PROPRIVACY - June 6 - Nearly half of the Match Group's subscribers are not aware of the other dating platforms owned by IAC. 61% of subscribers across Match.com, Tinder, OKCupid, Plenty of Fish and Hinge are concerned about the amount of data they share with the platforms. 65% don't know who owns their dating service. In order for online dating services to be effective at finding compatible partners, they require data. The more personal data they feed into the platforms, the better chance they have of finding a match. But many users don't realize just how much data they're giving away or exactly how these companies use that data once it's handed it over. This lack of awareness is by design. Tinder states in its privacy policy, "…we do not promise, and you should not expect, that your personal information will always remain secure."
108 posts categorized "Hinge"
Can We Trust the Match Group Cartel With Our Dating Data?
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Bumble and Hinge Are Trying to Get People to Meet up in Real Life
MARKETWATCH - June 5 - Bumble is opening a coffee shop and wine bar for New York City daters to get off their phones and meet up in real life. Dine, an app that launched in 2015, lets users match with people and their favorite restaurant and ask them out on the spot. Once a "Dine" request is accepted, users can confirm the time and day they'll meet up at a bar or restaurant they can book through the app. Hinge has also tried to encourage users to get off their phones. In March, it hosted open bar events in New York, LA, Miami and Chicago to celebrate "National Day of Unplugging" by inviting members to put their phone away and meet potential matches in person. One-third of people who have used online dating have never actually gone on a date with someone they met, according to Pew Research Center.
by Jeanette Settembre
See full article at Marketwatch
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Hinge Saw 30% Increase in Gay Profiles After Pete Buttigieg Revealed He Met Husband On It
TOWLEROAD - May 29 - Pete Buttigieg's revelation that he met his husband Chasten on the gay dating app Hinge spurred a sizable increase in profiles created by gay men. There's been a 30% increase in profiles created by gay, male individuals since April 1.
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Hinge CEO Justin McLeod on Bringing Data to Dating
STANDARD.CO.UK - May 16 - Justin McLeod founded Hinge after graduating from Harvard in 2011 and rebranded it three years ago, after a 14-year love story culminated in him winning back his now-wife, Kate. Hinge has since become the UK's fastest growing dating app. Now, a date is arranged between users every four seconds. For him, it's all about data. Users are invited to like parts of others' profiles, rather than the profile as a whole, which allows Hinge to "zero in" on their tastes. Instead of lining up 1K potential matches to "mindlessly" swipe through, it is "thoughtful" about who is shown to whom. A feature called Most Compatible uses a combination of AI and a Noble Prize-winning algorithm called Gale-Shapley (aka the "stable marriage algorithm") to send users daily match suggestions. The idea isn't that you're shown "the person you most want in the world" but "someone you like who's also going to like you back", McLeod explains. "A "We Met" feature follows up after the initial match to see if users went on a date and if so, how it went. So far, results have proven the new algorithm is eight times more likely to lead to a date than other apps," he says.
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CEO of Hinge: I Had Heartbreak So I Built My Own Dating App
TELEGRAPH.CO.UK - Apr 23 - Earlier this month, Hinge revealed a redesign, with a more 'sophisticated' look, to encourage less swiping and more meaningful communication. The technology behind most dating apps is, says CEO & Founder, Justin McLeod, "literally designed to be addictive". "They're hacking your biology and your neurochemistry to keep you coming back. The parallels to addiction are really striking." In his twenties, he battled drug and alcohol addictions, which saw him in and out of rehab. He now considers himself adept at spotting addictive tendencies. "The drug of choice is now social media, which is free and just as destructive. Hinge is designed to be deleted, and everyone else is designed to be addictive," he adds.
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Hinge CEO: Advertising Would Be 'Antithetical' to Our Message
THE DRUM - Apr 17 - Hinge brands itself as the dating app that's 'designed to be deleted'. Justin McLeod, founder and CEO of Hinge, said the goal is to create an entertaining but ultimately effective user experience that takes people off the app and out on dates. "We don't use advertising...because that would be pretty antithetical to the way that we work," said McLeod. "If you run ads, then you need people to spend a lot of time on your platform so that you get a lot of ad impressions, and we're trying to get you to spend less time in the app." McLeod said he could see Hinge exploring brand partnerships that "deliver value to our users," but the app will "almost certainly" never sell ad inventory.
