Pairs Adds ‘Community Chat’ Feature to Allow Interacting Before Matching

Pairs has announced the launch of a new community feature that allows singles to interact with others who share the same interests, without needing to match first.

‘Community Chat’ is available from today for no additional charge, although male members will need a pre-existing premium membership. It is a dedicated space on the platform where users join groups based around specific interests and hobbies.

There are a wide range of topics currently available, but users can add their own if there’s something specific they want to talk about. It’s possible to follow up to 50 topics at any given time.

The update shares a number of similarities with general social networks such as emoji reactions to posts and comments.

It’s hoped that ‘Community Chat’ will offer a way to easily connect with like minded people and start conversations based around things that each person loves, rather than needing to use awkward ice breakers and opening lines.

Parent company Match Group is currently in the process of pivoting towards more social discovery features across the portfolio, to help facilitate relationships that aren’t necessarily romantic.

Shar Dubey spoke at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference earlier this week and explained why the company is looking to explore these options.

The Match Group CEO said that social discovery is particularly useful in parts of the world, such as the APAC region, where online dating is still a developing concept, but people are comfortable using technology to form platonic relationships.

She also added that users have the tendency to filter their searches by gender and geography, which shows they still have some intent for dating.

Read more here [Japanese].