There is a new dating app in the market and it's called Hinge. This new matchmaking app aims to get singles into real romantic relationships- more than featuring a stream of the profile photos.
Hinge has worked one year on finding better ways to approach online dating. On Tuesday, finally, Hinge reveals its finished product which they described as a "relationship app" instead of the a "dating app", setting their product from the other common online services in the market.
"The whole thing was designed around matching you with more and more people," Justin McLeod told Fortune. "No one's really invested in the experience, people are flaky, they're there for all kinds of reasons."
Early in 2015, Hinge has already released a few ideas as far as online dating is concerned. Nancy Jo Sales confirmed in a feature for Vanity Fair, September issue with an article titled, "Tinder and Dawn of the 'Dating Apocalypse." Sales, in this article described the courtship and dating trends of this generation as turning into mindless games. This culture according to her article has been encouraged by dating apps like Tinder and Hinge.
"We realized this model was more fundamentally flawed and you can't fix it with a timer," explained McLeod about the initial features they have experimented with Hinge. The feature included making connections to a number of people with an expiration date or being able to add personal information to each user's profile.
With the new and updated app, Hinge now allows fewer profile pictures and information. A typical user's profile now only includes likes and hobbies. These information are displayed like a timeline of photos and facts about them.
According to the Hinge team, the main goal is to represent the user with more depth rather than just photos.
In order to start a conversation with a user, you have to "like" or leave a comment on only one element (either a photo or an interest) in the user's profile. The user then now decided whether to click the "Connect" Button that pops up- therefor initiating a chat.
McLeod describes connecting in Hinge like a "digital pickup line". The team further hopes that users will match the intentions of the app with sensible interactions.
