Tinder branches out with launch of social planning feature

Tinder Social lets users make plans with Facebook friends, then find other groups to hang out with

Tinder made its name as a dating app, but it has been clear that the company sees itself as something much bigger than that. After all, it sees 26 million matches made a day, and has connected over 1 billion people. There are a whole host of ways that people want to connect with each other outside of only, well... you know what people mostly use Tinder for. 

The company has decided to turn itself into something of a social planning app with the launch Tinder Social on Thursday. It calls the feature "a new platform that helps you plan your night out."

Basically, you can now use Tinder to find what your friends as up to, as well as other people with similar plans who want to hang out, without the pressure, or expectation, of having it lead to anything more. 

"Tinder has always been about getting you out of the house to meet someone new. But sometimes you want more than a party of two. Often your best nights are when you’re hanging with friends, someone makes an unexpected connection with someone in another crew, and your two crews have an amazing time together. Maybe you spark a romantic connection. Maybe you make new friends. Either way, a good night out with your friends becomes something better," the company wrote.

Tinder has been looking to expand beyond being only a dating app. In March, when it bought Humin, a contextual relationship and contact management platform, that team was put in charge of an unnamed "new product initiative," which sounded like it might have to do with connecting people outside of a potential romantic situation. That product was most likely Tinder Social.

"Our friends at Tinder share our underlying vision and have already revolutionized the world of dating. Now, as a part of Tinder, we believe that together we can make it easier than ever to meet amazing new people and connect with your friends - at a scale we could never reach alone," Humin wrote at the time, the operative word there being "friends."

In April, the company began testing Tinder Social in Australia, but ran into some issues with privacy, specifically because the app automatically linked to a user's Facebook account. By making it opt-out, rather than opt-in, that meant that a person's Facebook friends could see that they use Tinder, even if they didn't want anyone to know that. Users could shut it off if they wanted, but by the time they got to it the information may have already been put out there, and the damage done. 

Tinder learned their lesson from that experience, and now makes Tinder Social opt-in, meaning users have to "unlock" the feature to use it. Once it's turned on, Tinder Social will allow them to see other friends who have also unlocked it, who they can invite to join their group. Once they have a group set up, users can swipe and match with other groups nearby who are also going out, to create a larger party. 

To better find other groups to match up with. members can assign a status to their group, choosing from a  variety of suggested activities like “Watch the game with us,” “Going to a concert tonight,”  or “Happy Hour, anyone?”

It seems like Tinder Social can be used in two different ways: to plan nights out with existing friends, or to find new connections, though that second function isn't exactly designed to last: at noon the next day, the group will expires, and any matches will disappear. That means that if you connect with someone new via Tinder Social, and you want to see them again, you better get their contact into before the night is over, or else they'll be gone forever.

There have been a whole host of apps designed to help users with social planning, like WePopp, LivnList, OverNear, Ketchup, WeShould, The Whoot, Bash, BeerLamp, Social Tables, Spinvite and many, many others, none of which have caught on, for whatever reason.

Perhaps it was because not enough of their friends were using it, or because it was a new behavior for them. Tinder, on the other hand, has both of those areas already covered. The company has spent years building up its userbase, and teaching them how to use the app. Now, with all of that data in hand, it seems poised to break out into new territory.

The app is now available to users in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India.

(Image source: blog.gotinder.com)