“They’re on their way to becoming more mainstream.”īeyond simply updating the functionality and user experience to stay current and on-trend, the new additions are also meant to offer POF users ways to better personalize their interactions and connect. “As platforms like Facebook adopt them, they’re going to become features you expect,” he says. That being said, Hosseini believes features like this are becoming common. (POF users tend to be in the 30 to 40 age range, notes Hosseini.) It’s interesting, then, that POF would get all these features first – especially because its demographic skews older. Of course, some dating apps have added GIFs, emojis, photo sharing and other features, but even Match Group’s lead app, Tinder, doesn’t have a full lineup. Plenty of Fish is poised to lead the charge on that,” he adds. “But when it comes to actually being in a conversation, dating apps are several years behind social apps. There’s a lot of attention and R&D on matching with someone and swiping and all that,” says CEO Hesam Hosseini, who joined the company from Match Group, post-acquisition. “When it comes to the conversation experience, dating apps haven’t traditionally focused on it. These sorts of voice and messaging features are common today on social media and chat applications, but haven’t all made their way to the world of dating apps. Instead, POF will trigger your “Conversation Powers” after you’ve chatted with a match for a period of time. What’s interesting about the way these features are launching is that they’re not just switched on whenever you’ve matched with someone. In the near future, it will also include the ability to share GIFs in your conversations and add illustrations to photos, like doodles and stickers. This new group of features, which POF is calling “Conversation Powers,” includes the addition of voice messaging, video calling, and the ability to share photos in chats. The launch follows a significant revamp of the app’s user interface this summer, which will soon extend to the web. For starters, POF is gearing up to launch a collection of new features designed to bring its app into the more modern age of dating. But it has since remained fairly quiet, in terms of the state of its business, and has been slow to roll out upgrades even as Tinder soared. The dating service, often dubbed ‘POF’ by its users, was founded in 2003 then sold to Match Group in 2015 for $575 million. Match Group, which houses a large portfolio of dating app brands – including most notably, Tinder, Match, and OKCupid – is prepping a notable upgrade to one of its older brands: Plenty of Fish.

Plenty of fish icon android