What's New in ThinkMatch
Product updates, release highlights, and rollout milestones for ThinkMatch.
Software995 introduced Common Quandary, a publication for exploring current ethical questions without reducing complex problems to a single emotional argument. Its Today section demonstrates how an online publisher can use ThinkMatch's free tools to add reader polls, public comments, and paths to small local Roundtables directly alongside its articles.
Participating publishers can now place an AI-assisted reader poll directly within an article, let readers respond without creating an account, and show aggregate results after all five questions are completed. Unlike a standalone quiz widget, the persistent poll can lead into a public discussion and a small local Roundtable while publisher staff retain editorial control.
ThinkMatch now gives people a common-ground-first way to meet. Start with a current topic, campus story, book, podcast, entertainment story, video, or event; find others who chose it too; then join a public discussion or a small nearby Roundtable. New Current Topics and Campus discovery experiences make a shared interest the beginning of the introduction—not something strangers must hope to discover afterward.
Software995 launched Meet In Common, a focused topic-to-meet discovery experience powered by ThinkMatch. People can browse current topics, campus reporting, books, and civic events, read public discussions, and then use ThinkMatch to join or start a small nearby Roundtable. Meet In Common emphasizes the reason to connect; ThinkMatch provides the broader event, matching, and communication platform that helps people act on it.
Hosts using ThinkMatch's multistep event creator can now paste an article, agenda, briefing, or other source and generate editable question drafts. The tool is designed to uncover shared opinions, interests, and priorities rather than test reading comprehension, with support for text, single-choice, multiple-answer, and ranked questions.
ThinkMatch now gives local newspapers and community publications a free, publication-branded events page and embeddable website widget. Publishers can combine selected local event sources, invite reader submissions, moderate those submissions, and help readers find people who may want to attend together.
ThinkMatch now supports conferences that publish their agendas with Sessionize. An attendee or organizer can add the conference's public Agenda, Sessions, or Schedule webpage as a calendar. ThinkMatch imports the individual talks and workshops so attendees can discover a session and find people to meet there.
ThinkMatch began rolling out city discovery pages for selected cities, bringing together active ThinkMatch events, major live events from supported providers, local places, campus calendars, and Meetup-style gatherings. The pages help people begin with a city, find something worth attending, and use ThinkMatch to meet people there with more context.
ThinkMatch expanded search to cover major events and places worldwide, more than 200 college campuses, public organization calendars, Meetup events, and general event webpages. People can also subscribe to a private calendar feed for the ThinkMatch events they are attending.
ThinkMatch added Live Events, a location-based discovery experience that helps people find concerts, sports, theatre, family entertainment, and other events, then create a free ThinkMatch event to connect with people who share their interests before they arrive.
ThinkMatch added Explore, a worldwide venue and activity search surface that lets people find gyms, cafes, restaurants, libraries, sports courts, worship places, parks, and other real-world places, then join or create a free ThinkMatch event there.
ThinkMatch added multi-answer prompts and ranked-list questions so guests can select several preset answers, add their own written response, or put choices in priority order. The update gives hosts and matching flows richer context for food, hobbies, outdoor activities, values, technology, creative interests, live events, and other social topics.
ThinkMatch added public printable venue posters so restaurant, bar, cafe, and other venue staff can promote recurring ThinkMatch events, encourage guests to scan and join, and create another reason for people to return to the venue.
ThinkMatch added activity partner browsing for pickleball, tennis, hiking, and biking across an initial rollout of 500 U.S. cities, with more cities planned as coverage expands.
ThinkMatch and SearchWithin added SearchWithin Books, a free book poll tool that helps groups search books, browse New York Times bestsellers and current lists, vote on what to read next, and collect suggestions from people they trust.
SearchWithin is now available on both the App Store and Google Play, giving people native mobile access to TV polls, podcast polls, venue polls, and menu surveys. The release also strengthens the connection between ThinkMatch city pages and SearchWithin venue polls, so people browsing local city pages can move from finding places to asking friends and trusted circles where to go.
ThinkMatch and SearchWithin added city/category venue poll pages that help people create restaurant, cafe, and bar polls for specific cities. Instead of relying only on public ratings from strangers, these pages make it easier to ask friends, guests, coworkers, classmates, or a social circle where to go.
ThinkMatch expanded SearchWithin into a standalone site for lightweight group decisions, with TV polls, podcast polls, venue polls, and menu surveys now available at searchwithin.com. SearchWithin is designed as an alternative to generic public ratings, where votes often come from people unlike you, with different tastes, budgets, moods, and context. Podcast polls let groups search shows and episodes, create shared listening polls, collect votes, and hear from people they know instead of relying only on charts or anonymous recommendations.
ThinkMatch added a places of worship finder and church-focused event page to help faith communities create free gatherings where people can meet with more context, warmer introductions, and private in-platform communication.
ThinkMatch added SearchWithin Menus beta, which uses AI-assisted menu conversion to help people collect trusted dish recommendations from friends before ordering, meeting up, or trying a restaurant together.
ThinkMatch added SearchWithin venue polls, a worldwide tool for creating quick location-based polls so groups can choose cafes, restaurants, bars, and manually suggested places together.
ThinkMatch added SearchWithin TV, a lightweight watch-poll tool that helps groups choose what to watch from new episodes, shows, and movies. Creators can select titles, share a poll link, collect votes, and let voters suggest additional options.
SearchWithin launched a 24-question 360-degree personality assessment that helps people compare self-perception with peer feedback.
ThinkMatch added SearchWithin Survey, a social feedback tool with customizable templates for family, work, close friends, sports teams, dating, school, leadership, and other groups. Respondents can stay anonymous or include their name and relationship, and results can be analyzed with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or the AI of your choice.
ThinkMatch introduced AI prompt tooling for balanced teams, group-size teams, interest-based groupings, opposing-view pairings, age- and gender-balanced groups, and event image creation.
ThinkMatch rolled out new mobile app versions for both Android and iPhone, continuing refinement of the native app experience.
ThinkMatch expanded from individual venues into broader local exploration with citywide pages, mapping, and citywide party discovery.
ThinkMatch added high school mapping and discovery support as part of its broader community-based rollout.
ThinkMatch expanded availability across universities and pubs, strengthening support for campus events and local social-night formats.
ThinkMatch completed its first iPhone app submission, marking a new stage in native mobile distribution.
ThinkMatch reached its first Android release milestone, bringing native Android support to the platform.
ThinkMatch announced a venue publishing footprint of more than 500,000 venues across the United States.
ThinkMatch added polling tools so hosts and guests can decide which venue, time, or option works best before an event is set.
ThinkMatch added secure video chat, extending the product beyond messaging into richer real-time conversation before and around events.
ThinkMatch introduced its Event Wizard to make event creation faster for hosts, with questions, answers, and sharing built in.