Tinder

If Tinder has been a sea of left swipes lately, the app's recently announced update could change your luck for the holidays. Tinder’s founder Sean Rad announced forthcoming changes to the algorithm during Ireland’s Web Summit on November 4.

The update is set to be Tinder's biggest yet. "It's been our mission since day one to uncover ... every possible meaningful relationship," Rad told Mashable. In service of that goal, Rad says the company is looking to "reduce the barriers to people connecting" and help them form "deeper connections." He claims the upcoming changes will boost connections made on the dating app by 30%.

Unfortunately, actual details about the algorithm update are scarce. Tinder has not yet made a formal announcement and is keeping mostly mum until then. Rad only said to expect a "series of things you're going to see that will help you make more sense of the sheer volume of people around you and build deeper connections...and more ways to connect."

What Tinder is talking about is its reputation as a “hookup app,” which its eager to shed. Rad made yet another attempt to distance the company from that status, adding that 80% of users are looking for long-term relationships.

This year has seen Tinder release features designed to make the app more engaging. Not long ago it launched 'Super Like' - a function that can only be used once a day to let a user know you really (like, really really) like them. Rad compares it to walking over and saying hi to someone, instead of winking at them from across the room.

The CEO also shared some of Tinder's impressive numbers with the Web Summit. The app currently receives 1.6 billion swipes per day, 26 million matches per day and 9 billion total matches since its debut in 2012. As a result of those swipes, 1.5 million in-person dates stem from Tinder each week. More than half of those make it to a second date.

Up next, Tinder will focus on monetization. Most of the company's revenue currently comes from Tinder Plus, a paid service that allows users to search outside of their geographical location and undo swipes. Advertising hasn't yet hit the app in a major way, but there will be a bigger focus on ads in the near future.

Rad is nothing if not confident about Tinder's success. "There is no doubt that Tinder is increasing the number of connections in this world," he said. "We are bringing the world closer together at a scale that no platform has ever been able to do and in that sense, we are changing the world."

For more on this popular dating app, please read our Tinder review.

There’s no doubt about it: online dating has become even more popular, and at the same time, more frustrating than ever. Believe it or not, there is a correlation between the two.

Dating apps work very similarly to a game. You swipe left and right, amassing lots of matches to your dating bank account, and feeling great. More people, more possibilities. But in reality – how many of your matches are you actually going out with? How many send you messages, and how many respond to yours? Unfortunately, more often than not, the numbers are low. (Or worse – female daters tend to be the recipients of unwanted and aggressive texts.)

So what do we do with this information? Do we declare this to be "the end of dating" along with The New York Times? Do we delete those apps from our phones, as one writer for website Bustle has declared she will do?

You do have the option to drop out of online dating altogether, but I would argue for keeping it a part of how you meet people to date. Dating apps are here to stay, so it's time to embrace them. But we also need to learn how to date - in real life.

The problem doesn't lie with dating apps per se - technology in general is changing how we behave and interact. People are spending more time updating and commenting on their social media accounts than they are having actual conversations or meeting up with people IRL. Take a look at any bar or restaurant, and inevitably you see a group of people at a table, and none of them are talking to each other – they are staring at their phones.

There is an element of social anxiety that comes along with dating, but our phones are giving us an easy way out, rather than learning to overcome this anxiety. It’s much easier to drop a conversation online than try to think of something witty to say. And the thought of making small talk on a first date for half an hour can terrify many young daters who have grown accustomed to safely hiding behind their phones.

Instead of complaining about the technology, it’s time to do something about what we would like to see in the dating world. Ask someone out on a real date. Pick up the phone and have a conversation, don’t just text until one of you drops off. And if you don’t get a response? On to the next.

Most people want to find a connection to someone else. Online dating provides a way to meet people, not a way to actually date them. Instead, the search for connection is totally left up to us – a scary thought. (Why can’t we just blame the dating apps for peoples’ behavior?)

If you want your online dating experience to change, you first need to change your own approach to it. Don’t endlessly swipe. Talk to more people over the phone or in person. Look them in the eye when you are having a conversation. Don’t become distracted by your phone, or lean on it like a crutch when you get bored. Learn the art of making conversation, of flirting. Practice it!

There’s no shame in asking someone out, and to follow through and go on a real date. In fact, it’s the only thing that will lead to a real-life relationship.

Match Group is hoping to live happily ever after with Wall Street. The company, owner of more than 45 online dating brands including Tinder, OkCupid, and Match.com, has filed for an initial public offering of its stock.

