Dating giant Match Group announced a series of changes to Tinder’s management team alongside the announcement of disappointing second-quarter earnings on Tuesday. Notably, Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg will be departing the company after less than a year in the top job. Match Group is also killing Tinder’s plans to adopt new technology, like virtual currencies and metaverse-based dating.
In a shareholder letter, Match Group CEO Bernard Kim expressed frustration with Tinder’s current performance, noting the popular dating app has not been able to realize its typical monetization success over the past few quarters and is failing to meet the company’s original expectations for revenue growth for the latter half of 2022.
Kim chalked up Tinder’s troubles to “disappointing execution on several optimizations and new product initiatives,” but added that Tinder’s product execution and velocity could still be improved.
Alongside the departure of Nyborg, Tinder will have a reorganized management team that also includes:
Faye Iosotaluno, formerly Match Group’s chief strategy officer, as Tinder’s COO
Mark van Ryswyk, as Tinder’s chief product officer. Ryswyk is an experienced gaming executive who joined the company in June.
Melissa Hobley, formerly OkCupid’s CMO, as Tinder’s chief marketing officer
Tom Jacques, as Tinder’s chief technology officer. An 11-year Match Group veteran, he has been Tinder’s CTO for the last five years.
Advisor Amarnath Thombre. The current CEO of Match Group Americas and 15-year Match Group veteran will advise the Tinder management team on product roadmap and growth.
Kim said he will oversee the team while Tinder searches for a permanent CEO.
Reading between the lines, there was also a hint that the younger generation of users may have lost its appetite for dating apps like Tinder — a culture shift which can’t just be chalked up to lingering pandemic impacts. The letter notes that people have moved past COVID lockdowns and re-entered “a more normal way of life,” but their willingness to try online dating apps for the first time hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels.
Instead, Match Group reports that its highest engagement is now coming from existing users.
As part of Tinder’s revamp, its “dating metaverse” ambitions have been dramatically scaled back. The company had been planning to leverage its Hyperconnect acquisition to create a new form of online dating in a virtual environment, but those ideas are on pause as Match Group now has to address broader issues.
“…Given uncertainty about the ultimate contours of the metaverse and what will or won’t work, as well as the more challenging operating environment, I’ve instructed the Hyperconnect team to iterate but not invest heavily in metaverse at this time,” wrote Kim. “We’ll continue to evaluate this space carefully, and we will consider moving forward at the appropriate time when we have more clarity on the overall opportunity and feel we have a service that is well-positioned to succeed.”
Also on the chopping block was virtual currency, which Match Group was experimenting with as Tinder Coins. (While Match Group hadn’t gotten so far as to announce blockchain integrations for the coins, the virtual currency’s role in its broader metaverse plans suggested crypto could be part of its long-term roadmap.)
“After seeing mixed results from testing Tinder Coins, we’ve decided to take a step back and re-examine that initiative so that it can more effectively contribute to Tinder’s revenue,” said Kim. “We also intend to do more thinking about virtual goods to ensure that they can be a real driver for Tinder’s next leg of growth and help us unlock the untapped power users on the platform,” he added.
The company says it’s still planning to develop features to make Tinder more appealing to women, including a subscription-based package that will provide “curated recommendations” as well as features designed to get friends involved in introductions. Across other products, it will also look to new features, like livestreaming video, to drive adoption.
Overall, Match posted Q2 2022 revenue of $795 million, up 12% year-over-year, but below average Wall Street estimates of $804.22 million. It also posted a loss of $31.86 million, or 11 cents per share, versus 46 cents in the year-ago quarter. Analysts were expecting earnings of 57 cents per share. Match said its operating loss was $10 million, impacted by a $217 million write-down of intangibles related to lower financial outlooks for its Azar and Hakuna apps from Hyperconnect.
Match Group paying users were up 10% year-over-year to 16.4 million. Tinder direct revenue grew 13% from the prior quarters, driven by 14% growth to 10.9 million paying users.
Image Credits: Match Group
Estimates for the quarter ahead weren’t good either, with Match Group forecasting flat Q3 growth to $790 million to $800 million in revenue, below estimates of $883 million. Tinder revenue growth is expected to be in the “mid single digits.”
