TECH HIVE – Nov 10 – Bang With Friends/Down is by far the most brazen “dating” app on the market, but others have similar features: letting people rate each other’s looks and trade messages to make plans to meet up. Pure app takes an approach like Uber’s to hooking up, where you create the request, and you get a car pretty soon. Shouldn’t finding a date have more human interaction? These apps suck all the fun out of meeting, flirting, and dating.
by Caitlin McGarry
See full article at Tech Hive
TECH CRUNCH – Sep 30 – Zynga has accused BangWithFriends app of infringing on its “With Friends” line-up. They are both saying they’ve reached a settlement. It seems like a clear win for Zynga. Bang With Friends is now changing its name to "The Next Bang".
SHALOM LIFE – Sep 26 - Colin Hodge is the CEO of Bang with Friends, an online dating app that came back on the market as "Down" after it got banned from iTunes.
Q: Does it work the same way?
A: Yes.
Q: Where did you get the initial idea for Bang with Friends?
A: We started this project in a night of brutally honest conversations and programming. We focused on the key missing pieces in online dating for our generation: honesty and bite-sized consumption.
Q: What has the response been like since you've come back on the market as 'Down'?
A: Pretty positive. Now, you can have our app on your phone without any stigma.
Q: What are you trying to establish with Down?
A: To uncover the hidden potential of some of our friendships since it's safer than meeting a total stranger.
Q: Do you consider Down a dating site?
A: We're not a dating site, but we are dating as it should be.
by Daniel Koren
The full article was originally published at Shalom Life, but is no longer available.
CNET NEWS – Aug 29 – The app, which connects Facebook friends interested in hooking up, is back in the Store under new name "Down." Even though Bang With Friends is essentially a matchmaking service, Apple had apparently removed the app from the store for its rather brazen approach to such hookups.
by Desiree Everts DeNunzio
See full article at CNet News
PANDO DAILY – Aug 12 – A year ago, not many developers had heard about graph databases. But thanks to the release of Facebook’s “Graph Search”, this is no longer true. Neo Technology is one of the pioneers of graph database technology. The technology enables companies to better map relationships, mine connections, power user queries, and resolve connected data challenges. Neo’s customer roster includes companies like Accenture, Adobe, Autodesk, Cisco, Deutsche Telekom, HP, Intercontinental Exchange and T-Mobile. Neo’s most recent paying customer to implement Neo4j is Bang With Friends (BWF). It’s only five months post-launch, and the company has already crossed the 1M user mark with 200K successful matches made, and continues to see viral growth. BWF co-founder Colin Hodge used graph technology to map relationships at his prior dating startup HeardAboutYou and describes the database architecture as the obvious way to structure his company’s data. “It allows us to more effectively model the dating landscape and the connections between our users,” Hodge says.
MEMEBURN – July 30 – Bang With Friends, the Facebook app that aids in casual sex hookups, was banned from the Apple App Store in May and now Zynga is taking it on for trademark infringement. Zynga has filed a complaint suggesting that Bang With Friends selected its name with “Zynga’s game trademarks fully in mind,” and that its name contravenes the company’s trademark, covering titles including “Words With Friends” and “Chess With Friends. Bang With Friends has yet to respond to the allegations, but we can’t imagine that it will back down quickly. Its fortunes, with upwards of 1.1M users, also appear to still be on the up, while Zynga’s are going very much the other way. In June, Zynga was forced to slash 18% of its staff as it continues to battle to adapt to mobile gaming.
ECONOMIST – July 26 – The way to find love is to send photos of your face. Tinder lets users scroll through dozens of photos in minutes. Users never know if someone rejects them. Bang With Friends (BWF) allows users to specify which of their Facebook friends they would like to bed. If both parties feel the same way, BWF notifies them. If not, no one is any the wiser. Colin Hodge, BWF’s founder, admits he came up with the concept while “a bit tipsy”.
