Tinder (app)
Tinder is a location-based dating and social discovery app that revolutionized the way people connect. Launched on September 12, 2012, by a team including Sean Rad and Whitney Wolfe, Tinder utilizes a unique swipe mechanism to facilitate interactions between users. By swiping right, users express interest in potential matches, while swiping left allows them to pass. If two users swipe right on each other, they can start messaging, fostering connections that range from casual encounters to more serious relationships. Originally targeting college students, Tinder gained immense popularity, registering over one billion swipes and twelve million matches daily by 2014.
The app requires users to connect their Facebook profiles, providing access to personal information that helps build user profiles. Although it initially offered only a free version supported by ads, Tinder Plus, introduced in 2015, allows for additional features like a "rewind" option to revisit previous profiles. While Tinder has been associated with a culture of casual dating and hook-ups, it has also made efforts to expand its appeal and address concerns about its reputation. Today, Tinder is used in over 196 countries and remains a significant cultural phenomenon, influencing online dating practices and attracting a diverse user base across various demographics.
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Tinder (app)
Tinder is a location-based dating and social discovery app that uses the social network Facebook to create communication between two interested people. This is done by the swipe mechanism, which is essential to Tinder’s design. Users are shown potential matches using the app’s algorithm, and are prompted to either swipe right to like a potential match, or to swipe left and move on to other profiles.
If both users swipe right on each other’s profiles, they are then able to message each other. Tinder is currently used in over 196 countries and requires users to connect their Facebook profile. This gives the Tinder app access to personal information used to build a profile from for users.
Overview
Tinder was first released on September 12, 2012. The company was founded by Sean Rad, Jonathan Badeen, Justin Mateen, Joe Munoz, Whitney Wolfe, and Chris Gylczynski, who all jointly came up with the idea for Tinder. Upon its release, Tinder was targeted to college students, with 90 percent of the user base at this time being in the eighteen to twenty-four demographic. Tinder originally used red and green buttons a user indicate whether another user was a match or not. Additionally, only a free version of the app featuring advertisements was available.
By October of 2014, the app was registering upwards of one billion swipes and over twelve million matches per day. As it became more of a cultural phenomenon, Tinder users were spending an hour and a half on the app on a daily basis. Tinder also pioneered ‘swipe functionality’ which is now used in many other mobile apps. In March 2015, the company premiered Tinder Plus, a paid subscription version of the app that features a "rewind" function that enables users to return to previously viewed profiles and change their swipe.
In contrast with older dating websites that use personality profiles and facilitate more traditional dating, Tinder is credited with perpetuating hook-up culture and further enabling a culture of casual sex. Tinder is often used to connect users with each other for the purposes of casual relationships. This has proven to be somewhat problematic, as according to a 2015 study from the Global Web Index, 42 percent of Tinder users were not single, according to data pulled from Facebook. These qualities of the app created a reputation for Tinder as a "shallow hookup platform." Tinder has been making efforts to shed this image by introducing Tinder Plus, among other things.
Tinder has a made huge splash in the online dating application world, with users running the gamut of age and demographics. It is widely considered a huge cultural phenomenon, and has been featured in many pop culture mediums. Tinder has gained much influence since its release, and is speculated to continue to grow as advertisers and brands become attracted to the platform.
Bibliography
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