Shares dropped more than 20% in after-hours trading on the news.
Updated 8/2/22, 6:00 pm ET to clarify Tinder had not formally announced blockchain integrations for Tinder’s virtual currency.
Tinder to kill virtual currency, metaverse plans amid Match Group earnings loss; Tinder loses its CEO
Архив рубрики: dating
Bumble is planning to expand further into social networking with a new communities feature
Dating platform Bumble is looking to enhance its non-dating social features with a further investment into its Bumble BFF feature, first launched in 2016. This friend-finding feature currently uses the same swiped-based mechanics to connect people looking for platonic relationships but will soon expand to include social networking groups where users can connect with one another based on topics and interests, not just via “matches.”
TechCrunch heard Bumble was venturing more into the social networking space, and Bumble recently hinted at this development during its first-quarter earnings, announced this month.
On the earnings call, the company referenced a Bumble BFF “alpha test” that had been performing well.
It described the test as offering new ways for “people to discover and get to know each other around shared joys and common struggles.” Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd added that, so far, over 40% of “active BFF users” were engaging with the new experiences being tested and the feature’s one-month retention was upward of 75%.
Bumble didn’t, however, describe the product in much detail, beyond noting it offered a “new group format” for networking.
Reached for further insights, product intelligence company Watchful had additional information. It had uncovered screenshots showing a women-focused “social groups” feature.
There were around 30 different topics available, including things like “Women in Business,” “Networking + mentoring,” “Finding fulfillment,” “Mental health,” “Working moms,” “Body positivity,” “Self care,” “Eating well,” “Grad students,” “Money management,” “Building a better world,” “Recent grads,” “Women’s empowerment,” “Mom life,” “Breakups suck,” “Single not alone,” “Workouts,” “Study hacks + motivation,” “Path to parenthood,” “Pet Parents,” “Wanderlust” and others.
Users could join the groups and create multimedia posts or reply to existing posts, similar to a threaded group chat or lightweight networking product. The topics, so far, seem to cater to a slightly broader crowd than just “young adults,” given there were groups for students as well as working moms.
Bumble confirmed to us this is the same feature that was being discussed during its earnings.
“We are currently testing new product features in our Bumble BFF community for a small number of people. We are assessing feedback from this test to help inform our final product decisions,” a Bumble spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Image Credits: Bumble screenshot via Watchful
On the call, Wolfe Herd had also suggested the new BFF feature could potentially help Bumble generate revenue further down the road.
“We are very focused on the product, building the ecosystem, the communities and really going into this new group format and testing the functionalities that we’ve been hard at work building,” Wolfe Herd said. “As we look to revenue in the future from BFF, there are really multiple pillars of opportunity — and one of them would be advertising,” she continued.
“We will be looking at baking in functionalities to be greater economy efficient or advertising ready for the future but not to expect any near-term revenue from that,” the exec had noted.
Image Credits: Bumble screenshot via Watchful
Originally, the Bumble BFF feature had been designed to help Bumble serve its growing audience of younger singles, who were often looking for new friends to hang out with, not just date. The company had explained at the time of its 2016 launch that it got the idea not only based on user feedback but also because it observed people using its dating app to make friends — particularly when they had just moved to a new city or were visiting a place for a limited time, like on vacation.
Bumble BFF also allowed the company to leverage some of the same technology it was using to create romantic matches — algorithms based on interests, for example — and put them to use for helping users forge platonic connections.
But in the years following its launch, friend-finding has spun out to become its own app category of sorts, particularly among the younger Gen Z demographic who’s more inclined to socially “hang out” online, including through live video, audio and chat-based groups. Snapchat’s platform apps are a good example of this trend in action, as is Gen Z livestreaming app Yubo. Then there was dating giant Match Group’s biggest-ever acquisition with last year’s $1.73 billion deal for Hyperconnect, a company that had been more focused on social networking than dating.
In addition, dedicated social experiences have sprung up to serve Bumble’s core demographic of young, professional women including the motherhood-focused Peanut app; leadership network for professional women, Chief; creator platform for women, Sunroom; female college influencer network 28 Row; community-focused Hey! Vina; and others.