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How Hinge Hopes to Resist the Gamification of Dating
CREATIVE REVIEW - Apr 11 - Dating app Hinge rolls out a vibrant new interface. CMO Nathan Roth spoke about the app's approach to measuring success and the design features that encourage users to delete it. Hinge is reminding its users repeatedly that it is "Designed to be deleted". The app actively encourages users to meet and take things offline. "We measure success by the number of dates we set up each week," said Roth. Last year, the app launched a feature called 'We Met' to get feedback on its people's dates, with the aim of learning more about individual members and streamlining any future recommendations. "It's working. Hinge members only spend six minutes a day setting up dates." he says. Last year, Hinge also made the news for announcing they were looking to recruit an Anti-retention Specialist, a role which is in the final stages of being filled. Roth says this 'digital wellness expert' will help identify more ways to encourage users to to get off the app.
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The Man Behind The Millennial Dating App, Hinge
VOX MARKETS - Apr 9 - Justin McLeod is founder and CEO of Hinge, the relationship app that helps singles discover new people through friends. He grew up in Louisville, KY and studied at Colgate University. After a few years in management consulting, Justin attended Harvard Business School and decided to follow his passion for connecting people. He founded Hinge in February 2011. In October 2016, he relaunched Hinge as the first members-only community for relationship-seeking millennials. Listen to his story here.
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Dating Startups Aim For Disruption, But Good Ideas Can't Buy Them Love From Investors
CRUNCHBASE - Apr 3 - US dating startups haven't attracted much funding. There were ~40 companies in the "dating" category on Crunchbase that were founded in the past three years, each with their own spin on the gaps they believe Tinder and Bumble haven't been able to fill. Tina Wilson founded Wingman, a dating app which involves friends in the dating process. Match Group partnered with content platform Betches to launch a similar app called Ship. Another new dating startup is Plum. The app is currently in its beta and aims to incentivize men to behave appropriately by implementing a ratings system based on communication, follow-through, and profile authenticity. "Anyone can have a good idea, but if the audience isn't there to back it up, that presents quite an issue," says Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO of Spark Networks. "It's very difficult for small companies to reach critical mass. That's a result of the sheer amount of competition and the massive amount of money that is required to spend on marketing," he said. But what does work? The backing of large players like The Match Group and Badoo. "Hinge is an excellent example of a company that had an amazing product, great concept, and it was going nowhere, and Match bought it for almost nothing," Folgueira explained, adding that now, with Match's backing, Hinge will be huge.
by Savannah Dowling
See full article at Tech Crunch
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Dating App Hinge Wants Users to Shut Their Phone Off
FORTUNE - Feb 27 - In recognition of National Day of Unplugging on March 1, the app is encouraging users to put away their phone and meet potential partners the old-fashioned way: at a bar. Beginning on Thursday, users will have the choice to opt into Friday's "holiday" and turn off the app's Discover section (where users can find and "like" potential matches) for 24 hours. Those in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami will then receive an invite for two free drinks and phone-free mingling at local Freehand Hotels' Broken Shaker bars.
by Renae Reints
See full article at Fortune
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Match Group Fully Acquires Hinge
TECH CRUNCH - Feb 7 - Last year, Match Group acquired a 51% stake in Hinge. The company has now confirmed that it fully bought out Hinge in the past quarter, and today owns 100%. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Match believes Hinge can offer an alternative to those who aren't interested in using casual apps, like Tinder. As Match explained in November, it plans to double-down on marketing that focuses on Tinder's more casual nature and use by young singles, while positioning Hinge as the alternative for those looking for serious relationships. The company said it would also increase its investment in Hinge going forward, in order to grow its user base. "Hinge downloads are now 2.5 times more than the next largest app, and 40% of Bumble downloads," said Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg.
