New dating app ‘Spark’ officially launched

Former mucical.ly (now known as TikTok) president Alex Hofman has introduced a new dating app namely, Spark.

Image | Spark

Spark is unlike any other popular dating app in which the user swipes left or right tp find a ‘match’. Instead, users will see the people around them all at once in a grid just like Grindr. But unlike Grindr, if users liked or “sparked” at each other, that’s the only time that they may send and receive messages. Another thing that users should take note of is the message request will only last for 24 hours like in Bumble.

Image | Spark

The app is free but users may opt to a subscription to special perks like the ability to see who liked them, or having extra “sparks”. The price and benefits are still to be updated, but as of now it’s priced at 19.99 USD per month, with a marginal discount if the user subscribes for three or 12 months.

Spark already soft launched in several countries and it climbed to the number one spot in the iOS app store in Netherlands and Ireland within the same day.

musical.ly was acquired by ByteDance last 2018 for around 1 billion USD, Hofman left the company and pursued a different path as an investor, although he went back to creating apps again having founded the company 9count comprising apps like Helpline, Juju, Everland, and the friendship app Wink which currently has millions of users.

Because of the trend of tech companies building or acquiring a variety of products, they’ve decided to create an app that will cater to the 18+ adults which is more mature than their current famous Wink that caters to users 13 above.

Source: Techcrunch