If You’re Using Tinder, The App Is Playing Sneaky Tricks On You

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Maybe, you just downloaded the app and swiped a few times to see what it was all about. Maybe, it’s a part of your daily regimen. Maybe you have three matches. Maybe you have three thousand. No mater what, Tinder is getting the last laugh.

They’ve got you pegged in their system as desirable (…or not).

The ranking system is referred to as an “Elo score” within the company, which is a term taken from the competitive chess circuit to rank players. Tinder claims the score is used to better match up users and facilitate more fitting pairs. But, what does the app have to rate you off of other than your perceived attractiveness? Are they just grouping together the smoke shows and the uggos?

In their defense, the app has 9.6 million daily users (1.4 billion swipes a day) who mostly return to check their matches. Less matches mean fewer users. So how do they guarantee that more people come back? Bunch together people who will find each other “desirable”. And with a recent Tinder survey finding that 80% of their users are seeking more than a one-night stand, maybe there is something to pairing together likely matches.

Tinder CEO Sean Rad stresses that the rating is technically not just a measure of attractiveness, but a rank of “desirability,” mostly because it’s not determined simply by your profile photo. “It’s not just how many people swipe right on you,” the CEO explains. “It’s very complicated. It took us two and a half months just to build the algorithm because a lot of factors go into it.”

In short, Tinder spent two and a half months to figure out a complicated scale of … attractiveness.

(Via Fastcompany.com)

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