Dating apps for musicians

Music can define people’s lifestyle, their way of thinking, and the type of clothes they wear – and can even influence their choice of a life partner. If two people have the same taste in music, it can be a good start to friendship or romantic relationships. So why not use this power of music in your dating app? Or perhaps develop a music streaming app that matches users according to their tastes?

Why music-based dating is a good idea

As you may recall, we’ve already talked about dating app development and the trends in this industry. Finding a match is the most important goal of anyone who downloads a dating app. If this matchmaking process is successful, users will continue using the app

Dating apps take various approaches to matching their users. Some, like Match.com, use algorithms based on stated interests, preferences, and on-site actions. Others let you specify your intentions, like the Heavenly Sinful app. Tinder suggests potential matches based on location.

Music tastes are something that you can take into account in your dating app to help people meet others who they’ll hit it off with.

London-based Tastebuds demonstrates the value of combining music and dating. As you probably know, some people still find it a bit embarrassing to use dating apps. What’s more, a common problem for dating apps is a much larger number of male users than female. But thanks to its focus on music, Tastebuds has managed to attract users who wouldn’t consider other online dating services.

Some facts about Tastebuds

Broadly speaking, Tastebuds is a social network built around music. Everything is about music, and everyone who uses Tastebuds is into music. But despite its music focus, according to TechCrunch, Tastebuds can be thought of as a competitor to friend matching service Badoo, as well as a competitor to other dating solutions.

Tastebuds is powered by Last.fm – and  Last.fm has teamed up with Spotify. This partnership means you can listen to music on Spotify via the Spotify play bar at the bottom of the Last.fm screen and visa versa — Spotify will load all tracks you have on a Last.fm page as a playlist in Spotify.

Tastebuds has its own iOS app, but also supports Spotify with an app for the music streaming service. The Tastebuds app lets you scan your iPhone music library and then matches you with people who have a common music taste. You can browse your music matches and send them a song to break the ice.

Music discovery within a music dating app

Where Tastebuds really excels is not necessarily in dating, but even more in music content. In our recent article about trends in the music streaming app market, we mentioned the importance of music discovery and recommendations based on a user’s music preferences.

With both Tastebuds, as well as its US competitor, Moosify (which Tastebuds has already bought), music discovery is driven by what other users with similar preferences are listening to. Tastebuds bought moosify primarily for its European (and, in particular, its German) user base. (ProSiebenSat.1 Media’s backing might’ve played a role as well).

To get access to music on the site, you just have to click on the radio button. A Youtube-powered radio player will let you listen to songs posted by other users with similar tastes and look at their profiles. This lets users discover new music within their favorite genre, or even artist, while still having a chance to meet new people, make friends, or start a relationship.

But music “dating” apps don’t have to pressure users to focus on dating. They can simply be about socializing and discovering.  You can always ask your users what they’re looking for in your “music-dating” app: music discovery, new friends and concert buddies, and/or finally dating.

Concerts within a music dating app

When we wrote about event planner app technology, we mentioned Songkick, a great app that tells you when your favorite artists are coming to your area shows information about their tours all over the world, and lets you buy concert tickets directly from the app. So why not integrate the Songkick API – to get access to events and allow users to find concert buddies – right in your app? Tastebuds has an events feature on their website, but not yet in the app.

Read also: Payment systems integration

Specifying music tastes

You can figure out what music users like in a number of ways. For instance, Tastebuds can import your likes from Facebook and artists from Last.fm, or you can type in the names of bands and musicians yourself. The ultimate goal of Tastebuds is to let people meet offline. Therefore, they also use your location and suggest people with similar music tastes near you.

Moostify discovered what music you like by scanning your phone’s music library and using that as the starting point for building a music-centric profile.

Read also: 

Monetization

Dating apps, as well as music review apps, have lots of potential to be monetized. Tastebuds is profitable thanks to subscriptions for its premium offering, Backstage Pass. This service lets users send unlimited messages, removes ads, and lets you access incognito mode – which means you can visit profiles anonymously and hide your online status.

Once you have a big enough user base for your music dating app, you can monetize your product more effectively. But starting off by following in Tinder’s footsteps is also a good idea. Tinder became so popular partly because it offered a completely free mobile dating service.