Life Magazine features Actress Kayla Tabish, The Girl Next Door & Loren Cass
Life Magazine features Actress Kayla Tabish, The Girl Next Door & Loren Cass
Premiere Of "Skateland" - Arrivals Share on Tumblr Premiere Of "Skateland" - Arrivals HOLLYWOOD, CA - Actress Kayla Tabish attends the 'Skateland' film premiere at the Arclight Theater in Hollywood, California.
Irseal Broadcast Authority Channel 10 show “Zinor Layla” (Night Tube) features Grindr
Founder says the new version has had to contain more detailed profiles to make it appeal to heterosexual users. By Rupert Neate
Gay dating app Grindr goes straight to help women find a tennis mate
Grindr, the mobile dating app for gay men, is not just about sex, its founder has insisted as he prepares a marketing campaign aimed at straight women.
Joel Simkhai, who was in London this weekend to prepare for the launch of a version for straight people, is trying to shed the app’s sleazy reputation.
Grindr, which has more than 2 million gay users, had hoped to launch its straight version this spring but difficulties adapting the app for heterosexuals have delayed it until next month.
Simkhai, who is based in the US, in Los Angeles, said that once Grindr’s developers “took the gay out of it” they needed to add more detailed profiles to make the new version, codenamed Project Amicus – from the Latin for friend – appeal to straight users. The gay version provides only basic details of nearby men, whose pictures are shown in order of proximity, based on their phone’s GPS location.
Simkhai conceded that Grindr’s reputation, as a service for quick, anonymous sexual encounters, might deter some women from using the straight version but suggested they give it a try. “We’re helping people meet new people. It’s then up to them to decide what to do,” he said.
Project Amicus would be a “more broad experience” than Grindr, said Simkhai. “It is for if you’re looking for a date or [someone] to play tennis with.”
The straight version will still put location and photos at the heart of the service. “It’s nice to know what someone looks like even if you’re just playing tennis with them,” he said.
The new app, which will be free to download, will be followed by a premium version similar to the gay Grindr Xtra, which costs £1.79. A test version is already available from Grindr’s website.
Simkhai says he has received numerous offers for the company since the service launched in 2009. London, with 86,000 downloads, has the most Grindr users in the world.
The Observer features Grindr 'Grindr: a new sexual revolution?'
Grindr is a free phone app which lets gay men instantly pinpoint each other using GPS technology. It has already transformed the sex lives of 700,000 men around the world. But could it work in the straight market? And would it mean the end of monogamy?
Ever heard of Grindr? If you have, I’m going to guess that you are male and gay; or male, technically straight and somewhat curious; or the straight friend of a gay man. If not, allow me to enlighten you.
Grindr (pronounced “grinder”) is a free downloadable iPhone app which, it promises, will help you “Find gay, bi, curious guys for free near you!” Grindr harnesses GPS, allowing you to establish who else in your direct vicinity is also using Grindr. It shows you – on a gridded display – who these men are and what they look like; it’ll tell you how far away from you (in feet, and even more thrillingly, fractions of feet) they are standing; and it will allow you to “chat” them, if they take your fancy. Although buried deep in the Grindr ethos is the idea that you shouldn’t do in cyberspace what you could be easily be doing in person. Don’t “chat” when you could actually, you know, chat.
Grinding is an intoxicating experience. I was first introduced to it on the roof terrace of a bar in east London by my friends J and W. J launched the app on his iPhone and I got palpitations as the grid of portraits (ordered in terms of geographical proximity – your nearest Grindr user is posted at the top left) instantly unfurled itself across the screen. All these men, effectively coming on to – well, not me, but still… It is literally a sexy app and the overflow of that sexual potency, the decadence, sweeps you along on a wave of lust, regardless of who you are and what your gender or sexual orientation might be. I was reminded of the first time I entered words into the search criteria on Google, of the first time I downloaded music from iTunes – I knew I was engaging with a bit of technology that would alter things on a profound level.
I scrolled on and on through the grid of gay offerings, furtively trying to match the pixelated images with the real-life men ranged around me in the bar.
“But do you want to know the funny thing?” J said. “The best nights you can have on Grindr are the nights when you stay in.” And he laughed, wickedly.
Grindr is reconfiguring the landscape of human relationships. Partly because it’s sex in an app, the sexual equivalent of ordering take-away, or online fashion (my friend Kevin calls it “net-a-port-gay.com”, and he’s so pleased with himself for this he says I can use his real name. Everyone else asked to remain anonymous). Grindr was launched on 25 March 2009; now more than 700,000 (and counting) men in 162 countries around the world are using it to phenomenal effect, if J, W, Kevin and the other gay men I’ve asked are any kind of a guide. “I’ve never, ever had so much sex in my life!” R told me gleefully. “I’ve probably had as much in the past eight months of Grinding as I have over the 20 years since I came out. Maybe more.” It’s only going to get bigger, to facilitate more sex. Two thousand people download it every day, and a BlackBerry-friendly version of the app launched less than a month ago – a development which could triple Grindr’s reach.
But Grindr is more significant even than that suggests. It marks a major evolution in how all of us – gay, straight, alive – will meet and interact with each other. Depending on who you talk to, this is either brilliant (liberating, socially enabling – the end, even, of loneliness and boredom); or a potential disaster (signalling the end of monogamy, facilitating sex addiction). Either way, it matters.
Arguably we are living in a post-gay era. The divide between gay and straight worlds diminishes daily. Gay culture and straight culture become increasingly intertwined. For example, Grindr’s biggest boost occurred in June 2009, after gay icon Stephen Fry told the boorishly straight Jeremy Clarkson all about it during an interview on super-hetero TV show Top Gear.