Match Group filed for the IPO of common stock with U.S. regulators on October 16 with an offering amount of $100 million, but that figure is a placeholder that could change in the future. The company is set to operate under the ticker symbol "MTCH" on NASDAQ.

Following the IPO, IAC/InterActiveCorp., which owns Match, would retain control of more than 50% of voting rights under its ownership of Class B shares, which have 10 votes apiece. Match will contract with IAC for “administrative and other services,” but the exact amount of distance between IAC and Match Group going forward is so far unknown.

Here are some of the highlights of Match's SEC filing:

• Match makes serious money. The company had $888.3 million in revenue and $148.4 million in after-tax profit in 2014. For the first six months of 2015, revenue was $483.9 million and net earnings were $49.3 million. Match might hit $1 billion in revenue this year.
• Growth is steady, though not explosive. Wall Street wants to invest in technology companies that grow rapidly. Match Group doesn't meet that criterion, but growth between 2013 and 2014 was 10.6 percent. Between 2012 and 2013 it was 12.6 percent. The rate is nothing for the record books, but it's healthy and sustainable.
• Paying customers make up a surprisingly small percentage of total users. Match Group claims 59 million monthly active users across 38 languages and 190 countries. Of those 59 million, only 4.7 million pay to use the services. The company's income is in the hands of only 8 percent of its customers.

Although the online dating segment seems saturated, the IPO prospectus includes opportunities for future growth. According to the filing, the addressable market is currently about 511 million. That number is expected to grow to 672 million by 2019. Increased adoption of mobile and the Internet, the aging of the population and the increase in the number of singles are all positive trends for the industry.

Of course, there are risk factors too. Cybersecurity is more important than ever, and Match Group admits that it can't guarantee protection from attacks. Match also notes that one of its most important assets, Tinder, could essentially be destroyed if Facebook alters the terms and conditions for connecting with the social network. It remains to be seen if these issues will cause risk-averse Wall Street to balk.

The underwriters for the IPO include J.P. Morgan, Allen & Co. and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

For more information on the dating services owned by IAC, you can read our reviews on Match.com, OkCupid, and Tinder.

Let’s face it – our information is out there digitally for all the world to see, or at least those who are interested in Googling our names. But we like to know what kind of privacy controls are still in place for our social media accounts. We don’t want Facebook sharing our posts with just anyone, and perhaps you keep your Instagram account private, too.

But what happens when Facebook starts to encroach on what you like to keep separate? For example, Facebook has a “suggested friends” page where it connects you with people in your social circles – maybe someone you knew back in high school or through a previous employer, and you would like to friend him/her. But what happens when the suggested friend is someone you don’t care to see again – say a Tinder date gone wrong?

Apparently, this is happening more and more, but strangely, no one really knows why. News website Motherboard investigated the link between Facebook and dating apps like Tinder and OkCupid, to see where the connection lies and if they are sharing information unbeknownst to their users.

According to Motherboard, Tinder, OkCupid and Facebook all deny sharing information with each other. Plus, most of these unwanted contacts that are suggested to Facebook users share no Facebook friends nor do they have a shared workplace history or any other connection besides being a potential or previous date.

So exactly how are these apps and Facebook tracking movement (and connections) we don’t necessarily want them to see? Shouldn’t your online dating life be kept separate from your social media circles until you meet someone special and YOU want to include them in your circles? Probably the last person you want to see as a Facebook friend suggestion is your one-night stand from two weeks ago or the date who stood you up.

So why does this keep happening? The answers are unclear. As the companies deny sharing information, there are other ways that your connections can leave a digital trail that makes its way to Facebook.

One such way is through your phone. If you message one of your dates, even if you don’t save the contact information, depending on your Facebook settings the service is able to pull contacts you have messaged and called on your phone to help expand your social circles. Motherboard found one such notice from Facebook while testing this out. The article says: “Facebook does say it bases its suggestions in part on ‘imported contacts,’ but this is something users have to opt into on the mobile app or desktop... I don’t ever remember agreeing to import my contacts, and yet when I checked my “invite history” page I had 900+ contacts saved, apparently were continuously syncing and updating, that I promptly removed. Facebook warned this could make my friend suggestions ‘less relevant.’”