by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch
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Why Millennials Are Burnt Out on Swipe-Based Dating Apps
MENSHEALTH - Feb 6 - Hinge's user base grew by 400% in 2017 after it eliminated its swiping feature. Once, a dating app that sends users one suggested match per day, reached 7M downloads last May. Still, swiping or not, some are giving up dating apps altogether, opting for offline dating and matchmaking services like Three Day Rule, which doubled its revenue in 2017, and now serves 10 cities in the U.S. "The online dating thing never came naturally to me. I found the experience quite overwhelming," says Tina Wilson, CEO and founder of the matchmaking app Wingman. "Trying to describe myself for a profile gave me anxiety." Eventually, Wilson's friends got involved. "They had way better insight into who I should be dating and loved to tell me so," she says. She realized her friends could play a vital role in helping her meet a compatible partner, so she created Wingman, an app that allows users' friends play matchmaker. Text-based apps are also on the rise. A spin-off of the popular Instagram account @_personals_, the Personals app will allow its lesbian, queer, transgender, and nonbinary users to post old-school personal ads.
by Sofia Barrett-Ibarria
See full article at Men'sHealth
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Who Got the Most News Coverage in 2018?
OPW - Jan 13 - Every day we review the news and bubble up what we think are summaries of the most important intell in the most important news items. All year, every day. Then in January we like to do an annual review of the news and let you know who got the most coverage on OPW.news for the prior year. Subscribe here for daily updates.
Here's the rankings for who got the most press coverage on OPW.news in 2018.
- Tinder, 182 posts on OPW.news
- Bumble, 116 posts
- Match Group, 105 posts
- Facebook Dating, 58 posts
- Grindr, 40 posts
- Badoo, 33 posts
- eharmony, 33 posts
- Match, 29 posts
- OKCupid, 28 posts
- Hinge, 24 posts
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Tinder and Bumble's Recent Advertising Efforts
NEW YORK TIMES - Dec 18 - Tinder has a new publication, Swipe Life, specializing in personal essays that reinforce the idea that dating misadventures are cool, invigorating and youthful. Other dating apps are also getting into the content business. Grindr has its own news site, Into; Hinge, as part of an ad campaign last year, published short-form fiction on walls and billboards. Tinder is the top dating app in the US and worldwide, according to App Annie. ~50% of Tinder's users are ages 18 to 25. Elie Seidman, Tinder's CEO, said that the company wants to brand itself as the leader of early-life dating. When Swipe Life began this fall, its articles sang of the exciting spontaneity of singledom. For example: "I Moved to L.A. for a Tinder Relationship That Lasted Two Weeks, But I Don't Regret It - Here's Why." Bumble's strategy seems inspired by the Forbes's annual 30 Under 30 lists. Its "Find Them on Bumble" campaign collects the 112 "most inspiring New Yorkers," and subtly links their success to Bumble.
by Jonah Engel Bromwich
See full article at New York Times
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The Subtle Way Dating Apps Reinforce Our Racial Biases
HUFFINGTON POST - Nov 22 - A new study out of Cornell University suggests that dating app algorithms don't do us any favors as far as sexual racism goes. To conduct the study, the researchers downloaded the 25 top-grossing apps in the iOS app store as of fall 2017, including Tinder, OKCupid, Hinge, Grindr, Meetville and Coffee Meets Bagel. Then they looked for features that could affect users' discriminatory behavior toward other users. This included terms of service, their sorting, filtering and matching algorithms and how users are presented to each other. They found that most apps employ algorithms that cater to users' past personal preferences and the matching history. So if a user had matched with white users repeatedly in the past, the algorithm was more likely to suggest more white people as "good matches" moving forward.
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The Most Popular Love Language on Hinge Is Quality Time
BUSTLE - Nov 16 - Dr. Gary Chapman outlined love language in his book The 5 Love Languages. The idea being that there are five different ways people feel love and show love in their relationships. The five love languages are: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch. But what's the most popular way to express yourself in a romantic relationship? According to new data from dating app Hinge, the most common love language is Quality Time, which was over twice as popular for its users as the next option, Words of Affirmation. There was some discrepancy between men and women in how they looked at the other love languages. For men, Physical Touch and Words of Affirmation were both neck-in-neck for second place, but for women it was just Words of Affirmation comfortably in ahead.
