Online Dating

Bumble announced that it is exploring how to employ the metaverse and Web 3.0 into a relaunch of its Bumble BFF platform. It also added language badges as a new feature to help users connect. 

The move towards interactive experiences seems to be where dating apps are headed, driven by younger Gen Z daters who prefer game-like experiences to swiping. Tinder recently announced that it was testing an avatar-based virtual experience called Single Town where users could meet each other in real time on different online spaces, like “bars” before agreeing to meet in person.

The rising popularity of cryptocurrency is also a factor, as Bumble has indicated it intends to create a crypto goods economy to monetize the new platform, as has Tinder.

Dating app Bumble had a rough third quarter, with total paying users down 2 percent from the second quarter. It was the first time the company saw a decline in its user base since going public in February of this year.

According to Reuters, total paying users fell to 2.9 million as the pandemic surge prompted new lockdowns in hard-hit countries. The company says the pandemic surge caused an overall drop in consumer spending on dating apps and in-app purchases. This news spooked investors and sent Bumble’s stock tumbling 9 percent, a 32 percent total decline since its IPO.

The company owns popular dating app Badoo which was hit especially hard due to its popularity in markets affected by the Covid surges. Badoo accounts for about a quarter of the company’s total revenue according to Barron’s.

Dating app conglomerate Match Group has lowered their expected earnings for Q4, according to an earnings call with investors. The company said the adjusted forecast resulted from decreased revenue in Asian markets due to the pandemic. Shares declined 6 percent with the news.

According to Reuters, Match Group adjusted fourth quarter earnings revenue between $810 and $820 million, below analysts’ forecast of $838.5 million per Refinitiv. The company expects revenue for 2021 to be around $3 billion.

In the third quarter, revenue rose 25 percent, but still missed expectations. Match Group added 16.3 million paid users and revenue per person rose 8 percent. Their quarterly earnings came out to $.53 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $.60 per share, and has dropped from earnings of $.55 per share a year ago.

Match Group is taking the dating app experience to the next level by testing a new “metaverse” where users can create avatars that interact with each other over the app.

According to Tech Crunch, news of these plans came during the company’s third quarter earnings call, where despite performing below expectations, executives were upbeat and looking toward the long-term future of its dating apps by harnessing this technology.

Match Group CEO Shar Dubey noted in the call that Hyperconnect, a social discovery platform the company purchased earlier this year, was testing the avatar-based dating experience dubbed “Single Town,” where users interact in real time as they meet in virtual spaces (like a bar) and have live audio conversations. If two users express interest in each other (via their avatars), they can choose to continue their conversations through messaging. Eventually, the company plans to leverage the technology across their dating apps.

This month, Tinder launches the second season of its wildly popular in-app interactive series Swipe Night. The premise is a murder mystery, and participants are expected to guess who did it each week as the clues are revealed. 

The first season brought in over 20 million viewers worldwide for a choose-your-own-adventure style story, where viewers selected what they would do along the way, which led them to different outcomes. This time, according to Tech Crunch, users will watch the same mystery unfold, but they will be able to search rooms and examine objects for clues to draw their own conclusions. 

The series is live on the app from 6pm EST to 12:00am beginning Sunday, November 7th, and Tinder will continue to air new episodes each Sunday at the same time through November 21st, according to the company’s website. 

The emails at the heart of the case against Match Group and IAC have been revealed, just prior to the trial which is set to begin in November. Former Tinder CEO Greg Blatt was accused by former Tinder employees, including founder Sean Rad, of undervaluing Tinder’s worth to cheat them out of billions of dollars in stock options. 

According to The Daily Mail, emails revealed that Blatt valued the dating app at nearly $12 billion in 2016, more than a year before Match Group valued Tinder at only $3 billion as Sean Rad and other employees were forced to exit the company. Rad and the other plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit claim Blatt purposefully devalued the stock in their negotiations, citing the emails as evidence. 

Match Group owns dating app Tinder, and they along with IAC are the defendants in the lawsuit.