Tinder

Tencent, China’s largest social networking platform and operator of the immensely popular app WeChat, has launched a new dating app that seems positioned to compete with both Tinder and Tantan, China’s most popular dating app.

Qingliao - roughly translated as “light chat” – is kind of a hybrid of different dating app features already on the market. There is no swiping, but users can choose to “like” or “pass” on a potential match by choosing an “X” or a heart. When two users are matched, they can start chatting, according to details described in South China Morning Post.

Tinder is rolling in cash at the close of 2019 thanks to consumer spending on its popular dating app. According to Annie’s List, it ranks as the number one non-gaming app where consumers are spending money, ahead of entertainment and social network giants like Netflix, YouTube and Tencent.

Video games are by far the most popular apps for consumers and generate the most revenue from in-app spending. However, outside of the gaming world, Tinder subscriptions have driven it to the top spot in consumer app spending.

Tinder's Year in Swipe Review

Image: Tinder

Tinder has published its second annual ‘Year In Swipe’ review, a roundup of the biggest trends that unfolded on the dating platform in 2019. Last year’s 2018 Year In Swipe identified Monday as the best day to be on the app, August as the hottest month of the year for singles and music festivals, royal weddings and sporting events as popular times for users to log in. This year, the report focused on the dating habits of Gen Z.

People under 25 now make up the majority of the Tinder community. According to the 2019 Year In Swipe, this generation is out to change the world. Younger users are more likely to mention causes or missions in their bios. Subjects like “climate change,” “social justice,” “the environment” and “gun control” top the list of concerns for Gen Z. Millennials, in contrast, are looking to connect over adventure — they’re 3x more likely to talk about about travel in their bios.

A revealing report published by ProPublica found that Match Group did not conduct background checks on users of their popular free platforms, including Tinder, Plenty of Fish, and OkCupid, leaving their members vulnerable to sexual assault.

Columbia Journalism Investigations analyzed more than 150 incidents of sexual assault among people who met through dating apps over the last decade, ProPublica reported. Most met their matches through Match Group apps. The researchers discovered that registered sex offenders were using Match Group apps like Tinder and went on dates with women who had no idea, because while Match Group conducts background checks for paid apps like Match, they don’t for their free apps.

Tinder claims to have made about 30 billion matches to date over its highly successful app (about 26 million per day, according to an article in The Daily Mail), but it seems only 50 percent of them ever meet one of their matches face-to-face. In order to increase their chances of meeting a date IRL, users have to match with far more people than they actually expect to meet, according to the study.

On average, when participants were asked how many matches they had actually met up with in real life, men averaged 1.9 partners and women 2.2 partners, despite matching with 111 and 124 respectively.

A team from Norwegian University of Science and Technology surveyed 269 students in Norway who were all Tinder users, and 60 percent of those surveyed were women.

Tinder CEO Elie Seidman

Tinder CEO Elie Seidman has promised to redouble the company’s efforts to make its dating service a safe and welcoming platform for everyone. In a blog post, Seidman acknowledged that transgender users have faced harrassment and discrimination on the app, and that there is important work to be done before Tinder is “a place where people everywhere can be who they are and love who they love.”

Tinder has taken notable steps towards this goal in recent years. The company partnered with GLAAD in June 2019 to introduce the Orientation feature, which allows users to choose up to three labels that describe their sexual orientation to improve matching based on identity and sexual preferences. Tinder previously partnered with GLAAD in 2016 to launch the More Genders feature, which expanded the options users have to describe their gender identity. But trans users say these updates do not go far enough.