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Tinder settles lawsuit over age discrimination
Mature romantics just caught a break. Tinder has settled a lawsuit accusing it of age discrimination for charging the 30-and-up crowd double to subscribe to its premium Tinder Plus service. The Match Group-owned brand will pay $17.25 million in cash and in-app features (such as $25 checks, Super Likes and Plus/Gold subscriptions) to users who had to pay $20 per month instead of the $10 offered to younger customers. Tinder will also have to stop charging general age-based rates in California, although it will have the option of discounting service for people 21 or younger.
Tinder co-founders sue parent company for $2 billion over deception
Three of Tinder's co-founders and several other current and former senior executives are suing the dating company's parent organizations, Match Group and IAC. According to a complaint published online, the lawsuit seeks billions of dollars in damages for allegedly manipulating financial information in order to reduce Tinder's valuation and illegally take away employees' stock options.
Hinge uses AI to suggest a 'most compatible' date every day
Now that dating giant Match owns Hinge, what's its first move? It's using a dash of AI to help you find a partner sooner. Hinge is trotting out a Most Compatible feature that uses machine learning and the Gale-Shapley algorithm (aka the "stable marriage" algorithm) to send daily recommendations for people who it thinks would be just as interested in you as you are with them. It's effectively a virtual matchmaker -- you might not have to spend ages swiping right on people who never swipe back, or participating in conversations that go nowhere.
Match Group buys Hinge on its way to dating dominance
Match Group, the company that owns Tinder, has bought a controlling stake in Hinge, which was redesigned to cater to individuals seeking relationships instead of the casual dating (and hookup) culture prevalent in other dating apps. This adds the 'anti-Tinder' to the company's collection of other online services OkCupid, PlentyOfFish and Match.com, adding to its already substantial dominance of the digital dating landscape.
Bumble sues Tinder's owners for stealing company secrets
Bumble isn't done swiping left on Tinder's parent company Match Group. After publishing an open letter excoriating Match, the women-focused dating app has filed a lawsuit against Tinder's owner, accusing it of stealing trade secrets, among other things. Match started the legal battle when it sued Bumble for allegedly violating its patents, but TechCrunch says this isn't Bumble's response to that lawsuit -- it's a separate one altogether. In the complaint, Bumble argued that the patent lawsuit is baseless but admitted that the two were discussing acquisition over the past few months.
Bumble ‘swipes left’ on Match Group’s lawsuit allegations
Match Group, which owns Tinder, Match.com and OKCupid, recently filed a lawsuit against Bumble, claiming that its rival violated two of its patents. Now Bumble has clapped back. In an open letter published on its website, Bumble says in no uncertain terms that it believes the lawsuit to be an extension of Match's ongoing attempts to acquire it and calls the lawsuit "baseless."
Tinder's parent company sues Bumble over patents
It's no secret that Tinder (or rather, its parent company Match Group) and Bumble are arch-rivals in the swipe-right dating app space, and that battle just escalated. Match Group has sued Bumble for allegedly violating two patents, one for the "ornamental" look of its app and another for the all-important swipe-based system. The Match team wasn't exactly subtle about its claims -- it asserted that Bumble (founded by former Tinder execs) explicitly copied Tinder's core formula with subtle variations on the same interface elements. However, the motivations behind the lawsuit might not be so clear cut.
Tinder opt-in feature would give women control over conversations
Tinder is taking a page out of Bumble's book and will soon give women the option to control the initiation of conversations, MarketWatch reports today. Bumble, helmed by Tinder co-founder Whitney Holfe Herd, has amassed some 22 million registered users and what sets it apart from other dating apps is that only women who use the app get to decide whether to start a conversation with a man they've matched with. Now, Mandy Ginsberg, CEO of Match Group -- which owns Match.com, OKCupid and Tinder -- says that Tinder will soon allow its women users to decide whether they want to have control over initiating conversations. Through a future app update, women will be able to opt in to the feature. "Often, women don't really want the pressure of kicking off the conversation, but if they want it, that's great," Ginsberg told MarketWatch. "Giving people the choice versus telling people how to engage is the big difference."
OKCupid unveils major overhaul to cull spam messages
OKCupid (OKC) realizes that it needs to evolve if it wants to stay relevant in the ever-changing online dating world. Specifically, it'll start retooling how messaging works very soon. Starting next week the only way you'll see messages from randoms is if you visit their profile page; the only messages that populate your inbox will be from people you've already liked or already responded to. Sure, there's the risk that you might not see a message from someone special, but if you've been proactive on the site that really shouldn't be an issue.
Over one million people swiped right for premium Tinder
According to Match Group, more than one million people have ponied up the $9.99 per month (or more, if you're over 30) for Tinder's premium service level in the first quarter of 2016. That figure is a relatively small portion of Tinder's 50 million global users, but there are still more than a million people out there whose app-based dating experience includes unlimited swipes, extra Super Likes and the ability to change their location to swipe from afar. If you want a robotic meat-swiper, however, you'll have to build one yourself.
Online love with OKCupid and Tinder peaks at 9 PM
OKCupid might send out email blasts telling you to log in during a rainstorm because that's when the site's apparently busiest in any given location, but Nielsen wants you to know when the best time is to log in, period. For the dating website, the uptick starts at 6 PM, peaks at 9 PM and falls off sharply starting at 10 PM according to The Huffington Post. Those rainy-night emails? In my case, they arrive just after 7 PM. Surprisingly, the more fling-favorable Tinder is busiest at the same times as OKCupid in terms of unique audience, with over 50 percent of users beginning their swipe-fests during primetime.
