In the age of online dating during quarantine, Tinder is now officially getting into the face chat game with one-on-one video calls.
The video call feature was announced in May as an effort by Tinder to keep people within the app when they want to video chat with a potential date. Face-to-face video is now available to try, but only to members in Virginia, Illinois, Georgia, and Colorado for now. The feature will expand to members in other states after Tinder evaluates the initial testing of video calls.
Some of the features of Tinder’s take on FaceTime include callers agreeing to ground rules, the option to enable or disable the feature, a 50/50 split screen, and Tinder asking how the call went after you both hangup.
Tinder said that it surveyed their members and found that half of them had a video call with one of their matches within the last month. And while video chatting has become an essential activity during quarantine these past few months, Tinder also wants to enable the option post-pandemic so matches can get a feel for each other before meeting in person.
Like many online services, Tinder witnessed remarkable upswings in its engagement figures since quarantine began earlier this year, according to Match Group’s first quarter earnings release. Tinder’s average number of daily messages climbed by 27% in April compared to the last week of February. Plus, it said daily active users and swipes “reached all-time highs.”
While the feature is new to Tinder, it’s not the first dating app to add video calls. Bumble introduced in-app video and voice calls about a year ago. Facebook has also said that it plans to integrate Messenger’s video-calling feature directly on its dating platform.
