PR WEB – Oct 8 – Dating Factory, the white label dating company for adult and other niche dating sites, is now powering LesbianDating.com. Other dating sites have included lesbians in the past, but women on those sites are often still exposed to the potential of unwanted contact from men. LesbianDating.com connects like minded women in a welcoming and easy to use online environment.
Category: All Gay
GuySpy: Facebook Is Tad Homophobic
QUEERTY – Sep 28 – GuySpy, the location-based gay dating app, has run into problems with Facebook’s Community Standards, which allegedly prohibit pornography and explicit nudity. But it seems that those standards don’t apply for everyone. Facebook has a strict policy against the sharing of pornographic content and imposes limitations on the display of nudity. GuySpy posted this pic to its page only to see it taken down within hours by Facebook. GuySpy found that their pic was nothing compared to the page “Hot boy sexy ladies of Dhaka”. This site has been up for five months. Perhaps, facebook is just a tad homophobic and sexist to boot! Exploiting the female body is just fine, but showing a beautiful man almost completely nude is a disgrace.
Interview With Adam Segel, CEO & Tim Feeley, Director Of Product Management At Online Buddies (Manhunt.net)
OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 18 – Manhunt.net is gay and adult. Apple doesn’t do adult. After trying a PG app Manhunt decided to take a different approach. Here’s my interview with the CEO, Adam Segel, and their head of Product, Tim Feeley. – Mark Brooks
You've taken an unusual approach with Manhunt with mobile. You've actually gone with m.manhunt. Why did you go the online route instead of the native route?
We are an adult dating site and there are a lot of content restrictions to be in the Apple Store and the Android Market.
How is the conversation with Apple?
Apple is elusive. They don’t' really have conversations with you, they just tell you no. We see 40% of our traffic using mobile, I'm glad that we don’t' have to pay 30% of our revenue to the Apple Store. People are paying us directly on the phone and it's terrific.
How does that work?
Well they just use their credit cards. They go through our regular credit card processing, we just made a mobile version of our page.
The element you're missing out on is the element of discovery. People going on Google Play and the iPhone store and looking for apps like yours and not finding you. They are probably looking directly for you, but they'll discover you on Manhunt.com. They'll know about m.manhunt.com?
Yes. Fortunately we have a tremendous brand throughout the world so we're able to get the word out about our product. But you are correct, we do not have that advertising platform.
So how have you dealt with location with HTML5?
Luckily, HTML5, especially on mobile platforms, does support querying for a mobile users GPS coordinates. Technically, there's a degree of precision that's a bit less when you are requesting via HTML5 versus a native app. But for our intents and purposes, it's perfectly suitable.
Most people, when it comes to mobile dating, don't really want specific location from what I'm hearing. Vicinity is of more interest. As long as you're within a 20 minute drive, it seems reasonable really. Or a 15 minute walk if you're in the city.
For our users, it's more like a 5 minute walk, but still that's within the scope of what we're able to offer.
What limitations have you found with HTML5 versus a native app?
The largest limitations is the notifications systemthat come with iPhone and Android and that we're unable to have. When people get new messages or when a friend of theirs is online, they can't get that push notification. The other is the ability to upload photos. It's perfectly fine on Android, but Apple has blocked that. There is no way through a browser to upload a photo. So our solution to that is a third party applications that facilitate that.
Have you got a solution for Blackberry?
You can use Manhunt on the Blackberry, but it's a pretty rudimentary, very old mobile system that isn't pretty and doesn't have location and all that. Every time we query our members, it's really members abroad that have Blackberry. In the States, they don't really seem to have it as much or really care. It is something that we're thinking about, it is on our radar, but top priority is Android and iPhone.
How about international? Have you seen particular growth of mobile in international markets?
Our number one biggest international market for mobile is Australia, where just short of 60% of our logins come from mobile devices. We also have great adoption in Spain and England.
In the USA, in terms of modes of payment; have you got a preferred provider you could recommend?
We use Litle as our credit card processor – a combination of Litle and Global Collect. Global Collect helps us with all of our international billing and Litle does our domestic.
When did you launch the mobile app?
It was less than a year since we've had the m.Manhunt out there.
How did you get the word out?
Fortunately for us, there were two primary ways. One was when people started accessing Manhunt through mobile browsers, we took them directly to the mobile version. We also message all of our customers.
What features are you most proud of?
