Tinder users this month will have a new, far more interactive way of finding potential love interests than simply swiping left or right.
The app rolled out an apocalyptic-themed adventure game, called Swipe Night, which allows users to dictate what happens next in the story. The user's decisions will then match them with other like-minded players.
"It's entertaining but the core of it is that it is a way to tell something about yourself … And that becomes an icebreaker," said Elie Seidman, Tinder's CEO. The game is live on the app every Sunday evening in October. "You're in it. It's immersive. It's not a story, it's your story."
Founded in 2012 in Los Angeles, Tinder is one of the earliest location-based, smartphone dating apps and popularized the swiping feature, which is now widely used by other platforms such as Bumble. The app has now logged over 30 billion matches worldwide and reports two billion app views per day.
Swipe Night is Tinder's first responsive, streaming video feature and was built to specifically target Generation Z users, which make up over 50 percent of all users.
"We know Gen Z speaks in content, so we intentionally built an experience that is native to how they interact," Ravi Mehta, Tinder's chief product officer, said in a statement. "Our hope is that it will encourage new, organic conversations based on a shared content experience."
Over 25 million people in the U.S. currently use smartphone dating apps, according to eMarketer. The number of users is expected to grow by 5.3 percent this year, which is a slowdown compared to years prior. Yet the sector did gain a major new addition last month with the highly anticipated launch of Facebook Dating.
Tinder, however, continues to dominate the sector. In August, the app's parent company, Match Group ($MTCH), reported that the platform had 5.2 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2019, which marked a 1.5 million year-over-year increase.
Match Group, which took in nearly $500 million last quarter, also owns several other top dating platforms such as OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, and Hinge.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
