Today we’re announcing that Foursquare is powering a brand-new feature in the Tinder app that helps people find the right match based on favorite places they may share in common, whether it’s a local coffee shop, dog run, sushi spot, or neighborhood bar. Tinder Places is built on Foursquare’s proprietary Pilgrim technology, and delivers new potential matches through the lens of location. Welcome to the future of dating.
From Foursquare’s perspective, the partnership showcases yet another innovative way that our technology can change the way digital and real-life experiences intersect. The launch is more than a year in the making, and it heralds a new phase for Pilgrim, now out of beta. Since we launched our SDK in early 2017, we nearly doubled our ability to automatically snap a person to a commercial venue in the U.S. This upgrade and many others will be leveraged within the new Tinder feature.
For Tinder, Pilgrim SDK and the Places feature bring more authenticity into the dating experience by providing new and valuable insights about the people that show up in a user’s dating queue. The feature is currently being tested in Brisbane and Sydney, Australia and Santiago Chile.
“Foursquare is the industry leader in location technology, with a proven, best-in-class SDK,” said Tinder CEO Elie Seidman. “They were the clear choice to help power Places.”
The opportunities for Pilgrim are vast, and the concept of ambient contextual awareness is one that Foursquare co-founder and executive chairman Dennis Crowley has long been focused on. “In the future, the apps and services we interact with are going to provide hyper-personalized experiences based on our unique preferences and how we move through the world,” he says. “Foursquare will be the company that powers this understanding.”
“We are pleased to add Tinder to the list of global brands that already leverage our technology, including Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Tencent, Snapchat, Uber and 125K other developers” says Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck. “We’re not surprised that in early beta testing, we saw this feature yield increased engagement for Tinder. Location understanding makes any digital product feel real and personal. That’s why Pilgrim SDK, the most precise and accurate option available, is in such high demand.”
Interested in inventing the future with Foursquare? Email partners@foursquare.com to apply for a Pilgrim SDK commercial license. We will be reviewing applicants carefully to ensure that they are meeting our standards for creativity and innovation, privacy requirements and more. We look forward to experimenting with you.
**For those who are wondering, the Places feature is opt-in, and can be turned off at any time. For consumer safety, Places are not populated in the app until after a Tinder user has a left the venue. Location data captured via Tinder is not currently stored by Foursquare.
