A week to Valentine’s Day: Tinder set to add new features to filter matches, photo and text prompts

Following Bumble’s footsteps, Tinder is all ready to add new tools to filter matches by more than just age and distance as it has been doing so far.

Following Bumble’s footsteps, Tinder is all ready to add new tools to filter matches by more than just age and distance as it has been doing so far. (Tinder)

Following Bumble's footsteps, Tinder is all ready to add new tools to filter matches by more than just age and distance as it has been doing so far. Tinder's parent company, Match Group, have announced plans to expand the app's filtering capabilities along with other updates like a new social engagement feature. The upcoming international launch of Tinder's interactive in-app experience called Swipe Night is also scheduled.

Tinder has not revealed too many details about how the new filters are going to work but they have said that there would be both free and paid options available. Bumble had two filters for free when they launched them and to access more options one would need to pay. Tinder might laos follow this model.

"We…want to make the utility of Tinder better and more efficient," explained outgoing Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg. Ginsberg recently announced that she was stepping down from her position after 14 years with the company.

"We'll be introducing features to give members more control over their experience. Tinder U is an example of this type of feature, where we enable users to limit their matches only to other college students. It was well-received, particularly with female users. We believe there's an opportunity to introduce both free and paid features to enhance the experience," Ginsberg added.

Tinder U was launched in 2018 to give college students a way to limit their matches to other students at their school. However, college students are not the only ones who might want to limit their matches. Dating apps often accommodate this by the use of filters that lets you specify factors like religion, relationship type, educational background, political leaning, family plans, drinking and drug use and even body type and height.

It is not clear yet if Tinder plans to filter users by these specific options, like OkCupid (OKC) or Bumble allows.

Over all this dating and dating app experience it has not been proven than using filters will deliver you better matches or not. But these filters are much in demand and many users think they are worth paying for as well. And that fits right into Tinder's strategy of finding new ways to monetise that platform.

Tinder has done well on that front. It generated a whopping $1.2 billion in revenue in 2019 driven by its in-app purchases and premium subscriptions. Overall, the Match Group made $2.1 billion in 2019 across a suite of dating apps that includes OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, Hinge and others besides Tinder.

Tinder will also be rolling out a new social engagement feature which is being described as a way for users to "express themselves and show their interests". This, the company believes, is important for the Gen Zs.

Based on the screenshot provided to TechCrunch these appear to involve a set of text and photo prompts that encourage people to be more thoughtful with their conversations. For example, prompts may include things like: "a life goal of mine is…", "a social cause I care about is…," "biggest risk I've ever taken is…", "best travel story…", "believe it or not I…," and so on.

Match Group's latest acquisition, Hinge, has been using a similar set of prompts to help users craft more engaging profiles that showcased their personality and not just their looks. We are not sure if Tinder is going to go that way or not.

These prompts are, however, expected to arrive by Q1 2020.

Tinder has also confirmed that its in-app, choose-your-own-adventure style story called Swipe Night will roll out in 10 new markets this quarter, across parts of Europe and Asia. Tinder had previously announced international plan for Swipe Night after "the US launch was viewed by millions of users and led to double-digit increases in matches and messages".

Besides these, Tinder seems to have a whole lot of other plans for 2020 including some in the area of "à la carte options".

These options will "give Tinder users, especially power users, more advantages and benefits".

"On a platform such as games, you pay for advantages and it lends itself more to a consumable pay model. Up until about three years ago, we had only pay-for-access subscription models on most of our platforms. Then we started experimenting with a couple of pay-for-advantage features, on Tinder particularly. And they've done really well and they already contribute north of 25% of our direct revenue," explained Match Group President Shar Dubey, soon to be Match Group CEO.

"So we think we have a real opportunity to do more on the pay-for-advantage area and hence the focus on à la carte," Dubey said.

Tinder also highlighted "its recent investment in new safety features, powered by Noonlight, and said this rollout would be Tinder's main focus in the first half of 2020".