Combined, these factors could create trouble for Bumble, particularly if younger Gen Z users are less inclined to adopt traditional swipe-based dating apps — or, when they do, it’s more to just meet new people, not partners.
Of these, Peanut seems to have more overlap with what Bumble is building — which is interesting, too, since Peanut was founded by former Badoo deputy CEO Michelle Kennedy who brought her understanding of dating app concepts to online socializing. (Today, Bumble, Inc. operates Bumble, Badoo and its latest acquisition Fruitz.) Now, Peanut’s concepts are making their way back to Bumble.
Asked for thoughts on this latest development, Kennedy said it “completely validates the market” that Peanut has been working in for many years — particularly as the current groups spotted had been women focused.
“It’s something that we’ve always believed in. We’ve always known that it’s a huge opportunity. We’ve always seen that. And for Bumble to say, ‘yeah, we agree.’ Huge! Couldn’t be happier,” she said.
Bumble has not said when it expects to launch the social features to the general public.
The company just posted a strong Q1 where it reported $211.2 million in revenue, higher than the consensus estimate of $208.3 million and a 7.2% increase in paying users in the quarter. Bumble’s forecast for its fiscal year 2022 revenue is expected to be in the range of $934-$944 million, higher than previously estimated.
Bumble is planning to expand further into social networking with a new communities feature
Tinder makes it easier to report bad actors using ‘unmatch’ to hide from victims
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Last month, Bumble introduced a new feature that would prevent bad actors from using the dating app’s “unmatch” feature to hide from victims. Now Tinder has done something similar. The company announced on Friday it will soon roll out an update to its app that will make it easier for users to report someone who has used the unmatch feature in an effort to get away with their abuse. But in Tinder’s case, it’s only making it easier for users to learn how to report the violation, rather than giving the victims a button in the chat interface to report the abuse more directly.
Tinder notes that users have always been able to report anyone on the app at any time — even if the person had used the unmatch feature. But few users likely knew how to do so, as there weren’t obvious explanations in the app’s user interface about how to report a chat after it disappeared.
With the update, Tinder says it will soon add its “Safety Center” shield icon within the Match List, where the chats take place. This will direct users to the Safety Center in the app, where they can learn how to report users who aren’t displayed on the Match List because they used the unmatch feature.
Image Credits: Tinder
The updates to both Tinder and Bumble came about following an investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which found that 48 out of 231 survey respondents who had used Tinder said they had reported other users for some kind of sexual offense. But only 11 of those reports had received any replies, and even fewer offered specific information about what was being done.
The story had also explained how bad actors would take advantage of the dating app’s “unmatch” feature to hide from their victims. After unmatching, their chat history would disappear from the victim’s phone, which would have allowed the user to more easily report the abuse to Tinder or even to law enforcement, if needed.
Though Tinder was the focus of the story, Bumble quickly followed up to say it was changing how unmatching on its app would work. Instead of having the chat disappear when unmatched, Bumble users are now shown a message that says the other person has ended the chat. Here, they’re given the option to also either delete the chat or report it.
Bumble’s new feature prevents bad actors from using ‘unmatch’ to hide from their victims
The ability to report the chat directly from the messaging inbox is what makes Bumble’s solution more useful. Tinder, on the other hand, is just redirecting users to what’s essentially its help documentation — the Tinder Safety Center — to learn how to go about making such a report. The addition of this extra step could end up being a deterrent to making these reports, as it’s less straightforward than simply clicking a button that reads “Report.”
Tinder also didn’t address the other issues raised by the investigation, which said many reports lacked follow-up or clear information about what actions Tinder was taking to address the issues.
Instead, the company says that it will continue to acknowledge when reports are received to let the member making the report know an appropriate action will be taken. Tinder added it will also direct users to trained resources for crisis counseling and survivor support; remove accounts if it finds account holders have been reported for violent crimes; and will continue to work with law enforcement on investigations, when required. These actions, however, should be baseline features for any dating app, not points of pride.
