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.
Category: All Gay
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.
Manhunt Hits Sydney Billboards
MUMBRELLA – Jan 27 – Gay dating website Manhunt has launched a billboard campaign in the Paddington area advertising its new mobile product that helps gay men hook up. The campaign was devised by Pink Media Group, a gay media specialist that also works with gay hook-up app Grindr. Manhunt has 65k users in Australia.
Grindr ‘Mandatory Update’ To Tackle Hack
PINK NEWS – Jan 23 - The Sydney Morning Herald reported that a hacker had listed sensitive profile information online, allowing Grindr users to be impersonated. Grindr said last week only a small number of Australian users had been affected by the hacker’s site, but it would be taking urgent measures to protect security. Address and credit card information was not hacked.
Interview With Eric Silverberg, co-Founder Of Scruff
OPW INTERVIEW – Jan 16 – Eric’s story is similar to Joel’s at Grindr. He runs a gay dating app, and its doing quite well. Here’s his story. – Mark Brooks
How many users do you have now?
We’ve had more than a million registered users since we launched in 2010.
You’re MIT educated and you worked at Intel, Microsoft and Google. What led you to create the Scruff App and what’s your founding story?
It was the end of 2009 and I wanted to learn more about app development. I looked at the apps that were on the market at that point and I really wanted to do something different for the gay community. I partnered with my good friend Johnny and after some exploration we launched Scruff. In addition to Scruff being a dating/social app for the gay community we wanted to create a new kind of brand that people wouldn’t be embarrassed to say: “We met on Scruff”.
Are you going to launch a straight App?
Right now we’re happy with where we are so probably not any time in the near future.
You’ve replaced winks with woofs. How many woofs are people sending around the world?
Quite a lot. It’s a really easy way to interact with people in addition to chat. At this point we see more than 30 messages a second being sent over our platform.
How else is your service different from the likes of Grindr?
We’ve built a rich, multi-platform set of features. We’ve also thought a lot about different ways that people can interact with each other in addition to chat. For example; woofing, rate one another, see how you’ve been rated. We’re building a community around Scruff and Scruff is a group that encompasses lots of different types of people. It’s definitely resonated.
You’ve got a couple of paid subscriptions now. What do people get for the paid services and how much are they?
We’ve launched a premium version that includes Browsing Pro and Messaging Pro. One enables you to view more profiles and customize your grid to a greater degree. The other gives you an unlimited inbox and message history.
Are you profitable at this stage?
We have just become profitable.
Are you looking for funding?
No we’re not looking for funding right now. It was a challenge in the beginning but we got through it and now it’s really exciting for us.
Where are you going to be in a year’s time?
We’ve recently relocated back to Manhattan, which is really exciting! We’re seeing great growth globally and hope to do more global travels. In the next year we have a lot of really cool features we are going to launch – more with albums, search filters and a lot of events. We hope to bring Johnny Scruff and our team to even more events around the country and the world.
‘Eyebrow-Raising’ Billboard In Times Square
MEDIA BISTRO – Jan 1 – Gay social network site Manhunt is about to drum up some publicity by placing the above billboard in Times Square. Located at the corner of Broadway and 47th Street, Manhunt's billboard, which will be up through Jan. 6, was described as "raising some eyebrows" and featuring "two sweaty guys in dog tags about to make out." It's already greatly offended one L.A. mom, despite the fact that a similar Michael Kors billboard (depicting a woman placing her hand inside a man's briefs) has been the subject of no such controversy.
by Bob Marshall
See full article at Media Bistro