwide over the next few quarters. In most countries the service will be voluntary, at least for now, to address the challenge of underage people using the app. However, in places like Japan where it’s against the law for people under 18 to use dating apps, verifying ages will be mandatory. The feature will be free to use.

Tinder released a new study of dating app users in India, finding that their attitudes and behavior are changing, particularly in the last year as people grappled with dating during a pandemic. The company found that users engaged with each other over the app 32 percent longer compared to this time last year, and nearly half had video chatted with a match.

The company’s Future of Dating report also found that individual engagement on its app had increased – with swipes up 11 percent and matches up 42 percent per user over the same period.

The study points out that many of India’s dating app users are younger and aren’t necessarily looking for anything serious, a shift from the traditional marriage-focused dating culture. In fact, 62 percent of respondents said they wanted to “see where things go” when it comes to meeting new people and weren’t comfortable conforming to society’s expectations of dating.