LAMAG - May 25 - Jessica Carbino joined Tinder as an in-house sociologist in Oct 2013. Dating sites & apps use math formulas that use a combination of profile info and online behaviors - to come up with matches. But "Chemistry needs to kick in, and that's the toughest area - how to know someone's going to have a good pheromones effect," says Mark Brooks, president of Courtland Brooks, a consulting firm that has worked with many dating sites. Tinder focused on attraction, at least at the beginning. Now Tinder is pushing for growth and revenue by adding extra features. It started allowing users to include their employment and education to provide a more complete snapshot of themselves. That's where Carbino's work comes in: to find out what users want and what they don't know they want. All of her findings are being used to refine the "product," including its algorithm. It's considerably harder to sell users who are serious on looks alone. "Photos are very important but very limited," says Brooks, the dating industry consultant. "Character is not being communicated there. I think Tinder will prompt us to think differently about how to match-make behind the scenes. And that's important because that's the evolution required for the industry to really reach its potential."
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