Plenty of fish (POF) is one of the oldest dating apps with an audience of 159 million registered users in 20 countries. Today we’ll consider all its key features and how to create an app with similar features and design, i.e. a Plenty of fish clone.
Step 1: A niche of your dating app
Having said so, the app is free and it describes itself as a dating social network, where most conversations take place. It’s no surprise as sending and reading messages on Plenty of fish is free (limited to 50 new introductions per day) unlike the majority of other dating apps.
Plenty of fish’s success can be explained by time of work (the app was launched in 2003), ease of use, continuous improvement, and pushing users to be honest: when registering, the users are required to specify the kind of relationship they want (romantic partner, one-night stand, or friendship). Besides, Plenty of fish prohibits the publication of photos with face filters, which the users consider misleading.
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What niche you should use. If you’re planning to develop a clone in countries / regions, where there are no large players, then you can bet on the largest possible audience. As the developers of Tantan did when they launched a Tinder clone on the Chinese with an almost identical interface, matching, and premium service. Tantan immediately became a hit and had 5 million active users per day in one year.
If you want to create a clone to enter a highly competitive market, then you should adapt it to meeting the needs of a specific target audience. The chosen niche should be either big enough or rich enough. Otherwise, the app won’t pay off.
- Sexual preferences. The majority of dating apps bet on straights with traditional sexual preferences. You may launch an app that is focused on LGBT (Grindr, Rela).
- Users’ location. These platforms usually offer meeting someone, who is in your region (Tinder, Muddy Matches), or visits the same shops, restaurants, or coffee houses (Happn).
- Users’ religion. Such apps help to find partners on the basis of religious orientation: Muslims – Muzmatch and Ishqr, Jews – JSwipe and Yenta, Christians – Eden. There are also dating apps for people, who are into astrology (Zotality, ).
- Social status. For example, it might be an app for millionaires (Luxy) or married people, who wouldn’t mind having sex with someone else (Qoqoriqo). There are apps for celebrities, models, and artists (Raya).
- Type of relationship. The niche can be group meetings (Wishdates), double dates (Double), search for sexual partners among people you know (Down), search for new friends (MyFriends), or threesome (Feeld).
- For instance, the users, who are looking for partners based on musical preferences, use LetsTuneup or Tastebuds.
Step 2: Matching algorithm
Based on people’s answers, the algorithm of Plenty of fish finds potential partners for each user on the basis of common life goals, income levels, hobbies, and other parameters. How exactly the algorithm works is a sealed book, but this is a quite traditional approach to matching overall.
What algorithm you should use. When you create a clone, you can implement a similar algorithm or choose another approach. For example, you may develop a system of searching for people closest to you like on Tinder. You also can create a system to track the users’ movement and recommend them users, who visit the same places like on Happn. As an alternative, you can create a matching algorithm, which will be analyzing accounts on Spotify and YouTube to make recommendations by finding digital twins.