I think that we're still rapidly improving to this day, but I'm proud of how we are able to integrated our millions of desktop members who aren't yet using mobile or choose not to use mobile, and exposing them on the Manhunt mobile experience. From a feature set, we try to be very much on par with Manhunt and extend that experience to your mobile device.
What's your thoughts on the iPad? How does that fit into your product roadmap?
We are available on the iPad. We are seeing a slight, but steady increase in iPad traffic.
Have you really seen much difference between the demographic of your mobile users versus your usual online users. Does the age skew younger at all?
A tiny bit, but not really noticeably. We're really seeing a broad user base of the mobile, just like the desktop. We're seeing guys in their 50's and 60's using their mobile apps, just like we are the 21 year olds to 28 year olds.
In terms of user acquisition as well, are you finding that you're acquiring via mobile? Are you actively advertising and marketing out to mobile as well?
We are. We are advertising through our Google channels and we advertise mobile separately. We haven't found any tremendous mobile channels on which to advertise. Our competitors don't allow us to advertise on their apps, so it's been a little bit difficult. But we are seeing a steady increase in people joining through the mobile phone.
We've probably got a few of them watching this interview. What message would you have for them regarding advertising and swapping advertising?
I can't really pressure them to let us advertise on their app because I probably wouldn't let them advertise on mine. But I would tell them that they do a great job and I'm very glad for them because it's helped us all to evolve to a much better mobile place for users to be able to have the solutions available.
Who do you hold in high esteem? Who else out there do you think is doing a good job on mobile?
I think Grindr obviously started the trail and did a really nice job with it. I also think Scruff do a terrific job of having the app readily accessible and easy to use.
How would you say Manhunt mobile is going to look in a year's time? What's your goals and vision for the mobile product?
We're making it easier and easier to offer your precise location coordinates. We've always kind of struggled with “are users willing to travel the extra 5 miles to find a guy that's exactly their type?” We found that they won't go 5 miles. They'll take a lesser guy who is closer than a hotter guy who's farther.
Also as people are using our apps more and more, they are asking us for some of the features that we haven't yet incorporated into the app; so this our next step.
I went to a conference recently and saw Windows Mobile exhibiting and I was very impressed. They've done a nice job with it. What's your thoughts on the future? How do you think they're going to be easy to work with?
We haven't really looked into designing for that platform yet. Once we're able to discover the best way to approach that, we're looking forward to bringing Manhunt to all of the devices.
Grindr CEO: 100% Of My Audience Does Not Have Equality
MASHABLE – Sep 8 – Grindr is hoping to steer its 1,558,031 U.S. users — all of voting age — toward ballot boxes this year, in what’s bound to be an historic election. Joel Simkhai, founder and CEO of the Los Angeles-based company, believes another fundamental difference sets the userbase apart. “We don’t have the same rights as everyone else. 100% of my audience does not have equality.” He believes Grindr has a responsibility to change that. The team launched the Grindr for Equality: Election 2012 campaign for the first time. The end goal is to rally ~1.5M users together to vote for LGBT-friendly initiatives and their congressional supporters in all 50 states. Grindr hopes to educate users about local elections, and advocate for the president, representatives and senators who are supportive of same-sex marriage and gay-friendly initiatives.
Grindr Getting Popular In Argentina
BUENOS AIRES HERALD – Aug 30 – In Argentina there are currently ~7K active users logging in to Grindr on a regular basis and the country ranks third in terms of users in the region after Chile and Brazil. Since its creation in 2009, Grindr has grown exponentially, boasting ~4M users worldwide.
by Adrian Bono
See full article at Buenos Aires Herald
Vending Men Manchester 2012
GAYDAR BLOG – Aug 28 – Here are the winning vouchers collected from Gaydar during the Manchester Pride.
- Ticket #603 - An 11-night adventure in Cape Town for 2
- Ticket #293 - A 2 night stay in the Axel Hotel Berlin with 2 x VIP Tickets to HustlaBall Berlin on Friday 19th October 2012
- Ticket #590 - £150 voucher from designer underwear brand Bone Wear.
- Tickets #613, #227, #078, #198 - Street wear from designer label Areosol.
- Ticket #115 - A £150 voucher from the hottest underwear brand in Greece Modus Vivendi.
To claim your prize, scan or take a photo of your voucher and email to craig.mccormack@qsoft.co.uk along with your contact.
The full article was originally published at Gaydar Blog, but is no longer available.
