As far as the virtual economy is concerned, the first phase of its development includes Tinder Coins, which are already being tested in several markets, including some countries in Europe.

Tinder has gone through a major overhaul, having recently launched Explore, a new section within the app that will enable more interactive experiences - including a second Swipe Night series, live chat, interest-based matching and more wait.

Now, parent company Match Group is detailing its long-term vision for Tinder and Explore, which will expand to include exclusive, shared and live experiences and an economy based on virtual goods and powered by Tinder's new in-app currency, Tinder Coins. In addition, Match today talked about its broader plans for a dating “metaverse” and avatar-based virtual experiences that may be rolled out to all apps, including Tinder.

As far as the virtual economy is concerned, the first phase of its development includes Tinder Coins, which are already being tested in several markets, including some countries in Europe.

Next year, Tinder Coins will be available to users around the world to be used to purchase Tinder's own products within the app such as Boost and Super Like - tools designed to help online daters get more matches. They will also be used for new pay-as-you-go products that were previously only available through subscriptions, such as the See Who Likes You feature. They will be used to incentivize certain actions on the app, such as encouraging members to verify their profiles or add videos to their bios.

However, in the longer term, Tinder will develop its application - including virtual goods and trading ecosystem, which it plans to launch in 2022 or later. The strategic move was detailed in Tinder parent company Match Group's third-quarter earnings report.

In its dating app portfolio, Match Group had third-quarter revenue of $802 million, up 25% year-on-year, and 16.3 million paid users, up 16% year-on-year. But the company has been transparent about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its business - lockdowns early in the pandemic forced a shift to virtual experiences. Now, some users are still less inclined to meet in person than they were before the pandemic. In addition, citing the lingering impact of COVID-19 in Asia, Match forecast weaker-than-expected growth in the fourth quarter, with revenue of $810-820 million instead of the $838 million analysts had forecast.

In response to this changing online dating market, Tinder has leaned toward virtual experiences within the app rather than just pushing people to connect offline. That brought about the launch of Tinder Explore, which is now fueling Tinder's upcoming virtual goods-based economy initiative.

According to Match Group CEO Shar Dubey's disclosure to investors during today's conference call, Tinder's virtual goods will help users express themselves and stand out - especially in the one-to-many surface that the Explore experience will enable. area, "So the way we envision virtual goods is that it is something that users will be able to collect and give and gift to others."

Dubey said that Tinder in 2022 will be dedicated to designing virtual goods, customizing them Categorize, create their value structure and determine where best to display these items in a user’s Tinder profile. This will involve testing virtual goods and then further iterating and refining the product based on those tests. Although there is still a lot of work to be done, the executive is very optimistic about the plan.

"If we do it right, I do think this could be a multi-year revenue vehicle for Tinder, which doesn't exist today," she said.

In addition to developing a virtual goods economy within Tinder, Match also talked about its Take advantage of Hyperconnect's larger plans. Hyperconnect is a Seoul-based social app developer it acquired for $1.73 billion earlier in 2021. So far, Hyperconnect has underperformed expectations, partly because of COVID and partly because of other issues -- including marketing performance and product delays.

But Dubey said Match still believes in the long-term value of Hyperconnect to its business.

She talked specifically about Hyperconnect's testing of avatar-based dating apps -- as well as a "metaverse" experience called Single Town, where users use real-time audio to interact and meet each other in a virtual space.Users can express interest in each other in the virtual world and then choose to connect privately to continue their conversation.

Dubey said of the test: "It's a transformative way to implement the Metaverse experience of how people meet and get to know each other on a dating or social discovery platform, and be more similar to how people do it in the real world. Interactive.”

This type of interactivity is something Match Group ultimately hopes to leverage across its portfolio, the company said.

"The next phase of dating apps, in particular, will be all about richer, more organic, and more similar to real-life ways of discovering, meeting, and getting to know people. Technology will eventually get there. And Hyperconnect builds this for Single The underlying technology platform that powers Town is built in a way that can be easily leveraged by other platforms," ​​Dubey noted, without naming the applications she had in mind for Match.

However, it seems that a dating platform similar to the Metaverse could be combined with a virtual goods economy similar to Tinder in the future, but the company has not stated that this is a plan. But based on current social trends, it’s clear that users of dating apps will one day be able to purchase items to decorate their avatars or buy gifts for other users, all with virtual currency – just like on other “Metaverse” platforms Such as Roblox, Fortnite or within Horizon of Meta (Facebook). In its shareholder letter,

Match Group only hinted at the possibility of such a dating metaverse launch and the experiences it would create. “This new experience allows us to see how the Metaverse experience applies to dating, and it is an innovation that will help us grow our portfolio as we enter the next phase of dating.”

“Our long-term outlook for Hyperconnect "We're still very optimistic," Match Group Chief Financial Officer and CEO Gary Swidler said on the call. "It can make an extremely significant contribution to the long-term growth of the entire Match Group. We think there are many ways to do that." Can take advantage of video, audio, the AI ​​capabilities that they have, the moderation stuff and the security.”

Additionally, he said: “The new Metaverse elements and the experiences we’re seeing in testing — that’s something we can potentially build on. Standalone apps and/or something that could possibly leverage this user experience into some of our portfolio of apps”