Another reason could lie in Facebook searches. Chances are before a date you want to look up some information about a person over social media, doing due diligence to get to know the person you were about to meet. Perhaps you searched for them on Facebook, which would mean they could show up as a suggested friend – after all, Facebook knows you looked for them, not that you were interested in dating them.

At any rate, these digital connections will continue to increase, so it’s important to be prepared to see people you may not want in your suggested circles. If nothing else, just delete.

Practically every business is expected to have a social media presence in 2015. When your business is a digital one, that pressure doubles. When your target audience is millennials, it triples. Dating services are all about helping people make social connections, but how socially savvy are they on their own profiles?

Digiday used proprietary data from two social media analytics firms, Unmetric and Socialbakers, to pit seven dating apps against each other in the battle for most effective social media strategy. Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, Match.com, Zoosk, Coffee Meets Bagel and Bumble were put to the test in several different categories.

Number Of Fans

With over 13 million million Facebook likes, Zoosk has the largest social media fan base. Match and Tinder follow with over 827,000 and 369,000 fans, respectively. Twitter shows similar stats. Zoosk has the most followers by far at over 350,000. Match comes in second, with 65,000, and Tinder in third, with over 56,000.

Although Tinder currently has the smallest fan base, it's also the most rapidly growing. The game-changing dating app saw its fan base grow 228 percent between January and October 2015.

Geographical Popularity

Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, Match and Zoosk all have an international crop of users, but Tinder and Zoosk are the most diverse on social. In fact, the majority of Zoosk's Facebook fans are international.

Other services proved to be particularly popular in specific countries. Hinge is big in India, while Match is favored by Canadians and Tinder has won over Brazilian singles.

Engagement Level

Zoosk is the most prolific poster on social media. The company published 226 posts between January and October, and received the most likes and comments. Despite Zoosk's high volume, Tinder took the top spot for highest average engagement and most posts shared by fans.

Bumble is a relative newcomer to the dating world, but already it's showing promise on social. The app saw over 3,000 interactions with fans on Facebook between July and October. The numbers are expected to grow.

Number Of Fan Posts And Mentions

Match.com's users are the most likely to talk about it on Facebook. More than 9,000 messages were posted to Match's wall between January and October. Hinge and Coffee Meets Bagel come next. Neither Tinder nor OkCupid had user posts on their Facebook walls. Their page settings most likely do not allow it.

Tinder leads the number of mentions on Twitter, perhaps because Twitter's audience skews younger than Facebook and Tinder attracts a similarly youthful user base. The app is followed by Zoosk and Match.com, which come in second and third with around 8,000 and 2,000 mentions apiece.

Popular dating app Tinder, which many daters have described as a hook-up app, has decided to get a little more serious with its latest update. Instead of upping the volume of swipes, the management team decided to focus on encouraging users to be more selective, and is now offering a feature dubbed “Super Like.”

Instead of just swiping right when you like someone special (like all the other right swipes before), the new feature allows you to swipe up – or Super Like - one special match per day. When two people Super Like each other, Tinder reports that they tend to have conversations over the app that last 70 percent longer. (Tellingly, the company is rolling out this feature in the wake of Vanity Fair’s controversial article on the so-called “dating apocalypse” fueled by Tinder, which ended in a Twitter rant from Tinder co-founder Sean Rad.)

Tinder is definitely getting its new more serious message across in marketing campaigns, including a video the company made highlighting the Super Like feature, which is targeting female daters. In the video, a woman is being harassed by a bunch of men who are trying to flirt with her, and she’s not interested. So to save herself from their aggressive tactics, she Super Likes a nice guy on the app. In other words, she is saving herself from the awful herds of pushy guys on Tinder by using Tinder’s latest feature.  

Will it be effective for Tinder to appeal to women? It is still by far the most popular app, but other developers are using Tinder’s hook-up reputation as a reason to choose another app. So Tinder is fighting back.

The new feature is a way to make women feel safer. But more than likely, it is also a response to Bumble, a rising star in the dating app world that has been getting a lot of attention.

Bumble is a female-centered dating app that looks like Tinder but gives the messaging power to women by having them make the first move. Coincidentally, Bumble was also founded by one of Tinder’s co-founders Whitney Wolfe, who sued the company and subsequently launched her own dating app. This past week, Wolfe made an appearance on The Daily Show, in which she answered questions about how her app is changing the world of online dating by putting women in the seat of power to ask the men out.

It’s great that daters have more options, and the competition from apps like Bumble means that Tinder will continue to improve its offerings. And that’s always a plus.