Marketing

Norway’s consumer authority has spoken out against Tinder’s current terms and conditions by filing a formal complaint against the company.

The Norwegian Consumer Council insists that the popular dating app is not protecting its users, granting sweeping ownership rights and control over users’ data. Some of the terms and conditions Tinder users agree to when downloading the app include allowing Tinder change its terms without notifying users, and allowing the app to delete users’ accounts without justification. The Council also points out that users aren’t allowed to delete their own accounts if they want to (which could allow Tinder to inflate their own numbers by potentially counting inactive profiles).

While these policies are spelled out in Tinder’s current terms and conditions, most people aren’t taking the time to read through or really understand how their data could be used. And Norwegian authorities want to call the company out on the practice.

Another sticking point for Tinder according to the Council is that the minimum user age is listed at 13, which country officials consider too young, especially when it comes to understanding complicated online privacy issues.

While Tinder is arguably the most successful dating app, its popularity soared in part because the app was free for those who downloaded it. Access to data from its user base is one of the ways Tinder can make money. A revenue model they use includes offering targeted (data-driven) marketing.

According to a recent article in Fortune, this isn’t the first complaint about app and social media privacy policies from governments outside the U.S. In France earlier this year, the consumer organization UFC-Que Choisir asked French data protection authority CNIL to investigate dating app Happn over its data-collection practices. And the German antitrust authority launched a complaint against Facebook over its “unfair” terms and conditions, on the premise that it is dominates the social networking market and has an unfair competitive advantage.

While Tinder doesn’t have a European operation, it does offer the app in Norwegian language and it is available in Norway’s app store, so it does have to abide by the country’s regulations when selling to its market.

If Norway’s officials consider the case against the company, it may order Tinder to change its terms and conditions or face penalties. Tinder said it makes every effort to comply with local and national regulations. The company released a statement that read: “If and when authorities bring up larger privacy concerns, we always take them into consideration and, if applicable to our users, take steps to implement any necessary changes. We are committed to protecting our users’ privacy and strive to uphold a fair and trusted privacy policy.”

For more information on this dating app please read our review of Tinder.

Hinge doesn’t want to be another version of Tinder. Instead of focusing on the swiping game with attractive profiles, Hinge wants its users to engage, message and date – in other words, take the process of dating a bit more seriously.

Millennials are by far the biggest users of dating apps, and are less inclined to pay for a dating service. They also take dating less seriously than older daters. Tinder attracted the young market because the app was free, easy and accessible. But then apps like Hinge came along, who wanted to change the “hook-up” mentality many online daters have become accustomed to.

The majority of Hinge users are Tinder’s target market – Millennials. Hinge is betting on the fact that many young daters want to be more serious in their search, and not just use apps for that last-minute hook-up.

Hinge has done several things in trying to find its sweet spot, including launching a new feature this past November where users had to respond to a new match within 24 hours or they would disappear from their match list. Apparently, this didn’t go over well, because in February, the company announced that it was removing the feature.

In an email sent to its users, Hinge said: “You are busy, and 24 hours is sometimes not enough. At the end of the day, our job is about helping you find someone great, and timed matches didn’t do that. We want to make it right. So we’re turning off the clock. The 24 hour clock that is.”

Users still have to make contact with matches within a 14-day period, because the company maintains a time limit does increase communication and the likelihood of matches actually getting to the date.

And last month, Hinge launched a feature called Story Cards that helps users initiate conversation by letting them answer yes or no to “life experience” questions. According to website Global Dating Insights, the app’s CEO Justin McLeod revealed that during beta testing, Story Cards “generated a 20% increase in two-way messages between users, as well as more phone numbers exchanged.”  

News website Tech Crunch has suspicions that the next Hinge announcement will be a paid service, since Tinder is the only app that can really make money solely on advertising spend. 

In the article, writer Jordan Crook says: “Hinge is undergoing a huge makeover, ditching the swipe mechanic and adding a paid subscription layer to ensure folks who use it are there for the right reasons.”

Hinge also provided the following statement, causing more raised eyebrows:

“We are continually focused on helping our users find meaningful relationships. To that end, we’re always working with our users to test new concepts. However, at this point nothing is confirmed – everything from friend endorsements to concierge matchmaking has been on table. What we do know is that each global release continues to be the result of enormous amounts of work alongside our community in an effort to understand what sparks online connections that have the power to become lasting offline relationships.”

One thing seems clear: Hinge wants to focus on the sweet spot that is missing in popular dating apps – building real, lasting relationships. To find out more about this dating app you can read our review about Hinge.

Lulu, a dating app designed to help women rate and share information about the men they date, has become part of online dating giant Badoo.

Lulu has had an interesting history. Founded in 2011 by Alexandra Chong, the app was originally created to help women have a safer online dating experience by encouraging them to communicate with other women over the app about the men they dated. Users were given the ability to rate their dates according to looks, humor, ambition, and even sexual prowess. They could also add pre-made hashtags for more detailed examples describing a man, like #OneWomanMan, #WillActSilly or #EpicLaugh.

