Sure. Because everyone knows Tinder is all about the profile.
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Have you ever opened Tinder, started swiping around and thought “damn, where are all the hotties at?” It doesn’t measure how attractive you are, but it ranks your desirability. This is an “internal rating”, that the consumer is not, and will never be, aware of.
It turns out the application has an internal rating system that lets the company score and rank the desirability of its clients. The writer goes on to ask if this Hot or Not-esque scoring system is not a little unfair, dividing people Tinder thinks should be divided without informing the unwitting consumers.
Referred to as an “Elo score”, in reference to a chess ranking, the score is-according to Tinder-a way to better facilitate matches.
However, going on to explain further, Tinder’s data engineer, Tor Solli-Nowlan, says that it’s more complicated than that citing what’s in the photos along with the person that can play into a person’s decision to swipe right or left, which the algorithm attempts to determine would you be interested. “It took us two-and-a-half months just to build the algorithm because a lot of factors go into it”.
“Every swipe is in a way casting a vote: I find this person more desirable than this person, whatever motivated you to swipe right”, Chris Dumler, data analyst at Tinder, told Fast Company. Tinder can then rank user profiles in terms of attractiveness via aggregate. While the company believes it results in more even, compatible matches, the reality is that if you’re constantly getting matched with a bunch of “2/10 would not bangs”, it means you’re no prize yourself.
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Launched in 2012 out of media conglomerate IAC’s Hatch Labs, Tinder has quickly become one of the most popular online dating apps, competing with the likes of OKCupid, Match.com and Grindr. What it does is somewhat showing us the inner workings of its application, as well as pose a rather interesting discussion topic: How much does a single photo of a person influence us in regards to the odds of having a conversation with him or her?
