Dating App Development + Music Discovery Features

Music is one preference that can define people’s lifestyle, way of thinking, type of clothes and even influence the choice of a life partner. If music tastes match, it can be a good start for a friendship or a relationship. So why not to use this overall power of music in your dating app development? Or develop a music streaming app with matching users according to their music tastes? Sounds like an idea, doesn’t? So let’s see what exactly can be an outcome of this decision.

WHY MUSIC-BASED DATING IS A GOOD IDEA

If you remember we have already talked about dating apps development and the growing tendencies in this industry. The most important thing for a person who downloads a dating app should be finding a match. If this process ends up being mostly successful, the app is considered a good fit.

There are many different approaches dating apps use trying to succeed in delivering prospective matches to their users. Some, like Match.com dating app, use matchmaking algorithms based on user’s stated interests, preferences and on-site actions. Others let you specify your intentions, like Heavenly Sinful app. Tinder suggests potential matches based on user location.

Music tastes is something you can use in your dating app development if you want to make people meet other people and be happy with what they found.

London-based Tastebuds is a good example of a profitable combination of music and dating. As you probably know, a lot of people find it a bit embarrassing to use dating apps. What is more, a common problem for dating apps is a much larger number of male users compared to female. But due to its music focus, Tastebuds has managed to attract users who wouldn’t consider online dating otherwise.

SOME FACTS ABOUT TASTEBUDS

Generally speaking, Tastebuds is a social network built around music. Everything and everyone you find there is music saturated. According to TechCrunch, Tastebuds can be thought of as a competitor to a friend matching service Badoo, as well as other dating solutions.

Tastebuds is powered by Last.fm. In its turn, Last.fm teamed up with Spotify. This partnership allows you to listen to the music you have on Spotify via the Spotify playbar at the bottom of the Last.fm screen and visa versa — Spotify will load all tracks you have on a Last.fm page as a playlist in Spotify. In January 2014, Last.fm also announced the introduction of a new YouTube-powered radio player. As you see digital music industry has close ties.

Tastebuds has its own iOS app and also supports Spotify with an app for the music streaming service. I assume the iOS app they rolled out recently is a dating MVP that only lets you find people who share your music tastes. But I am sure there is more to come for those who enjoy listening and discovering music, rather than looking at people’s profiles and chatting.

MUSIC DISCOVERY WITHIN A MUSIC DATING APP

What Tastebuds is really cool at is not necessarily a dating perspective, but the music content. In my article about the current tendencies on the music streaming apps market, I mentioned the importance of music discovery and recommendations based on user’s music preferences.

In the case of Tastebuds and also its U.S. competitor moosify, which the social networking website bought in August, music discovery is based on the tastes of people that have similar music preferences. The reason why Tastebuds bought moosify is the European and in particular German user base (ProSiebenSat.1 Media’s backing might’ve played its role here).

In order to get access to music on site, you just have to click on the radio button. Youtube-powered radio player will let you listen to the songs other users with similar music tastes post, as well as look at their profiles. Users not only can discover something new without crossing the lines delineated around their music genre or artist, but have a chance to meet new people, make friends or start a relationship. Though not available now in Tastebuds’ iPhone app, I think this feature will be implemented in future.

What is more, if you don’t want to compel your users to online dating, you can give them a choice. Ask what they are looking for in your «music-dating» app. It can be just music discovery, new friends and concert buddies, and finally dating. I am sure, your users will appreciate that.

CONCERTS WITHIN A MUSIC DATING APP

When I wrote about event planner apps technology, I mentioned Songkick, a great app, that tells you when your favorite artists are coming to your city with a concert, shows their tours all over the world and lets you buy concert tickets. Why not to integrate Songkick API to get access to events and allow users to find concert buddies through your app? Tastebuds has events feature on their website, but not yet in the app.

SPECIFYING MUSIC TASTES

Listing of user’s music tastes can be implemented in many ways. For instance, with Tastebuds you can import your music likes from Facebook and artists from Last.fm or type in the names of the bands yourself. The goal of Tastebuds is to let people meet offline, therefore they use your location and suggest people with similar music tastes near you.

The way moostify used to act in this direction was scanning your phone’s music library as the basis for building a music-focused profile.

MONETIZATION

Dating apps have lots of possibilities to monetize, as well as music streaming applications. Tastebuds is profitable through subscriptions of the premium offering, Backstage Pass. This offering allows to send unlimited messages, removes ads and lets you access incognito mode, which means you can visit profiles anonymously and hide your online status.

Once you have a big enough user base in your music dating app, you can monetize your product more effectively. But anyway, following in Tinder’s steps is a good idea. The app became so popular partly because it offered a completely free mobile dating service.