Tinder stressed, too, that it would not remove the unmatch feature, which is necessary for safety and privacy of its members. That seems to miss the point of what users’ complaints were about. Tinder users were not angry or concerned that an unmatching feature existed in the first place, but that it was being used by bad actors to avoid repercussions for their abuse.
The company didn’t say precisely when the changes to the dating app would roll out, beyond the “coming weeks.”
Today, Tinder’s parent company also announced a partnership with RAINN, a large anti-sexual violence organization, to conduct “a comprehensive review of sexual misconduct reporting, moderation, and response across Match Group’s dating platforms” and “to work together to improve current safety systems and tools.”
The organization will review Tinder, Hinge and Plenty of Fish to determine what best practices should be. Match says the partnership begins today and will continue through 2021.
“Every person deserves safe and respectful experiences, and we want to do our part to create safer communities on our platforms and beyond,” said Tracey Breeden, head of Safety and Social Advocacy for Match Group, in a statement. “By working together with courageous, thought-leading organizations like RAINN, we will up level safety processes and strengthen our responses for survivors of sexual assault. Safety challenges touch every corner of society. We are committed to creating actionable solutions by working collaboratively with experts to innovate on meaningful, industry-led safety approaches,” she added.
Face to Face, Tinder’s opt-in video chat feature, is now rolling out globally
Tinder makes it easier to report bad actors using ‘unmatch’ to hide from victims
Tinder now testing video chat in select markets, including US
Tinder announced this morning it will begin to test video chat in its mobile dating app with some members in select worldwide markets, including in the U.S. The feature, which allows Tinder matches to go on “virtual” dates when both opt in, will first be available to users in Virginia, Illinois, Georgia and Colorado in the U.S., as well as in Brazil, Australia, Spain, Italy, France, Vietnam, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Peru and Chile, also with some members.
Parent company Match had first promised it would introduce video chat in Tinder as part of its Q1 2020 earnings report and touted the feature as a way Tinder was evolving its business in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. The company had also then detailed the pandemic’s impact on its app, which had slowed Tinder user growth in the quarter as social distancing requirements and government lockdowns went into effect.
Tinder ended Q1 with 6 million subscribers, up from 5.9 million in December 2019 — meaning it only added 100,000 paid subscribers during the quarter. For comparison, in the year-ago quarter it added 384,000 paid users. Tinder’s average revenue per user (ARPU) also grew just 2%, mainly due to purchases of à la carte features, not subscriptions.
Tinder parent Match says it had tested video at various times before the COVID-19 outbreak, but said it never saw significant adoption. The pandemic has changed things, however. Today, Tinder allows users to search for matches worldwide through its Passport feature, making its dating app more of a social network. Meanwhile, Tinder users who do want to date now feel almost forced to use video for their early interactions instead of going on briefer “getting to know you” coffee or drink dates, as before.
Without a video option in the app, these users often turned to third-party apps like Snapchat or other video chat apps for these early connections. Meanwhile, daters who prioritized a video option may have even made the switch to rival Bumble, which has offered video for a year. Facebook also recently said it would add video for its Facebook Dating users, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, forcing Tinder’s hand.
Image Credits: Tinder
The new feature itself is simple to use. Once two people have matched and are chatting in the app, they can indicate they’re ready to move to a video session by tapping the new video icon. The clever part is that the feature itself isn’t enabled until both matches opt in. The company notes that Tinder users won’t be informed if a match toggles on the video chat feature. The idea is to wait until the discussion comes up naturally, as it often does in a text-based chat.
When both users have toggled on video chat, they have to agree to ground rules before the chat begins. Tinder says calls should remain “PG,” with no nudity or sexual content. The chats are also supposed to stay “clean,” meaning no harassment, hate speech, violence or other illegal activities. Users also agree calls will need to be age-appropriate, meaning without minors involved.
The feature, which Tinder calls “Face to Face,” is enabled on a match-by-match basis, not universally for all matches.
How exactly Tinder plans to properly moderate what appears to be a fantastic new solicitation platform remains less clear. In addition, Tinder’s move to embrace video means it could be putting sex offenders in front of the camera. As an investigative report last year from ProPublica found, most of the Match-owned dating apps, including Tinder, were not screening for sexual predators.