Are You Interested (AYI), the first online dating service to utilize Facebook connections in its matchmaking process by pairing friends of friends in the same social media circles, has announced that it has rebranded its AYI app and website.

The new service is called FirstMet, which parent company Snap Interactive says “reflects the company’s vision for making it easier for single adults to meet new people in a friendly, low-pressure environment.” At first glance, the design of FirstMet is similar, and the app still uses Facebook as a connection tool. However, the experience is specifically designed for mobile users, as opposed to AYI’s online service.

AYI launched in 2007, and has since gained about 30 million users worldwide. While the app attracted a nice user base, rivals like Tinder and the traditional dating sites like Match still cornered the market for attracting new and more active users.

Tinder just released a new update to its popular dating app, but decided to swipe left on its Snapchat-like “Moments” feature. The Moments feature was first offered to Tinder users a year ago, but now has been removed from the app’s latest update.

With Moments, Tinder users could share photos that expired after 24 hours, hoping to pique the interest of their matches. Moments also allowed users to stylize photos with filters, paintbrush, and the ability to write text over the image. The purpose of Moments was, according to Tinder co-founder Sean Rad, to jumpstart conversations among matches. If a match liked your Moment, they could swipe right. The app would notify you of their interest, and then you could both start chatting.

Last year when Moments first launched, Rad was pleased with consumers’ response. In an interview at tech event TC Disrupt he declared that due to Moments, Tinder had “seen a massive increase in conversations started and post-match engagement.”

News about Tinder’s latest update focused on the new features the app is offering, such as a revamp to the Profile and Inbox. The update allows users to add employment/education information into their profiles. The Inbox now places new matches in the top bar and current conversations in the lower part of the screen. There were also slight improvements on the backend with an update to Tinder’s algorithms.

No mention was made from Tinder about the absence of Moments, or that the company also got rid of its “Last Active” feature, which let users know the last time someone used the app. With the new update, Last Active disappeared as well.

Website Tech Crunch attributes the loss of Moments to the popularity of Snapchat. Likely Tinder users would just use Snapchat or other similar apps with any potential matches instead of using the Tinder feature. Plus, Tinder partnered with Instagram to let users use their recent Instagram photos as an extension of their Tinder profiles. With these offerings, Moments might have lost some traction.

Users did notice Moments’ absence however, and took to Twitter and review postings to let the company know they were not happy with this move. The most vocal opponents let their voices be heard with tweets like: “why is tinder getting rid of moments? that was like its best feature tbh.”

So far, the company hasn’t responded to inquiries of why they decided to ditch the features. Perhaps we’ll know more with Tinder’s next update. For more on this dating app you can read our review of Tinder.

Dating can feel like a spin of the roulette wheel. You could wind up a winner or go home a loser, and either way, your fate is in the fickle hands of Lady Luck. Run into a particularly bad string of dates and you might even think your odds are better in Vegas.

Online dating can't take luck out of the equation entirely, but matching algorithms attempt to add science into the mix. Much has been said about how data is used to help online daters meet their match, but what about the dating sites themselves?

Lynsey Tomkinson, senior marketing manager at eHarmony, spoke to CMO about how an audience segmentation project opened up a whole new world of possibilities for eHarmony. Tasked with increasing the effectiveness of the company's marketing programs, Tomkinson's team relied on data to find ways to better understand and interact with prospects and customers.

The team's investigation began with eHarmony's testimonials. In an age that's widely accepting of online dating, testimonials are no longer needed to persuade new prospects to try it for the first time. Instead, it's about persuading them to switch to eHarmony.

eHarmony also decided to dial down on its marriage-based messaging. Although the company built a strong reputation as a marriage-minded site, that motif becomes increasingly less relevant in the modern world. The company will now showcase that it's a relationship-oriented site without focusing on marriage specifically.

eHarmony launched an audience segmentation project late in 2014 to delve deeper into audience insights. The goal was to find better ways to target individuals using messages carefully tailored to their needs, interests and lifestyles. eHarmony drew on data from its 2.6 million Australian members and analyzed more than 70 million data points – the largest bespoke audience segmentation project in the company's eight-year history in Australia.

Ten unique audiences were identified based on profitability, volume and opportunity. Tomkinson's team emphasized the top three, most commercially viable segments. As a result, customer subscriptions and engagement rates leapt by double digits, while eHarmony improved the cost of its registration-to-subscription rate by 53 percent.

After the success of these data-driven experiments, the next step is to boost data analytics capability in-house. “This provides the business the case to get these systems running internally for us,” Tomkinson told CMO. eHarmony is now taking steps to build its infrastructure. Tomkinson hopes the company can produce more data-driven initiatives internally by this time next year.

“This work has set up a good foundation for us that hopefully will work well internally in the future,” she says.

For more information on this dating service please read our review of eHarmony.com.