Listen Live
Fantastic Voyage Generic Graphics Updated Nov 2023
Black America Web Featured Video
CLOSE

It’s official: Tinder has announced it plans to launch a new version of its dating app that caters solely to college students, the better to serve the youngest generation of online daters.

Since 2016, more than 50% of Google searches have come from mobile devices. Increasingly, we do all of our searching online, whether we’re looking for a new floral romper or a potential romantic partner.

Tinder U, the new version of this popular social “hook up” platform, will only allow a user to see potential matches of other nearby college students enrolled in four-year programs. This makes perfect sense for the dating app since most of its users are between the ages of 18 and 25 anyway.

For the I-Want-It-Right-Now generation, Tinder U might be a perfect match. Google expects mobile websites to load in three seconds or less, and young people have grown accustomed to instant gratification. Now, they can swipe left in between classes, sifting through hundreds of potential partners in a matter of minutes.

Tinder has tried to tap into the college demographic before. In March, Tinder partnered with Cardi B for Swipe Off, a competition to see which university’s students Tinder-ed the most.

Like the early days of Facebook, the app will only enable a user to sign in with a verified .edu email address that uses geolocation technology to match you with other singles on your campus and other colleges nearby. Users will then have the option to switch back and forth between the original version and the college version to match with whomever they please.

This comes on the heels of Tinder’s lawsuit against its own parent company, Match Group, for nearly $2 billion. Tinder co-founders Sean Rad and Justin Mateen are plaintiffs in the suit.

According to the lawsuit, “IAC hid Tinder’s potential for growth in an effort to avoid paying billions of dollars to the startup team,” reports The Verge.

On top of that, the suit also claims Greg Blatt, the former IAC CEO, had sexually harassed Rosette Pambakian, the Tinder VP of marketing and communications. She is currently serving as one of the plaintiffs against Match in the lawsuit.

And this isn’t the first time Match has been embroiled in a lawsuit. Just this March, Match sued Bumble, another dating company, over patent infringement. Even with a simple provisional patent application, an invention, idea, or product can be protected by law for a 12 month period.

Despite these legal troubles, Tinder hopes to carry on with new developments like Tinder U. Maybe it’s because of Facebook’s new announcement regarding their upcoming dating app?

August 3 marked an important “date” for Facebook: the social media platform began to internally test its dating app, Facebook Dating.

This testing period is designed to test security, check for bugs, and monitor the dating experience of the app. When nearly nine out of every thousand computers test positively for spam infections, working out bugs is essential.

Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, hopes to change the online dating scene.

“This is going to be for building real, long-term relationships — not just for hookups,” Zuckerberg claimed.

Facebook does have a major advantage; by matching users with friends of friends, it hopes to overcome any doubts young people have about online dating. Those online connections matter. Today, an estimated 88% of customers trust online reviews just as much as personal references from friends. Facebook can provide both in one dating app.

After the initial announcement of Facebook Dating in May, the stocks for other dating apps plummeted by 17%. This includes the aforementioned Match Group, Bumble, and, of course, Tinder.

It is unknown when the new version of Tinder will be released to the public. As thousands of students make their way back to campus this fall, however, Tinder U could be the next big thing on college campuses.

PHOTO: AP

READ MORE STORIES ON BLACKAMERICAWEB.COM:

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER: 

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER AND INSTAGRAM