For now, Tinder says users are asked to review the call when it wraps.
In a pop-up, users who finish a video call will be asked whether they would go Face to Face again. Here, they’ll also have the option to report the user, if needed. These sorts of retroactive rating systems don’t do much for anyone who feels unsafe in the moment, of course, and it’s not clear to what extent Tinder will step in to police calls in progress.
Asked for specifics, Tinder declined to share. (In an earlier report, Tinder CEO Elie Seidman suggested Tinder would use machine learning models to monitor chats.)
Also unclear is to what extent Tinder would step into to stop what may otherwise be consensual sexual activity, including of the paid variety.
Tinder doesn’t seem worried about these off-brand use cases for video chat, however. It says it recently surveyed around 5,000 members in the U.S. and around half of them have already had video dates with a match off its platform over the past month, indicating a willingness to try video for online dating. In addition, 40% of Gen Z members said they wanted to keep using video as an initial step before agreeing to meet in real life, even when places like restaurants and bars were re-opened.
“Connecting face-to-face is more important than ever, and our video chat feature represents a new way for people to get to know one another in-app no matter their physical distance,” said Rory Kozoll, head of Trust and Safety Products at Tinder, in a statement about the launch. “Face to Face prioritizes control to help our members feel more comfortable taking this next step in chats if and when it feels right for them. We’ve built a solid foundation, and look forward to learning from this test over the coming weeks,” Kozoll added.
The feature is launching in testing only starting today, in select markets.
Tinder now testing video chat in select markets, including US
Facebook to launch ‘virtual dating’ over Messenger for Facebook Dating users
Facebook will soon allow users to go on “virtual dates,” the company announced today. The social network is planning to introduce a new video calling feature that will allow users of its Facebook Dating service to connect and video call over Messenger, as an alternative to going on a real-world date. This sort of feature is much in demand amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced people to stay home and practice social distancing.
But for online dating apps, which aim to connect people in the real world, it’s a significant challenge for their business.
For the time being, government lockdowns have limited the places where online daters could meet up for their first date. Restaurants, malls, bars and other retail establishments are closed across regions impacted by the coronavirus outbreak. But even when those restrictions lift, many online dating app users will be wary of meeting up with strangers for those first-time, getting-to-know-you dates. Video chat offers a safer option to explore potential connections with their matches.
When the new Facebook Dating feature goes live, online daters will be able to invite a match to a virtual date. The recipient can either choose to accept or decline the offer via a pop-up that appears.
If they accept, the Facebook Dating users will be connected in a video chat powered by Facebook Messenger in order to get to know one another.
As the feature is still being developed, Facebook declined to share more specific details about how it will work, in terms of privacy and security features.
Facebook is not the first online dating service to pivot to video as a result of the pandemic. But many rival dating apps were adopting video features well before the coronavirus struck, as well.
Bumble, for example, has offered voice and video calling in its app for roughly a year. The feature there works like a normal phone call or Apple’s FaceTime. However, users don’t have to share their phone number or other private information, like an email address, which makes it safer.
The company says use of the feature has spiked over the last two months as users embrace virtual dating.
Meanwhile, Match Group has more recently rolled out video across a number of the dating apps it operates.
This month, the Match app added video chat that allows users who have already matched to connect over video calls. Match-owned Hinge also rolled out a “Dating from Home” prompt and is preparing its own live video date feature, as well, Match says. Plenty of Fish (PoF), another Match property, launched live-streaming in March, giving singles a new way to hang out with friends and potential matches.
Match Group’s flagship app Tinder has not yet embraced live video dates, but still offers a way for users to add video to their profiles. The company couldn’t comment on whether or not video dating was in the works for Tinder, but in the post-COVID era, it would be almost bizarre to not offer such feature.
Other dating apps have also launched video dating, including eHarmony and a number of lesser-known dating apps hoping to now gain traction for their video dating concepts.
Facebook says the feature will roll out in the months ahead and will be available everywhere Facebook Dating is available.
Facebook to launch ‘virtual dating’ over Messenger for Facebook Dating users