Tinder

Tinder, Bumble and Hinge have seen surges in downloads and user activity around the Athlete’s Village in Paris as the 2024 Summer Olympics get underway.

According to The Daily Mail, these dating apps have reported thousands of new downloads. Athletes have gravitated to dating apps in the past to hook up during the Olympics, with the exception of an intimacy ban in 2020 due to Covid concerns.

Paris officials have  a different agenda from athletes, providing single beds made of cardboard so that they would be discouraged from having so much sex during the competitions. This has created a lot of buzz on TikTok, with athletes testing out the sturdiness of the beds by jumping on them. (They don’t break or fall apart.)

A vast majority of 79 percent of Gen Z singles said they have experienced dating app burnout, according to a new study by Forbes Health.

The study found that in the last six months, 49 percent of those who reported burnout were using Tinder, followed by Plenty of Fish at 38 percent and Bumble at 29 percent. Raya users had the least amount of burnout reported, at only 3 percent.

“People who experience burnout with dating apps are exhausted from constantly meeting new people, failing opportunities and lies,” Dr. Rufus Spann, a sex therapist and Forbes Health Advisory Board member, said in an article about the study. “Over time, the unfortunate misgivings of being on a dating app can cause someone to lose hope in the dating process and finding the right person.”

Tinder has launched its new feature Photo Selector, an AI-based tool that helps users choose the best photos to use in their profiles to generate the best match results.

According to Tech Crunch, the new feature uses facial detection technology. When a user uploads a selfie on the app, the AI detects the unique facial geometry to identify the person’s face and pulls up matching photos from their camera roll. The feature then curates a collection of ten photos that will perform best on the person’s profile.

Photo Selector is intended to help users through what can be a time-consuming process of sifting through camera roll photos. According to a recent survey by Tinder, 68% of participants expressed that an AI photo selection feature would be helpful, and 52% reported having trouble selecting profile images. 

Starboard Value has taken a stake in Match Group, the latest firm to join the company’s activist investors and criticize executives for its financial performance.

According to The Dallas Morning News, Starboard has built a 6.6 percent interest in Match Group, the parent company of dating app Tinder. The popular dating app has seen a drop in paying customers for six straight quarters, with little sign that things will turn around soon.

Starboard joins Elliott Investment Management LP and Anson Funds Management LP, two other activist investors who have demanded changes in Match Group’s operations. Starboard is planning to push for selling Match Group if it fails to turn things around, according to Dallas Morning News.

Hinge and Grindr are two standout dating apps as they continue to grow in a tough market; powerhouses Tinder and Bumble are seeing more users leave their platforms.

In general, dating apps have had a rough couple of years, with the coveted Gen Z market looking to other options besides dating apps to meet singles, including in-person events, running clubs, and social media platforms like LinkedIn.

“Online dating trends have continued to decelerate industry-wide, showing minimal relief from the recent struggles,” wrote Morgan Stanley analysts Nathan Feather and Brian Nowak in their research, according to Quartz.

Tinder is rolling out a new ad campaign inspired by 90s rom-coms, featuring young singles playing out their meet cute moments on the app in real life.

According to AdWeek, the ads continue with “it starts with a swipe,” the tagline from its previous global campaign.

One video starts out with two people meeting in the library, with a young woman stumbling over her words as she falls off a ladder in the stacks and a young man catches her. “Thanks for making my day with your hace,” she says, shaking her head and correcting herself: “Face. Typo.” It then becomes clear that they are voicing their text messages.