INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
If you&re already resentful of online dating culture and how it turned finding companionship into a game, you may not be quite ready for
this: Crown, a new dating app that actually turns getting matches into a game
Crown is the latest project to launch from Match Group, the operator of a number of dating sites and apps including Match, Tinder, Plenty of
Fish, OK Cupid, and others.
The app was thought up by Match Product Manager Patricia Parker, who understands first-hand both the challenges
and the benefits of online dating & Parker met her husband online, so has direct experience in the world of online dating.
Crown won Match
Group internal &ideathon,& and was then developed in-house by a team of millennial women, with a goal of serving women needs in
particular.
The main problem Crown is trying to solve is the cognitive overload of using dating apps
As Match Group scientific advisor Dr
Helen Fisher explained a few years ago toWired, dating apps can become addictive because there so much choice.
&The more you look and look
for a partner the more likely it is that you&ll end up with nobody…It called cognitive overload,& she had said
&There is a natural human predisposition to keep looking—to find something better
And with so many alternatives and opportunities for better mates in the online world, it easy to get into an addictive mode.&
Millennials
are also prone to swipe fatigue, as they spend an average of 10 hours per week in dating apps, and are being warned to cut down or face
burnout.
Crown approach to these issues is to turn getting matches into a game of sorts.
While other dating apps present you with an endless
stream of people to pick from, Crown offers a more limited selection.
Every day at noon, you&re presented with 16 curated matches, picked by
some mysterious algorithm
You move through the matches by choosing who you like more between two people at a time.
That is, the screen displays two photos instead of
one, and you &crown& your winner
(Get it) This process then repeats with two people shown at a time, until you reach your &Final Four.&
Those winners are then given the
opportunity to chat with you, or they can choose to pass.
In addition to your own winners, you may also &win& the crown among other
brackets, which gives you more matches to contend with.
Of course, getting dubbed a winner is a stronger signal on Crown than on an app like
Tinder, where it more common for matches to not start conversations
This could encourage Crown users to chat, given they know there more of a genuine interest since they &beat out& several others
But on the flip side, getting passed on Crown is going to be a lot more of an obvious &no,& which could be discouraging.
&It like a
‘Bachelorette&-style process of elimination that helps users choose between quality over quantity,& explainsAndy Chen, Vice President,
&Research shows that the human brain can only track a set number of relationships…and technology has not helped us increase this
limit.&
Chen is referring to the Dunbar number, which says that people can only really maintain a max of some 150 social relationships
Giving users a never-ending list of possible matches on Tinder, then, isn&t helping people feel like they have options & it overloading the
brain.
While turning matchmaking into a game feels a bit dehumanizing & maybe even more so than on Tinder, with its Hot-or-Not-inspired vibe
& the team says Crown actually increases the odds, on average, of someone being selected, compared with traditional dating apps.
&When
choosing one person over another, there is always a winner
The experience actually encourages a user playing the game to find reasons to say yes,& says Chen.
Crown has been live in a limited beta for
a few months, but is now officially launched in L.A
(how appropriate) with more cities to come
For now, users outside L.A
will be matched with those closet to them.
There are today several thousand users on the app, and it organically growing, Chen says.
Plus,
Crown is seeing day-over-day retention rates which are &already as strong& as Match Group other apps, we&re told.
Sigh.
The app is a free
download on iOSonly for now
An Android version is coming, the website says.
