Happn launches a map of missed connections to better facilitate users

In what can be seen as a response to Tinder’s ‘Tinder Places’, dating app Happn launched its own feature called ‘missed connections’ using an interactive map. Happn’s entire set of services are built around the concept of people who could have met, but narrowly missed each other. The new element from Happn, through an interactive map, lets users discover people they have missed meeting with in real life over the previous seven days.

Some believe that this could be in response to its rival, Tinder’s own location based service that tracks a person’s location in real time and finds others who have visited the same place, like bars, clubs, and gyms and so on. However, Didier Rappaport, the French entrepreneur and founder of Happn doesn’t consider Tinder’s new feature as any major threat to his app. “We don’t see it as a threat at all but as a good thing,” Rappaport said. “Find the people you’ve crossed paths with has always been in Happn’s DNA since the beginning….We are very flattered that Tinder wants to include the same feature in its product. However, we will never use the swipe in our product,” he added.

Happen’s service shows prospective matches within 250 meters of a location that a user has already visited. There is also an option of “invisibility” to let users hide their location whenever and wherever they want. Tinder’s service, on the other hand allows users to automatically block places that they consider inappropriate, such as home or their workplace. Moreover, Tinder also alerts users before adding a new location, so that users can immediately prevent it from ever being recorded again.