Hinge, or Hin.ge, is a Facebook app that uses a social graph to forever change how one views and uses “online dating.” Similar to other Facebook apps, Hinge uses friend-of-friend recommendations to create “smarter real-world dating.” Moreover, users can rate and answer questions about friends they already know, so the organization learns one’s tendencies. This organization is less than one month old and can ultimately change online dating.
Today, online dating organizations use algorithms to match people together. It seems complicated at first, but the numbers do not lie. The online dating industry is a $2.1 billion business in the United States (Market Research, 2012). The industry is believed to grow less than 10% this year due to an over-saturation of close to 2,000 online dating services (Market Research, 2012). Competition is fierce and the chances for an organization to succeed is scarce, so how do you attract consumers to your service? You establish a digital space on a digital platform where prospective users already congregate, Facebook. Facebook is a proven breeding ground for organizations to make traction. Facebook also delivers specifics analytics that makes it easier for organizations to view demographics. Facebook also allows for word of mouth marketing to take place.
Word of mouth marketing is a form of viral marketing once it hits the web. In other words, viral marketing “just replicates, again and again with geometrically increasing power, doubling with each iteration” (Wilson, 2005, p. 1). Viral marketing works because friends have similar interests. Due to viral marketing, organizations have been able to reevaluate traditional marketing protocol and enhance consumer attraction and interaction (Penenberg, 2009). Viral marketing attracts consumers in a number of ways. Tools used to boost viral marketing include, but are not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (Penenberg, 2009). However, Facebook has more than 750 million users. Wouldn’t you choose Facebook too? A consumer’s network of friends does the marketing of PR firm.
Organizations have come to realize that their target consumers are online and that is more of an incentive to participate in viral marketing. Everyday, 172 million different people spend time on Facebook (Spector, 2012). Those visits to Facebook equate to 4.7 billion minutes on Facebook daily (Spector, 2012).
A network of friends can spawn interest in a product or service by simply clicking “Like” on Facebook. Hitting “Like” can send a social ripple throughout the internet to friends of your friends and so forth. Online dating can improve with the help of Facebook. As Hinge utilizes Facebook’s capabilities and social graph, it can only grow. Hinge does not congest your personal page with postings or subscribe you to annoying listservs. Hinge has narrowed the exhaustive survey approach to finding a partner by opening it up to the people who know you best – your friends.
After all, your friends do know you best, so why shouldn’t someone in their social network fit into your social scheme. Additionally, the dating app is for everyone. Hinge increases its reach exponentially by allowing “taken” individuals to sign up.
What do you think? Will Facebook dating take off? Please leave a comment on your way out.
References
Market Research. (2012, January 1). The U.S. Dating Services Market. Retrieved from http://www.marketresearch.com/Marketdata-Enterprises-Inc-v416/Dating-Services-6773764/
Penenberg, A. L. (2009). Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, how today’s
smartest businesses grow themselves. New York, NY: Hyperion Books.
Spector, D. (2012, March 5). Everything that happens in one day on the Internet.
Business Insider. Retrieved from
http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-that-happens-in-one-day-on-the-internet-20123?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign =Feed:+typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider+(Silicon+Alley+Insider
Wilson, R. F. (2005). The six simple principles of viral marketing. Web Marketing
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