Where do we go from here? Tinder and the future of dating apps
We’re already a far ways into a new generation of online dating. Now that the social stigmas have been turned upside down its quite common that you or someone close have made quality relationships through a dating app at least once before.
As the dating app industry continues to boom, developers will have golden opportunities to stay competitive through taking advantage of new technology. Based on recent some recent popular trends, let’s see where we’re heading for the future.
Tinder and the “Hot or Not” concept will continue to deflate
More and more users are growing tired of hoards of matches that never materialize and are actively searching for services that deliver on quality first dates.
Although many users have their own reasons and expectations when using dating apps, fundamentally speaking, the majority of users are keen on meeting someone ideal. However, when presented with a sensory overload of people in hopes to match with someone random, most yielded matches after a swipe campaign were created without careful thought or intent that this match is a committed, agreed first date. As a result, people are focusing on too many different users which lowers the quality of the experience where we now see most matches go cold these days. It’s a pretty frustrating feeling.
Tinder and apps like Bumble or other recycled Tinder UI’s have been sending pretty dire warning signals that they are seriously struggling to carry on into the “3rd wave of dating apps”. Alike companies and their sudden increase in monetization features really represents this issue for our predecessors.
The most recent signal being “Tinder Gold” which allows users to view who liked you or Bumble’s “bumble boost” feature. We do owe Tinder and other apps a great deal of respect for expanding dating app DAU across the globe. But these apps with very impressive amounts of daily active users are absolutely desperate to make money and are in fact burning through huge budgets barely turning a single profit.
As these companies continue to scramble for ways to reverse the trend of “free” casual dating apps that users expect no restrictions on and fail to deliver, its naturally evident that the hot or not, casual and free style of dating apps will be expiring sooner than never.
Data shows us that millennials are actually very happy and capable of paying for dating apps that get first dates. This is why we have been seeing so many people hopping on next-gen dating apps like Dine who has amassed an incredible user base in just one year since launch.
The trend of Niche dating apps will die
Every day it seems as if a new dating app emerges taking an attempt to solve specific issues that cater to certain groups of users. Here are just a few examples from the 100’s of niche dating apps/sites available now:
Align — A dating app that matches you with people based on your zodiac signs.
Famers Only — A dating site that connects single farmers looking for a shot at love.
The League — A dating app that prides itself on an app with the most affluent and intelligent dating pool. To even get accepted into the community there is an initial screening process and requirements to meet.
The death of these niche apps: Niche apps may play well into the hands of a few when it comes to matching on aspects like race, religion, gender. However, the trend of dating apps that match you based on a specific similarity (sometimes obscure), these concepts come up short. Most are nothing short than a joke or a clever icebreaker to open up conversation with someone new.
A great recent example is a dating app that launched a few months back called “Hater”, another recycled Tinder-like UI that matches you based on the “things you hate”. A user and their match receives a compatibility score that’s measured through a feature that allows users to swipe love, like, dislike, and hate.
Another example could be “Tastebuds”, a dating app that allows you the meet new people through similar tastes in tunes. All of these niche apps sound cute and unique on paper but in reality they fail miserably in focusing on what really matters to users, getting out on actual dates. Just because Jane hates peanut butter and Joe like peanut butter doesn’t mean they couldn’t be the happiest couple in the world. Just because Billy loves heavy metal and Nancy can’t stand it doesn’t mean they couldn’t be perfect for each other.
From a business side, they will never be able to scale large amounts of DAU compared to what most of us are used to when you cut off large percentages of groups to join the user pool (loses a lot of monetization opportunities too). Unless these apps get more innovative and keep their eyes on the prize, many will most likely start drying up one by one, a process that has already begun; natural selection if you will.
A.I.
Yup, robots and artificial intelligence will certainly become a strong asset to dating app developers and users alike. AI research and development continues to make huge steps every day and some dating app developers are already brainstorming and testing out how they can incorporate AI into dating apps.
What’s the need for integrating AI in dating apps one may ask? Simply put, AI has the power to increase a user’s experience. For example, Dine, the dating app that guarantees first dates, uses a “smart preference feature” which on a weekly basis requests all users to either “like” or “dislike” a series of 100 random photos across a diverse pool of users with the main purpose being to calibrate specific tastes of a user. If dating apps can learn naturally through daily usage of what a user’s preferences are, apps like Dine can can be more successful by introducing users to higher quality matches.
This feature is supported by a listing logic algorithm, but how accurate is this listing logic actually? Listing logic does its best to take notes about specific details and patterns/trends of a user’s activity (what they are attracted to in this case). In reality, listing logic is not perfect and only reaps visible results when used consistently over a long period of time.
As we dive into the future, incorporating AI into dating apps can seriously hunker down on the little details that cater to our own personal attractions.
Only like men tall men? Sure. Only like blonde haired women? No problem! Blue eyed people? OK!
AI has the power to efficiently and effectively learn about a user’s preferences in great detail which in return can significantly increase the user’s experience on dating apps without having to exclude too many potential matches with blanket type algorithms and filters.
Cool right?
Virtual Reality
That’s right. Companies like oculus are making huge strives with VR tech and it will only go up from here. We’re already seeing the company playing around with Dating Lessons courses which covers topics like “how to approach women”.
These are just the beginning steps of VR and online dating but imagine, a world where there are actual retail stores set up that allow people to sit in booths and meet and chat with available singles both local and from all over the world at any time of the day.
Pretty crazy right?…Some may even argue sad, but this is certainly towards where we’re heading as online safety and privacy become more and more crucial to us. Many may even say that this model is a safe and effective way to screen out people in a fast paced online dating world where options are endless but some potentially dangerous.
Conclusion
Although it is hard to predict the future, one thing that is for certain is that the dating app industry is a 4-billion dollar industry that has been growing at a steady pace of 5% year-over-year since 2013. More and more people are using dating apps and meeting their partners which has been essentially erasing the dating app stigma completely. In the USA alone, 30% of people ages 18+ are existing users or have used a dating app/online service at least once in their lifetime.