Blued: China’ s First Gay Flirting App
TECH IN ASIA – Aug 23 – Blued is a new gay Android and iOS dating app that launched in China. It allows sign-up with local social networks such as Sina Weibo or Tencent QQ. The company behind Blued is called DanLan.
by Steven Millward
The full article was originally published at TechInAsia, but is no longer available.
Johnny Skandros About How He Started Scruff
METRO DAILY – Aug 22 – Johnny Skandros is the co-founder of gay dating app Scruff. Using GPS, Scruff tells a user who is in his immediate vicinity. Scruff is available at no cost, or with subscription rates for enhanced features. Scruff recently become a top-grossing app in the App Store. Johnny started at the USC film school. After taking a class on gay and lesbian film he got inspired to move forward with studying film. After USC, he worked in Santa Monica for a year as an assistant film editor. Then he moved to New York. He pitched the idea of Scruff to his friend. Scruff launched in July 2010 and after first week saw thousands of downloads. U.S. is Scruff's largest market followed by U.K. Brazil and Taiwan are also very large markets. Scruff is translated into 12 languages.
oneGoodLove.com Re-launches As Relationship-Focused LGBT Site
PR WEB – Aug 14 – oneGoodLove.com, the online dating service for gay men and lesbians, is launching a 2.0 Beta site, redesigned with enhanced searching and matching, “marriage” as a stated relationship goal, and for the first time, allowing LGBT singles to identify as members of the US Armed Forces on an LGBT dating site. Dating focus at oneGoodLove.com is long-term relationships and marriage.
The full article was originally published at Virtual Stategy, but is no longer available.
Interview With Scott Lewallen, co-Founder Of Grindr And Blendr
OPW INTERVIEW – July 31 – You know Joel, no doubt. We interviewed Joel Simkhai about Grindr in December 2010. Here’s Scott Lewallen, the co-founder of Grindr and Blendr. – Mark Brooks
You started Grindr with $5,000. How did you do it?
I had met Joel when I lived in New York. I had moved back to Los Angeles and he showed up one day in L.A. and said: “You know what? I’m going to try out Los Angeles and I’ve got this idea. I want to be able to meet the gay guys around me. What do you think? Do you want to help me?” I was like, oh sure, that’s a great idea and I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. There were a lot of tireless nights where we didn’t sleep, there was a lot of scribbling on napkins and pieces of paper. Some brainstorming in Photoshop and other sort of drawing programs.
So your background is branding?
Yeah, my background is branding, art, and technology.
At what stage did you realize that this was not going to be a small thing?
When Joel first came to me with the idea, I knew we were onto something. But I think the first time that it dawned on me that we hit something really big was a month after we launched. There was a big gay party in Palm Springs called the White Party. I was there to introduce Grindr and people were using it already.
How did you make it easy for people to talk and spread the word.
Keeping the experience very basic helped us because it solved a problem: figure out who is gay and then break the ice so you can talk to them.
Tell us more about LBS. You’ve done it right. How have you done it right?
It solved one single problem – finding out who’s gay around you and letting the app do that for you.
There’s other apps that have actually used a map, like SinglesAroundMe. What do you think of that?
I’ve seen it used in a number of places. Some people have done it brilliantly and some people have not. When it comes to Grindr it doesn’t really matter where they are on the map. You only know they’re 500 feet away.
So how have you used what you’ve learned from Grindr in Blendr, and what have been the challenges?
In Blendr, obviously the magic of our simple interface and the location based services were very important to us. Because it’s clear that the gay men and straight men are interested in this type of thing, but would the women really ready for this? What we found is that it’s picked up really well and that people are very engaged on Blendr as well.
Do you think you would move Blendr more towards the Badoo direction? Friendsmaking, if you’d like, finding new friends.
We did poll our Blendr users quite recently and the number that came back to us is that over 90% of both male and female are using it to talk with new people. Talking to new people essentially means dating or flirting. After watching our user habits and seeing what their doing, we’ve begun to push it in more of a dating and flirting direction instead of just social discovery.
Do you think anybody has really gotten the social graph right. Friends date friends of friends. There’s one school of thought that says that’s not cool, it should be a separate group. You don’t want to mix that world. But in the real world, the reality is that people meet through their friends of friends. What’s your philosophy on this and how does Blendr blend that in?
I think it’s applicable to both Blendr and Grindr and just the social sphere in general. I do see it as two distinct buckets and I’m not sure that anyone has done it right in combining the two. Badoo would appear to be for flirting and dating. Whereas Facebook, it’s more about social proof.
