First, it was Snapchat Stories. Then Instagram got Stories. Then Facebook and Messenger – and just the other day, WhatsApp. Now, it looks like Tinder is joining the party.
Ever since Instagram copied Snapchat’s Stories, the feature has been popping up in several other apps owned by Facebook. And just last week, Tinder announced it had bought Wheel, an L.A.-based startup with an app that offers pretty much the same thing – the ability to create and share stories with your friends. This leads us to believe that Tinder may be planning to offer its “stories,” or at least some other video feature of its own.
This may not be that far off, as a kind of confirmation of this came in a recent post from TechCrunch‘s Sarah Perez – who wrote that “Tinder says that it will integrate video features into its app in the future.”
In any case, the same post explains that Wheel’s entire founding team will be joining Tinder – among others, CEO Paul Boukadakis will be VP of Special Initiatives, and CTO Chris Shaheen will be a senior engineer at the company. As Perez explained (and I agree with her), “Special Initiatives is a vague title.” When asked to comment on this Boukadakis was similarly vague:
[quote]It’s a new role at Tinder. I’m very involved with the product team, working closely with Brian Norgard, Tinder’s Head of Product and Revenue. I’ll also be interfacing regularly with the marketing team on select initiatives.[/quote]
On the other hand, Tinder‘s Brian Norgard cryptically provided a little more info on this:
[quote]We are always exploring new ways to innovate while helping our users make connections on Tinder[/quote]
He then went on to say mention that he is excited that Paul’s experience can be leveraged to “[connect] people around innovative content.”
Thus, we can only imagine that Tinder will be working on adding one or more video features that will help people connect on the app. In any case, such a move is a no-brainer for a company like Tinder.
[box]Read more: WhatsApp Goes Back To Its Roots With Status Updates[/box]