MASHABLE – Bang With Friends, an app that anonymously connects Facebook friends for casual hookups, has rapidly grown since its launch, registering five new users per minute. The app's user base, primarily in their twenties, has surpassed 30K. The creators, three anonymous men from California, plan to introduce support for same-sex matches and an iPhone app soon. Users sign in with Facebook, select friends they are interested in, and click "Down to Bang." Mutual interests are notified via email. Despite its controversial debut, the app continues to attract significant media attention and user interest.
Month: January 2013
Creators of “Bang With Friends” Just Want to Spread the Love
BUZZFEED NEWS – "Bang With Friends," a Facebook app, allows users to find friends interested in casual hookups. Despite claiming anonymity, users can see which friends are also using the app. Created by three anonymous college graduates from California, the app aims to destigmatize sex and facilitate connections without the fear of rejection. Since its launch, 23K people have used the app, resulting in ~1K hookups in four days. The creators are working on updates to include all sexual orientations and improve compatibility results while maintaining user discretion.
GuySpy Launches The PEARL Pride Party App
PR WEB – Jan 25 – GuySpy, a gay chat app, launches PEARL gay pride app for all global LGBT Pride events and Circuit Parties, as well as associated parades and activities. With PEARL, users are able to keep up to date on whats happening when, build and maintain a personal schedule, share information with social networks, and upload, view and share user photos.
Brian Bowman: Facebook Is Primed To Disrupt Online Dating
TECH CRUNCH – Jan 25 – Men and women experience online dating very differently. Men typically send out hundreds of emails hoping someone will respond. Women can receive hundreds of emails a week, but respond to less than 2%. Most dating profiles are static and lack social network updates. For most social discovery startups, there is a significant cold-start problem. Few startups are funded well enough to afford the marketing required to achieve scale. No social dating site has gained meaningful traction: theComplete.me (10K), Yoke (10K), Circl.es (1K), LikeBright (1K), thedatable (200), and atthepool.com have struggled. With Graph Search, can Facebook reinvent dating, drive down the associated stigma? Just because someone’s profile indicates they are single does not mean they are ready for dating. On Facebook, receiving messages from strangers feels creepy. Facebook’s profiles are shallow. The real question may be how important is the dating market to Facebook? It will be a challenge to run so many vertical solutions: dating, recruiting, ratings, reviews, etc. Facebook can easily leverage their massive social graph to enable meaningful friend-of-friend introductions. They can create very detailed, self-updating profiles by displaying and structuring data from Pinterest, Spotify, Pandora, Yelp, Netflix, Amazon, ESPN, GoodReads and more. They can dominate real-time communication: chat, check-ins, poke, texting and Skype video chat.
Dating Algorithms: Continuing the Conversation…
OPW – Jan 23 – At iDate we had a stellar session on Dating Algorithms. Dr Steve Carter from eHarmony, Dr Rense Lange from Integrated Knowledge Systems who worked on the TRUE.com dating algorithms, and Michael McNicholas, CEO of PerfectMatch, took questions. Lets continue the conversation in the comments.
Baihe Resumes IPO Preparations
MARBRIDGE CONSULTING – Jan 25 – Baihe Online, the operator of Beijing-based online dating site Baihe, has commissioned an unnamed accounting firm to begin an audit of the company in anticipation of resuming the company's IPO application. Baihe added 12M new users in 2012, an increase of 300% YOY. The company reached operational profitability during the year. Baihe CEO Tian Fanjiang did not deny IPO rumors.
Pop Secret And OkCupid Partners For Movie Compatibility Matching
PR NEWSWIRE – Jan 24 – Pop Secret and OkCupid partners to match people according to the movies they like. "Movie Match" allows users on OkCupid to find a new set of matches on the dating site based on movie compatibility. The results are calculated through a series of movie questions interspersed with existing OkCupid match questions. The movie matches show up on a separate match page.
The full article was originally published at Virtual Strategy, but is no longer available.
More Students Turning To ‘Sugar Daddies’
CTV NEWS – Jan 24 – A growing number of Canadian university students confronted by rising tuition costs are turning to "Sugar Daddies". According to Brandon Wade, founder and CEO of SeekingArrangement.com, the ratio of female "Babies" vying for each man's attention is roughly 12:1. There are Sugar Mommies, too. Wade says his site has seen the number members who are university students grow from 30% in 2006 to ~50% last year.
The App That Shows Which of Your Facebook Friends Are “Down to Bang”
BUZZFEED NEWS – "Bang With Friends" is a Facebook app designed to help users find friends who are interested in casual encounters. It promises anonymity but falls short, as Facebook friends can see who is using the app before they authorize it themselves. The app displays friends of the opposite sex and notifies users of mutual interest. However, it mistakenly includes same-sex friends and shows non-compatible matches, such as coworkers and family members. Despite its intentions, the app's lack of true discretion and its awkward approach to friendships make it less appealing and potentially embarrassing for users.