Badoo had the pleasure of attending the Global Dating Insights Conference on Thursday the 26th of September in London, where we heard from industry leaders on what the future holds for dating apps.
Surprising no one, dating apps are continuing to enjoy growing numbers of downloads. New technology is allowing for deeper connections, new ways of communicating, and new relationships in ways we haven’t seen before.
How Online Dating Has Changed:
Since online dating began in the 1990s, we’ve seen a staggering amount of technological change that has enabled more people to meet and date than ever before.
Smartphones and apps have allowed for location-based matches, sophisticated matchmaking algorithms have linked people who might otherwise never have met, and video chat has allowed users to see what people are like before going out to meet them in the real world.
Thanks to new innovations, dating apps are going to further enhance and expand our dating opportunities, while improving our overall dating experience.
How Dating Apps Are Changing:
Apps Are Creating More Offline Experiences
Dating apps exist to get people together in real life. Many apps focus on the initial match between two users, and then leave it to them to meet up. Some apps are going above and beyond this, facilitating real dates in the real world. [link to Jade Savage blog].
Since everyone on dating apps are looking to meet someone, it only makes sense that these apps would make an effort to get their users off their phones and on a real date.
Going from an online to chat to a genuine experience in the world is something that apps will continue to encourage, by hosting events and creating content that people can use in their own lives.
Dating App Safety Needs To Change
User safety is a priority for any dating app. Despite numerous safety features, there is still more work to do in the dating space to ensure that users can stay safe while online dating, since only 18% of dating app users report dangerous or abusive behaviour.
So how can dating apps tackle toxic behaviours on their platforms?
Toxic Behaviours Must Be Outlined
Apps will start taking a stronger stance on user behaviour. This starts with outlining codes of conduct, and being clear about exactly what constitutes unacceptable behaviour or language on their platforms.
Recognise Harmful Activity And Its Impact
If users are hesitant to report troubling behaviour, apps must take it upon themselves to find ways to detect, track, and deal with this kind of behaviour.
Establish Policies Governing Behaviour With Serious Consequences
From there, apps must have clear policies in place that outline what behaviour is and isn’t acceptable, and what users can expect should they violate those policies.
Safety Must Be Encoded Into Platforms By Design
Nothing is going to get better if apps approach safety as an afterthought. Safety needs to be built into the product by design, it must be present in every element of the app, a robust and consistent feature that actively helps the users.
AI can scan through messages and detect certain phrases, and immediately flag them for moderation.
As this technology becomes more sophisticated, we’ll likely see more algorithms set up to keep us safe from malicious or abusive users.
Facebook Dating Is Set To Shake Up The Online Dating Industry
Online giant Facebook is set to disrupt the dating industry, with its new feature: Facebook dating.
The new service is enabled thanks to Facebook’s huge amount of data that it has on pretty much all of us, and will allow people to find out if their friends have a ‘secret crush’ on them, only if they are both interested in each other.
One insight that was most interesting was that, with Facebook dating, Facebook will now have a complete feedback loop of its users’ relationship lifecycles. Facebook will know when two users begin chatting, when they go on a date together, when they start dating, and when they break up.
This will give them unprecedented levels of insight into their users, and their users’ love lives.
Other dating apps strive to learn as much as they can about their users, to give them the best experience and provide them with the most compatible matches.
We may see that people want to keep their romantic relationships and their friendships separate. Only time will tell if Facebook’s new venture is successful, or if people continue to use dating apps that have been in business for years.
New Technology And Data Is Bringing People Together
For a large amount of people in the world today, dating apps are the way they meet people. Bumble alone has seen over a billion first moves made on the platform.
Dating apps produce vast amounts of data, and that data is used to further refine the algorithms that power the apps. This means more matches, of higher quality.
Women Have Dating App Fatigue
Women on dating apps match with dozens or hundreds of people every day across different platforms. While it can be fun to receive so much attention, eventually this gives way to fatigue, trawling through matches trying to find a single meaningful or exciting connection.
Apps should counter this by providing female-centric features that give them the power to cut through the noise and meet people who they can start something special with.
People Want Deeper, Genuine Connections
One thing that was common throughout every talk at the conference was that everyone, on every app is looking for authenticity.
Dating apps have allowed for us to meet new people at an unprecedented rate, but now most users are looking for something more substantial. Apps need to recognise this, and support users in their search for human connections.