Could you define social proof?
Social proof for me is when I’m investigating somebody and something in their profile, whether it’s an obvious mutual connection or mutual friend, or it’s just some event that I know about. It qualifies them in my mind that I might be able to talk to them and they’re not completely crazy.
What do you think is the future? Do you think these two buckets should be separate? Do you think the money’s in a particular bucket in the future, in terms of monetization?
I’m not sure. It bugs me that I have to open five or six different apps to achieve what I want to do online. It would be nice to do that from a single location. But at the same time, if there was that single solution, would I want all those different aspects of my personal life to smear together?
How does Grindr use social media to generate word of mouth?
People talk about Grindr, regardless of our efforts to market it outside the app. We’ve got a pretty big following on Twitter and also on Facebook. We’ve had countless press mentions both in New York Times or TechCrunch – mainstream publications like that, and also pop culture. One of our big moments was when Stephen Fry mentioned us in his program and basically introduced Grindr to the masses.
How difficult was it to come up with the name?
Oh my gosh. The word Grindr came out of weeks and weeks of just looking at words and looking at concepts. I had a list of maybe 50 words and we just kept circling them and doing different iterations of each word. And we ended up on the word Grindr. It’s a unique word. It’s short, it rolls off your tongue, and it’s memorable.
What would be your advice for someone who’s just starting out and thinking I want to grow something for my particular dating community online and for mobile phone. How would you recommend they start? How would you recommend they spend money to seed?
I think a lot of success is built within taking risks and being passionate and focused about what you’re doing.
What one thing would you have done different in the first three months if you had to do it all over again?
Preparing ourselves for the amount of growth that we’ve had. We have 3.5 million users around the world. And very early on it became apparent that we weren’t set up to handle the rapid scaling or the adoption rate with the gay guys that found out about Grindr. People are spending about 1.5 hours a day engaging on the app, and that leads to a lot of traffic.
Let’s talk about the tech side of things as well. Do you think HTML5 is ever going to be strong enough to be able to do what you’re doing with your native apps?
As a geek, I think HTML5 is super exciting. I wish there were more mainstream tools that facilitated development in HTML5. But we’ve created an ecosystem and a culture where people ask what apps are on your phone, not what websites do you go to. There’s still some performance gaps that have to be met with HTML5. HTML5 seems to require a lot of processing cycles on your mobile device. As you get into older devices, the performance might not be up to par. We live in a world that is driven by app stores and the apps available in them.
You’re on Android and iPhone. Do you have a Blackberry app?
We do have a Blackberry app and we support iPad as well.
How do you treat an iPad differently?
Apple defined two very different categories of their mobile devices. Whereas Android has one big ecosystem of things that run their operating system. So with regards to Grindr, we’ve done some optimization on the iPad. There’s more room to display information on the profile. And certainly, at the end of the day, you see a much bigger, clearer picture of the person that you’re talking to on your profile.
Do you see much difference between the usage of people on the Andoird versus iPhone?
Because we were first to market with iPhone, that’s certainly where our largest population is. Android is catching up quickly. The barrier to entry to Android is a lot lower than iPhone, simply because a lot of the devices are cheaper or given away.
Are you seeing iPhone monetizing a lot better than Android?
I think Apple has done a wonderful job in terms of monetization. On iOS it’s very easy for you to purchase your subscription credits.
So it’s more streamlined basically?
A single button versus two pages of entering information is a much better user experience.
Who else would you say is doing a good job in the mobile dating space?
Anybody who’s in Google Play, iTunes App Store or Blackberry App World top rankings is doing a tremendous job. If you look at the mobile dating space, I love Badoo.
The growth of mobile dating has been amazing over the last several months. It seems that most top tier dating sites are seeing 40-50% of their traffic on mobile now. Are you going to keep on doing the same thing and improving and growing? Or is there any revelation with the growth of the competitive space around you?
The competitive space is constantly growing and changing. Both in the gay market and also the mainstream market. I think that whatever happens tomorrow, happens tomorrow. Any company adapts and responds and evaluates. With regards to Grindr, our single most important thing is to make our users happy. So with regards to the future of Grindr, to me the most important thing is to sort of take the loyalty and the monetization our users give us and turn that around and develop new features and constantly improve the experience so that we can give it back to our users. Because at the end of the day, if we’re trying to help gay guys meet each other, that better be one hell of an experience.