Tinder has updated its mobile applications to display more information on user profiles and offer a reorganized view of the messages sent through its service.
The updated profiles can now display a person’s job and education. Tinder says in a blog post that this was its most-requested feature, and that the addition will let users “make more informed choices” about potential matches and provide “great conversation starters” if both people confirm their interest in each other.
Tinder profiles now sport information about someone’s age, interests, and the social equivalent to a resumé in addition to photos collected from Instagram. The service is also introducing “smart profiles” to show users what they have in common with the individuals they encounter during their idle swiping sessions.
These additions support Tinder’s assertion that its service is used to meet people interested in relationships instead of — or in addition to — one-night stands. (More on the company’s insistence that it’s not a hookup service right here.) If anything, it now seems like a ‘Facebook for future friends.’
That contention is supported by the other update released today: A reorganized view of the messages Tinder users send to each other. The app now separates messages from people who have responded to each other (conversations) and messages that haven’t been responded to (introductions) into different sections.
Tinder users could use the service to message each other indefinitely. If they’re looking for platonic relationships, or if they end up making friends with people in whom they were romantically interested, they can use Tinder’s applications to communicate without having to worry about all the baggage Facebook carries.
Of course, that all depends on people adding information to their Tinder profiles and using the service to do something other than have one-night stands. The company says that’s how many of its users view the service; the perception of the app in popular culture, however, tells a different story about its users’ intentions.
These changes might help promote Tinder’s view of its service. They might also just make it easier for the app to make more money when people run out of swipes or decide to send a “super like” to indicate their desire to meet someone. Either way the company gets to use these new features to its own benefit.
Tinder update makes the service a romantic Facebook originally published by Gigaom, © copyright 2015.
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