Meet Tinder

03 September 2013

So yesterday lecture was our iPad seminar. To be honest, I did not expect the presentations would be that fun because the fact that most of students in the class are from SoC. Yeah you know I'm just kidding right :p. However, I think the strict policy of using Pecha Kucha style of presentation did work. It only makes the slides less boring by focusing on images instead of layers of bullet points, but also forces teams to come up with more creativity ways to deliver contents. I am also surprised that there are many great speakers in the class (e.g: Vishnu). Thank you all for bringing a good show :)

Back to the topic, Tinder is a mobile dating app released for iOS and Android platform. Let's see what makes Tinder as one of the best competitors in the digital dating market.

UI/UX

One of the features that makes Tinder stand out is its clean & intuitive UI. Just simple: swipe right to indicate your interest and swipe left to pass. The UI is kinda similar to a Hot or Not game or Mark Zuckerberg's Facemash, which is the predecessor of Facebook. Besides, other elements such as side views also contribute greatly to the modern feel and look of the app. I think UI/UX factor is extremely important in this type of app, and Tinder has apparently done a good job. Users just swipe to view profile pictures when they have nothing to do and automatically get notifications when mutual interests are matched.

Privacy

This one is big deal. Let's be honest, we do not want our friends to know that we are using a online dating site/app right ? I particularly like Tinder on this point. The app does not post or show anything on your Facebook, it just silently fetches your profile and pictures. Even within the app, friends can not see each other. You are totally a stranger in Tinder world, which is good :) Because of the privacy policy, people you see on Tinder actually know Tinder exists. They are actually present and playing the game as you. This makes hook up conversation a lot easier as we all know we use Tinder for the same reason ;)

However, there are reports that Tinder uses Facebook ID and exact distances directly in their API. This leaves a big hole in security as intruders could get other users' Facebook information or even track down the exact movements by spoofring their location serveral times to see how far they are. The security flaw certainly makes many potential users reluctant to use the app.

Passive e-commerce

To be precise, currently Tinder has no monetization strategy. It seems like they want to build a large user base first then hopefully be acquired. It is such a waste as almost all of their competitors (e.g: Momo) or other kinds of social network (Line, WeChat, etc) already established their ways to get money from users successfully. Sometimes, the lack of monetization leads to the limit of feature set. For example, they can launch premium subscription model to access more advanced features such as better matching filter instead of the current basic one with only sex/distance/age.

My two cents of thoughts

With the boom of social networks age, online dating market is becoming bigger and bigger. Reports say that the market already surpassed $1 billion. Mobile dating apps are shifting from some random games to complete mobile services.
In my opinion, one problem of Tinder is its over minimalism. Everything you can do with the app is swiping to check others' profile pictures and wait for mutual interest to happen. The app does not even show much information of other people, mostly just their profile pictures. For such a simple app, users tend to easily get bored if they do not have received any matching/interactions.
I think Tinder can have some great commercial methods which at the same time engages users' interactions. For example, they can build a gift system that let users buy virtual gifts (rose, ring, ..) and send directly to whom they feel interested. It could be a new way for users to start new conversations. Surely, Tinder can make money from that.
I still believe in the growth of Tinder as one of the leading in mobile dating market. However, I do think they are wasting some opportunities due to the mindset of being acquired as first priority.

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