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Tinder Doubles Down On Its Casual Nature
TECH CRUNCH - Nov 8 - Tinder has never really shaken its reputation as a "hook up" app, instead of one designed for more serious dating. Now, it seems Tinder is planning to embrace its hook up status. According to Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg, Tinder is launching its first-ever brand marketing campaign that will promote the "single lifestyle" with billboards and other digital initiatives. "The market defined the brand, versus the business defining the brand," said Ginsberg, referring to its "hook up app" reputation. The company will also invest more in Hinge going forward. Ginsberg said Hinge will help the company to address the "previously underserved" audience of 20-somethings looking for a serious relationship. The plan is to make Hinge the anti-Tinder, then pull in users as they exit Tinder in search of something real.
by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch
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Tinder Now Has 4.1M Paying Users, Expects $800M In Revenue This Year
TECH CRUNCH - Nov 7 - Match Group surpassed analyst's forecasted revenue of $437M, reporting Q3 revenue of $444M, a 29% increase YOY. Match says it expects to bring in a total of $1.72B in annual revenue. Despite positive earnings, the company's 4Q outlook failed to satisfy Wall Street. Match said it expects $440 - $450M in revenue in Q4, falling short of the $454.5M analyst estimate. Shares of Match sank 10% in after-hours trading as a result. Year-to-date, Match's stock is up ~60%. Tinder continues to be Match's growth engine, responsible for half its paid users and half its projected annual revenue. Tinder is expected to bring in $800M in revenue in 2018. Hinge, another app-based dating service acquired by Match in June, is on its way up. Match says it's seen a 5x increase in downloads since it first invested. Match also announced that it would, for the first time, issue a special cash dividend of $2 per share on Match Group common stock and Class B common stock, to be paid out on Dec. 19.
by Kate Clark
See full article at Tech Crunch
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Slow Dating Is The French-Invented Hack
COSMOPOLITAN - Nov 5 - Dating app Once launched in France and recently made its way stateside. Instead of passively swiping through profiles, Once introduce each user to only one person, per day. If the users both like each other, they start a conversation and see where it leads. If not, they have to wait until the next day to meet someone new. But what if all potential matches are bad? Jean Meyer, CEO of Once, says making good matches is a concern, obviously, but he's more focused on cutting down absentminded app time. "Even if your match of the day is crap, it's okay," Meyer says. "Maybe you're not going to talk to that person, but at least you're going to put the app away, and you may even put your phone away and do something else with your day. You can put 100% into another task that's not swiping on ten-thousand profiles." The League, which only serves users a few matches per day, operates on a similar premise as Once. And when Hinge redesigned to eliminate swiping and force people to slow down a bit, users grew by more than 400%.
by Hannah Smothers
See full article at Cosmopolitan
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The CEO Of Hinge Sometimes Goes 2 Weeks Without Checking On His Team
BUSINESS INSIDER - Oct 27 - Hinge founder and CEO Justin McLeod doesn't have email on his smartphone. He said it makes him a better leader because he has time and space to think. The only things he can currently do with his phone are check the time, make calls and send texts, listen to music, and browse Hinge. "I'm a much better decision-maker, I'm a much better strategist, I'm a much better leader when I'm not wrapped up in the minutia of what's going on in the company and what's going on in the world," McLeod told Business Insider. "I'm giving myself the space." When he takes vacations, he doesn't check in with his staff for "a week or two at a time." In fact, McLeod made the decision to "reboot" Hinge, in 2016, while he was away from the office and spending Thanksgiving with his family. With the time and space to think clearly, he realized that Hinge had become too similar to other dating apps. Hinge subsequently made a number of changes to the app, most notably removing the swiping feature. Today, it bills itself as "the relationship app."
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