Tinder will add one-on-one video chats this summer
Match Group says it's deploying the feature, because daters are showing a "strong willingness to video-date."
More and more dating apps are offering video chat as a way to get to know potential dates, and Tinder wants to make sure it doesn’t fall behind. In its earnings press release, Tinder owner Match Group has revealed that the application plans to launch one-to-one live video chats later this quarter. It remains to be seen if the coronavirus pandemic will affect that target date: The company says Tinder’s product roadmap for the year “largely remains on track,” but it all depends “on how the crisis continues to unfold.”
“As daters demonstrated strong willingness to video-date,” Match Group wrote in its release, “our product and engineering teams around the world mobilized quickly to deploy one-to-one video chat capabilities on many of our platforms.”
As The Verge notes, video chat would be one of the app’s biggest feature launches. It’s a huge undertaking for Tinder, seeing as it has as many as 50 million users worldwide who would potentially use the feature to talk to matches before meeting them in person. In addition to dealing with the technical aspect of the feature, Tinder may also have to deploy new safety measures tailored for video chats.
In addition to announcing the upcoming feature, Match Group has revealed that it’s “seen a noticeable increase in activity among users, especially those under the age of 30, across all of [its] brands and all geographies” since the outbreak. Users have also been sending more messages and engaging in longer conversations, which doesn’t exactly come as a surprise considering most people are staying at home.
