It might not be an exaggeration to say that the internet has changed the way people look at basic needs in life. Maybe we can talk about a lot of auxiliary activities like booking cabs and buying the groceries, but it cannot be denied that it has also translated into the emotional side of life. One of the best implications of this transition is the growth and popularity of dating apps like Tinder.
Tinder is probably the Uber for matchmaking. It has gained so much of popularity in terms of usage and users that almost everyone understands what ‘swiping right’ is.
Tinder, much like any other on-demand service has globalized the dating phenomenon. It was founded by Sean Rad and Justin Mateen in 2012 and has seen unprecedented growth in the first few years of its creation. By 2014, Tinder had 50 million users. It is a commendable number considering the fact that Tinder only has a specific set of people as its customers unlike Facebook or any other social media platform.
Here is another fun fact about Tinder: the CEO of Tinder was dating the daughter of the founder of Dell, who he found on the very app he created!
The Monetization Model of Tinder
The revenue of Tinder lies in its premium services. Tinder uses the freemium model where users can access a set of limited services for free and will have to pay for any other additional services. Additional services include expanding the geographic scope, positioning your profile before anyone else’s and even giving additional super likes.
Other than the premium membership, Tinder also uses aspects like advertising and digital gifting to earn its revenues.
The fad associated with dating someone and the open-mindedness of people to break geographical and cultural barriers when it comes to dating has resulted in the growth of Tinder’s business. This has opened up a lot of opportunities for businesses to explore an app like Tinder. The demand for Tinder clones is on the rise. However, if you have to create a Tinder clone, you will need to understand the basic features of a mobile dating application.
Basic features of a dating app
- The app needs to facilitate a simple login. The login can be done using an email address, a phone number or a Facebook profile. A Facebook profile-based login is preferred because it not only gets the user into the app but also takes the basic information from the Facebook profile, making it easier for the app to use accurate user data. It also reduces the instances of fake profiles.
- Once the app is installed and the user logs in, the user will have to create a profile. The profile should contain basic information about users such as their name, their city of residence, their preferences in terms of their potential date and if possible, their likes and dislikes which might affect the chances of their date working out.
- The greatest revolution that Tinder brought about when it comes to dating apps – or apps in general – is by receiving selections by swipe actions. Until then, clicking on a particular button would have been the norm. However, with Tinder, an intuitive action started to become a process of selection. The app should feature a way to like or dislike a profile.
- Any dating app is bound to accrue a lot of users. The app user should have a facility to search for profiles based on certain attitudes like common friends, interests, and location.
To create a dating app, the above said features are enough. However, if you would like to advance your game to the next level, both in business and in dating, you will need to have a few additional features that would make your Tinder clone better than your competitors.
- Having a facility to integrate social media profiles with the app ensures that the users are genuine and save time in creating their profiles with useful and accurate information. Integrating social media profiles also shows mutual friends.
- Tinder is a little social media profile in itself. It features something called ‘shared moments’ that can be considered similar to Snapchat and Instagram stories. The number of likes on the shared moments gives a good idea on the social appeal of user’s activities.
All the features listed above make a great dating app better than a good dating app. However, if you were to believe like Google that great is not good enough, here are a few features that you can add to your Tinder clone.
- Image filters help to enhance photographs. If good photographs are the backbone of interaction on your dating app then it only makes sense for the app to provide a facility to enhance photographs.
- The world of dating is competitive! It is important to act fast. For this purpose, push notifications are essential. It would be good to know if there is a mutual like or if someone has interacted with your shared moments.
- Getting to know a matched person through a little chat would help in advancing your date to the next level. A private chat would be able to establish this communication. For premium users, chatting can be enabled even for communicating with people who have a mutually liked each other.
The Algorithm
It is quite known how difficult it is to find a date in real life. With a dating app, it is equally complicated! Apps like Tinder use a complicated algorithm to determine if a profile can be given preference over another.
- If a particular profile has gained a lot of matches and gets more views, the app deems this particular profile as being more attractive and it gets a higher preference.
- When the profile is connected to a social media account, the activities on social media equally influence the profile in terms of getting views. Parameters like mutual friends and the authenticity of the account are taken into consideration.
- Tinder tries to keep the app as clean as possible. It is a single user is logged in from multiple devices, it will try its best to find out if it is actually a person or a bot.
- The activities of the users also affect popularity. The freshness of the account, the movement of the users, and the changes to the profiles like adding a picture and creating a shared moment heavily influenced the visibility of a profile.
Creating an app like Tinder
Now that we have seen the essential features of creating a Tinder clone, all that is left to do is to create one! It requires an integrated understanding of technology, the market, and the users to create a perfect app like Tinder. With the right team of expert application developers, can help you create a perfect Tinder clone app. Well, given our track record, we are sure you will swipe right when it comes to working with us!
