Skift Take
New event apps use matchmaking algorithms and dating app functionality to help conference attendees tap into the collective knowledge of the entire event community.
How can you meet the people you want to meet efficiently when you're attending a conference with 5,000 other people?
You can't, really, at least not with today's event technology.
For the last decade, a growing array of tech companies have been developing dedicated event apps to help connect like-minded people with aligned personal and/or professional interests.
Most apps today typically include a full list of attendees, and that's great if you already know who you want to message. More advanced apps let users tag their profiles with specific labels, ranging from personal things like "dog owner" to work-related skills like "UX designer," to help people with common interests connect.
Still, for most people, extensive attendee lists are often too unwieldy to navigate in a phone at a busy conference. In fact, the apps themselves are proving to be too jam-packed with digital tools altogether, including weather forecasts and hashtagged event photos, making some app developers pare back on the number of components inside.
There's also an increasingly vocal discussion in the events industry about the validity of event-specific apps in the first place. For many people who attend conferences regularly, there's growing fatigue around the idea of having to download a new app and remember new log-in info for every single event.
Therefore, event tech companies such as SummitSync and E-180 are developing next generation apps to help attendees meet people who want to meet them more effectively.
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