Tinder. Image: BestStockFoto/Shutterstock
Tinder has acquired Wheel, a company that specialises in video stories. Ring any bells? Snapchat and Instagram are under threat.
Last year Snapchat’s effectiveness was captured in one simple development: Instagram revealing Stories.
Essentially, Instagram Stories lets users share multiple photos and videos, appearing together in a slideshow format, before they expire after 24 hours.
This was proof, if proof was needed, that Snapchat was on to something. It was also proof that major tech rivals wanted a slice.
With its 500m users, Instagram was clearly worried about losing people to Snapchat (150m users). Adapt or die.
Now Tinder, coming from a smaller user base of an estimated 50m, is getting in on the act.
Wheel, a collaborative video messaging app, has been acquired, with its founders joining the Tinder team. The start-up previously raised a total of $3.2m in funding.
“What we were doing with content was all about connecting a young demographic around creating content together,” said Paul Boukadakis, co-founder of Wheel, of his first meeting with Tinder chairman Sean Rad.
“There was a lot of synergy with what we were doing and what they were doing.”
One of the better aspects of Wheel’s offering is the collaboration element of friends sharing videos together. How this will work with Tinder is, as yet, unclear.
Tinder. Image: BestStockFoto/Shutterstock
