PINK NEWS – Apr 3 – A poll released by Gaydar today says a fifth of its users are planning to become someone’s civil partner in the next year. 60% said they would wear an engagement ring, presumably consistently. 45% would like a religious ceremony and 48% intend to walk up an aisle at their civil partnership.
Category: All Gay
Grindr Celebrates Its 3rd Birthday With 3.5M Users
PR NEWSWIRE – Mar 26 – In 2009, Grindr started out as a small company with $5K in self-financing and an office headquartered in Founder and CEO Joel Simkhai's living room. Grindr officially launched on March 25, 2009, and within one month, 10K users downloaded the free app. Fast-forward only three years, and Grindr has 10K new users around the world joining up every day. Today, 908K Grindr users log on and send 7M chat messages and 2M photos to one another on a daily basis. The app is most popular in the US, but has seen incredible popularity in the UK, France, Australia and Canada, in addition to an emergent following in far-flung, unexpected spots such as Iran, Moldova, Malawi, Yemen, Albania and Djibouti.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
Looking For Location-Based Love
BETAKIT – Mar 13 – According to Juniper Research, the mobile dating market is expected to grow to $1.4 billion by 2013, and startups are poised to take advantage of that growth. A recent study by Skout noted that 69% of people were comfortable meeting up with someone they met on their iPhone, and 40% were using a mobile dating service while out at bars, clubs and restaurants. The U.S.-based app also lets romance-seekers view “hotspots” on Google Maps as a fiery glow, representing what locations are currently trending. Grindr uses geolocation to enable users to find other men within close proximity. This is accomplished through a user interface that displays a grid of user pictures, arranged from nearest to farthest away. Tapping on a picture will display a brief profile for that user, as well as the option to chat, send pictures, and share one’s location. Sharing location-based data brings up the question of safety. Ian Bell is the founder of Tingle, a dating app for iPhone. He said the idea of using location in a dating app can make users wary. Tingle tracks a user’s location and shares their proximity, as opposed to a specific location, when users pass near one another.
by Asif Khan
The full article was originally published at Beta Kit, but is no longer available.
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30,000 Gaydar Users Opt In To STI Notifications
PINK NEWS – Mar 1 – 31,714 Gaydar members in the UK have opted in for the Sexual Health Messaging Service in the three months since it launched on 29 Nov last year. The messages are also available on Fitlads, Recon and Manhunt. The Sexual Health Messaging Service, sometimes referred to as Partner Notification, is funded by a grant from the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Men diagnosed at a participating clinic can be given a unique code for use on the website. There, contact information for recent partners can be typed in: mobile phone numbers, email or a profile name from a participating dating website. They are then sent an automated message, alerting them to the fact that they should get themselves checked out. The messages can be anonymous, but backers say recipients are more likely to take action if the sender is identified.
Grindr For Equality
TECH CRUNCH – Feb 23 – Grindr has announced that it will use its location-based app to fuel a social movement called “Grindr for Equality”. This will allow Grindr to notify and mobilize the LGBT community in specific geographic areas en masse. Grindr first took a step in this direction during the whole “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal debacle. Grindr for Equality sent out a national broadcast message during that time, welcoming closeted service members to Grindr and seeing more than 5K click-throughs to the linked Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Network’s contribution page. Grindr for Equality can launch initiatives on its own, sure, but users can bring issues that aren’t necessarily on a nationally public scale to light. Grindr is looking for on-the-ground activists all over the world that can send updates on gay rights issues in their area.
SinglesAroundMe: Heterosexual Grindr
DAILYMAIL.CO.UK – Feb 17 – SinglesAroundMe is assisting more face-to-face meetings, replacing chat-up lines in bars with messages from the GPS-enabled app. Launched in 2010, 550K messages were sent between singles all over the world last year alone. Most of SinglesAroundMe's users are between the ages of 25 and 50, with the USA home to nearly a quarter of a million downloaders. The potential of the gay market is not lost on the founder, and two months ago he launched GaysAroundMe – more squarely aligned to compete with the likes of Grindr.
Seeking Arrangement Link Young Men To Rich Men
8NEWS NOW – Feb 19 – Men simply say what they're net worth is and what monthly allowance they're willing to give. SeekingArrangement.com founder Brandon Wade started the website in 2006. A few months back, the Las Vegas-based business topped one million users. There are 10 women for every man on the site. The website says that 15% of their client base are gay and lesbian, and sugar mommy's are on the site too, looking for young men.
by Nathan Baca and Alex Brauer
See full article at 8News Now
Changing The Game
THEAGE.COM.AU – Feb 12 – A 2010 Nielsen random survey of 2K Australians found a quarter had tried online dating, of which 16% had formed long-term relationships as a result. One technology that has dramatically altered the playing field is Grindr, the mobile app that employs GPS tracking to allow gay men to check out other users in the area (a version for straight users, Blendr, recently entered the market). Grindr is so popular that Melbourne comic Nath Valvo created a show around it for this year's Midsumma festival and sold out every performance. The comedian says he knows men who wouldn't have been able to come out if they hadn't had access to the relative safety of chat rooms and other internet tools, and it's a case that extends beyond the gay community. Online dating can provide a sense of empowerment in that it can offer people a high level of control in how they manage their interactions and self-presentation.
Dating Sites Become Mainstream And Focus On More Niche Markets
MIAMI HERALD – Feb 12 - Jewcier, a new dating site for Jewish singles, is now open to the public and joins nearly 20 other general and niche dating sites owned and operated by Avalanche, co-founded by Meir Strahlberg and his business partner Kris Covino in 1997. Among Avalanche’s largest sites are Date.com, launched on Valentine’s Day in 1997; Matchmaker.com, which Avalanche bought in 2005, and Amor.com, a Latin dating site also launched in 2005, which has more than 20K members in South Florida alone. Avalanche’s domain names are words people naturally type into the Internet, so they don’t have to spend a lot in marketing, Internet dating experts say. “They’re well respected within the industry for being savvy operators,” said Mark Brooks, an online dating industry analyst and editor of onlinepersonalswatch.com. Within the last six months, Avalanche has added five gay dating sites to its portfolio, which already included GayDating.com, GayMen.com, GayMarriage.net, PinkWink.com, which is oriented toward gay women, MyPartner.com and Gay.mx, a Mexican site. Gay sites are “a growing part of our business,” Strahlberg said. Overall, the company’s sites have 10M members worldwide, and 5-10% of them are paying members, Strahlberg said. Strahlberg, who owns half the company, declined to disclose Avalanche’s revenues, but said it is “highly profitable” and has been since its inception. This year, the company may be looking for outside investors for the first time, he said.
by Ina Paiva Cordle
The full article was originally published at Miami Herald, but is no longer available.
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Grindr: Winner Of TechCrunch Crunchies Awards And 2012 iDate Awards
MARKETWATCH – Feb 2 - Grindr, the all male geo-social network app, was named the winner of TechCrunch's 2011 Crunchies Award for Best Location Application introduced at the Fifth Annual Crunchies Awards Ceremony in San Francisco at The Davies Symphony Hall. Separately, Grindr was crowned the winner of the 2012 iDate Awards in two of the 12 categories for Best Mobile Dating App and Best New Technology at the 9th annual Dating Industry & Internet Dating Conference in Miami. The iDate Awards highlight the best and most innovative aspects of the online dating and matchmaking industry. Grindr previously received an iDate Award in 2011 for Best Mobile Dating App.
The full article was originally published at MarketWatch, but is no longer available.