Tinder is par excellence the reference application when it comes to online dating. During the last years it has cultivated great success, even becoming an element of the popular culture of this generation.
This success was intended to be materialized by Match Group, its parent company, in a more complete and complex experience, involving virtual currencies and dating based on metaverses. However, these plans were truncated by a reorganization of the company’s executive staff.
Tinder slowed its growth, resigned its CEO and suspended plans related to the metaverse
Starting this week, Tinder reported its earnings for the most recent quarter, which despite being 12% higher than last year, did not beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations. Faced with this, the executive director of Tinder, Renate Nyborg, announced her resignation from the company less than a year after assuming the position. Amid this scenario, Match Group announced the suspension of its plans to adopt new technologies in Tinder, such as virtual currencies and metaverse-based dating.
Match Group CEO Bernard Kim expressed to company shareholders his frustration with Tinder’s current performance, noting that the popular dating app has failed to achieve its usual monetization success in recent quarters, falling short of expectations. company revenue growth.
Kim attributed Tinder’s problems to “disappointing execution of various optimizations and new product initiatives”, but also expressing that execution and speed of the Tinder product can still be improved.
With Nyborg’s resignation, Tinder’s board of directors has been completely reconfigured, and it is still waiting for a new CEO to take over the role permanently. In the meantime, this management team will be supervised by Kim.
Tinder’s ambitions with the metaverse began after the acquisition of Hyperconnect in february 2021, whose platform was intended to be used to create new virtual dating experiences. However, the chances of these ideas materializing faded after this situation.
“Given the uncertainty over the final contours of the metaverse and what will or won’t work, as well as the more challenging operating environment, I have instructed the Hyperconnect team to iterate but not invest heavily in the metaverse at this time.”Kim wrote. “We will continue to evaluate this space carefully and consider moving forward at an appropriate time when we have more clarity on the overall opportunity and feel we have a service that is well positioned to succeed.”, he added.
Also, the Tinder virtual currency project, which did not progress enough to know more details about it, was put on hold. “After seeing mixed results when testing Tinder Coins, we decided to take a step back and re-examine that initiative so that it can more effectively contribute to Tinder revenue,” Kim said. “We also intend to think more about virtual goods to ensure they can be a real driver for Tinder’s next stage of growth and help us unlock untapped power users on the platform.”commented the CEO of Match Group.
The company continues to explore new possibilities to add features that enrich the experience of using Tinder. However, the economic decline that affects the company, beyond the global financial situation, could respond to the change in society’s habits, today registered a long time after the confinements due to the pandemic.
