Bumble, the online dating platform where women were initially in control, is now opening the door to men starting conversations on the platform.
Bumble is now introducing ‘opening moves’ that will let female users set a prompt to which men can respond to and initiate conversations.
This new feature reverses a longstanding requirement that women have to send the first message to their matches. Now women have more power over their dating lives.
The new opening moves feature is one way Jones says Bumble is evolving while staying with the mission of empowering women. Now women have the option to set an opening move, or to initiate conversation with matches.
“I think it’s just as important as men making the first move, I feel like someone has to make the first move, and sometimes men aren’t confident to make the first move,” NHS junior Giovanni Rivera said.
The new feature is a part of the relaunch of the app was announced by new CEO Lidiane Jones, who took over the job from founder Whitney Wolfe Herd earlier this year.
This new move comes as dating apps broadly are working to maintain their applicability, as some singles have become burnt out on online dating and are seeking more in person connections.
“We’re seeing a greater need for authentic human connections, I don’t anticipate that the number of people using online dating is going to go down, quite the opposite, but there is a higher bar… so we’re taking it as a great call to action to center ourselves on our mission,” CEO Lidiane Jones said.
Game theorists have shown that in heterosexual dating, the partner who pursues a crush is likely to end up happier than the partner who is pursued.
“It sounds like a very logical thing that they did, nobody else really offered that, so good on them for trying to change that,” NHS junior Connor Child said.
Wall Street analysts expect Bumble to post a $12 million dollar profit when it reports earnings for the first three months of this year, up from a $2.3 million dollar loss last year.
“We’re very fortunate to have very healthy financials to be able to invest in growth for the company, and still deliver profitability for our shareholders, we’re at a really great inflection point of, we have enough scale and we have a lot of room to grow ahead, where we can balance both of those goals together,” Jones said.
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