Hinge launches voice notes and voice prompts

Single and a fan of voice notes? Great news! Hinge is launching two audio features: voice prompts and voice notes. From today, the new additions are available to all Hinge users globally.

What's a voice prompt? Well, Hinge profiles currently let users leave written prompts that allow you to express your personality, giving potential matches a question or comment they can respond to.

Voice prompts enable daters to record a 30-second voice clip which sits on their profile, offering a similar glimpse of their personality. Potential matches can listen to that voice prompt while perusing their profile and decide whether they like what they hear.

Additionally, Hinge users will now be able to send each other voice notes once they've matched. So now you don't need to wait until you've moved your chat over to WhatsApp before sending each other flirty audio messages.

You can now add voice prompts to your Hinge profile. Credit: Hinge

Michelle Parsons, Hinge's chief product officer, told Mashable that over the past year Hinge has learnt that "daters want to have a better understanding of each other before they meet in person."

"Assessing chemistry with someone can be difficult through just photos and text, and a majority of our members have told us that hearing someone's voice makes a major difference in determining if they want to go on a date," Parsons added.

Voice messaging is having a moment in the dating world. From proving very useful for getting a feel for someone's personality before an IRL date to coming in handy for sexting purposes, voice notes are pretty useful when you're getting to know someone new. According to research conducted by Hinge, 64 percent of daters say a potential match's voice is an important factor in determining if they like them, giving them "the ick" or butterflies. 52 percent of users say they can learn more about a potential match through a voice message.

Recent launches of audio features have also come with criticisms about a lack of accessibility for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, most notably when Twitter unveiled its voice note feature in 2020. Hinge aims to have transcriptions or closed captions live in the app by the end of the year. Voice prompts are designed as an addition to Hinge profiles and not as a replacement to the existing text prompts.

Voice prompts will be displayed under the first picture on your profile. Credit: Hinge

How do you use voice prompts?

1. Go to Settings and select Edit Profile. You'll find a new 'Voice Prompt' section. Hit 'select a prompt' to get started.

2. Once you've chosen a voice prompt, tap the microphone icon to start recording for up to 30 seconds.

3. Hit the stop button once you're done. Don't worry, you can listen back before it goes live. Just press the play button.

4. If you're happy with it, hit 'done' and your voice prompt will be added to your profile. It'll . It'll show up under the first photo on your profile. 

It would be remiss to not mention the possibility of harassment and abuse. So, are there any provisions in place to safeguard against harmful conduct?

"Any user who encounters harm is encouraged to report it through our in-app reporting options that allow us to take immediate action in removing anyone accused of this behavior," A Hinge spokesperson told Mashable. "To date, we have doubled our data labeling operations in order to train new targeted algorithms to increase our detection capabilities and have hired additional content moderators to identify and report harm at a faster pace."

Voice prompts and voice notes are now available for all Hinge users worldwide.

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