Industry

Tinder is testing a new height feature, which sparked controversy among daters after a screenshot from a Reddit forum disclosing the feature was leaked.

According to Tech Crunch, Tinder confirmed that it is testing the height feature, but only among its paying users. In other words, subscribers to Tinder Gold and Tinder Premium who are participating in the test group can now filter their matches according to height preferences. The testing is taking place globally.

According to Tech Crunch, the feature allows paying users to set preferences for height, but the app won’t block or exclude matches who don’t meet the requirements. Instead, the company says the feature will “inform recommendations.”

Tinder CEO Faye Iosotaluno announced in a post on LinkedIn that she will be leaving her role in July after two years as head of the app and eight years working for parent company Match Group.

This is the latest shakeup for Match Group, whose new CEO Spencer Rascoff recently announced that Tinder’s chief technology officer would also be leaving at the end of May, with no replacement named.

Match Group said it would be laying off 13 percent of its workforce in efforts to cut spending, the bulk of which would come from Tinder, according to The New York Post. Tinder has seen a decline in paying users over the last several quarters, and activist investors have been pushing for a turnaround. Hinge is the company’s bright spot, which is steadily growing despite the industry’s general decline.

SmashTogether, a new dating app that was to launch in beta version on May 15, received a cease-and-desist order before the platform went live.

The new dating app was meant to bring together fans of Super Smash Bros, a popular video game, with its name being a cheeky reference to hooking up. SmashTogether doesn’t say who ordered a cease-and-desist, but likely it’s from the Smash Bros. game’s company Nintendo.

The legal news was announced via a Twitter post from SmashTogether, alongside a picture of Yoshi from the video game perched on a wall and looking off into the sunset. 

Dating app giant Match Group is set to cut 13 percent of its staff, a reduction of about 325 employees from its most current count of 2,500. The company will also be closing all open positions.

This news comes after another disappointing first quarter. The company said in an earnings call that paid users fell more than 5 percent from a year ago, a trend that continues as more young daters look for ways to meet outside of dating apps. According to Fortune, the company’s new CEO Spencer Rascoff said that the staffing cuts will save Match Group about $100 million per year, and about $45 million in 2025 alone.

The trimming of staff will mostly focus on management according to Tech Crunch, with about one in five managers affected. The company wants to centralize key functions like technology and data services, customer care, and content moderation. It also wants to focus on media buying and international go-to-market functions to increase customer reach.

Randian Capital, an activist investor in Bumble, is urging the company to follow its “turnaround plan,” which also includes a potential sale.

The investor group spent six months analyzing Bumble’s business practices and is advocating for drastic change to be made because “the current trajectory is not working,” according to sources who spoke to Investing.com.

When asked about potential buyers, Randian mentioned one interesting company – Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and dominates the social media market. Meta is also currently the subject of an SEC investigation into the nature of its previous mergers, which are alleged to violate anti-trust laws, due to some internal correspondence among its executives.

Two major online safety groups have partnered to create a new industry standard for online dating in the wake of reports that dating app companies aren’t taking needed steps to protect users on their platforms.

The Cyber Rights Organization (CRO) and Online Dating and Discovery Association (ODDA) joined forces to educate industry leaders in different areas of safety including human rights, data privacy, and best business practices, according to DatingNews.com. The ODDA sets guidelines for dating app companies and alerts them to potential risks, while the CRO is a watchdog, and protects people who are using dating platforms.

“The alliance between CRO and ODDA is driven by mutual commitment to user safety in the digital dating sphere,” the ODDA said, according to DatingNews.com.