So Grindr would matter even if it was not in the process of developing a straight version of its sexy self. But it is. It is likely that the Grindr experience will be open to a straight market by the end of 2010.
“Oh, at the very latest,” says Joel Simkhai, the founder of Grindr. He’s a wiry, neatly handsome 33-year-old man with an American accent, a hectic manner and a sharp business edge. I meet him for coffee in a chic hotel in London. This is where he’s basing himself while he checks out Grindr’s flourishing UK market; he usually lives in Los Angeles. “The UK is the second biggest country for Grindr after the US,” he tells me. “London is the third biggest city after New York and LA. You love us.”
Read more @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/04/grindr-the-new-sexual-revolution
By Milo Yiannopoulos
The Daily Telegraph features Grindr 'Grindr: combatting loneliness or a cruising ground for gays?'
Gay men have always made extensive use of the internet for dating. In the UK, a website called Gaydar was the pre-eminent gay social network for a long time. Though other services like Manhunt popped up, many of which appear to be focused more closely on sexual encounters rather than the full gamut of social interaction, Gaydar, perhaps through simple inertia, remained the go-to throughout the late nineties and most of the last decade. It provided a complex, if slightly clunky, set of options that enabled gay men to find, communicate with, and in some cases arrange to meet, other men.
Examiner.com features Grindr 'It was all about mobile at the Internet Dating Conference'
For eight years, the Internet Dating Conference has brought together online dating executives from around the world to discuss the latest trends in the industry.
The most recent event was held in Los Angeles at the SLS Hotel, concurrently with the Social Networking Conference. About half of the sessions dealt specifically on mobile dating. The message was clear: you need to have a mobile dating strategy.
Apparently, single daters agree. Match.com’s director of mobile products Robinne Burrell told the group that their subscribers logging on from mobile devices has grown 135% year-over-year to almost 30% of their members. Match had been nominated for a Webby award for their iPad application.
Monica Ohara, Marketing Director of Customer Acquisition at San Francisco based Speed Date shared their secrets and success stories which has helped their 5-minute online speed dating service reach almost 15 million members. Ohara shared her 5 key tips to drive millions of mobile users and said you need a mobile app to be a cool dating site in today’s digital marketplace. Speed Date was the first dating site to launch an iPad app in 2010.
Unlike Match and Speed Date, Joel Simkhai, founder of the Gay mobile app Grindr started on mobile. “The problem with matchmaking is it’s not real life and not how we are meant to meet people,” said Simkhai. He added, “I’m here, you’re there and in a few minutes we can figure out if we’re meant for each other.” Two million gay singles have downloaded Grindr’s popular location based app.
With over 1500 online dating sites to choose from, there are now over 25 million singles in the U.S. who are visiting online dating sites every month. “Fourteen million people using mobile dating services,” said Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals Watch.
As we’re so attached to our iPhones, iPads, and SmartPhones, it’s no wonder that millions of users want to date while on the go. Long gone are the days where you have to drive home to log in to see if that cute guy wrote back to you.
Are you using a mobile dating application? We’d like to hear your mobile dating stories.
Click here for a list of the Cyber-Dating Expert Top 10 Mobile Dating Apps.
Julie Spira is a bestselling author and online dating expert. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com, follow her @JulieSpira on twitter and facebook.com/cyberdatingexpert
What Makes Grindr Grind?
If you’re not on Grindr, you’re either straight, married, or a liar.
The incredibly popular app tells guys who’s in their vicinity and what they look like, and you take it from there.
Rather than go through all that Photoshopping, I instead went searching for some truths about this sexy phenom (which counts NYC as its second biggest city).
I did a Q&A with Grindr’s founder, Joel Simkhai (above), to get some hardcore insight into what makes this linking method so sizzlingly appealing.
I learned lots of hot stuff — for example, that he uses it himself!
The Village Voice features Grindr 'Behind The Scenes At Gays' Fave Hookup App'
If you’re not on Grindr, you’re either straight, married, or lying. Since its inception two years ago, Grindr has become the largest all-male social network, over 2 million worldwide users having downloaded the app that shows you who’s in the vicinity and whether they look approachable.
You can then call on your animalistic instincts and sprint across the street for some hardcore pouncing (or discussions of the national debt, if you prefer) or just keep walking and waiting for something closer and better.
New York is Grindr’s second biggest city (after London), but the whole world seems to be taking to this thing like a lynx in heat, logging back on every time they’re mobile.
Rather than try my luck at it, I went for some behind-the-scenes action, interviewing the network’s founder/CEO. He’s Joel Simkhai, an Israeli-born Tufts grad who launched Grindr on the iPhone, with versions now available for Apple iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices.
And lest you think this is all frivolity-based, Grindr sent messages to its New York users in June, urging them to contact the on-the-fence senators in their nabes and demand that they approve gay marriage. And no, the politicians didn’t tweet back with their crotch shots.
Our interview:
Me: Hi, Joel. Tell me how Grindr works. I swear I’m not sure!
Simkhai: You create a profile. You don’t have to give your name, your email address, anything. You log on and see a grid of photos of other users in order of distance. On the top left is the closest person to you.
You can go through these photos and start chatting and hopefully meet with someone.
Me: How does it know where every-one is?
Simkhai: They’ll log in, they’ll show their location to us, and our servers will do the math to figure out the relative distance. We don’t share your specific location, but your distance. You’ll see that someone is 500 feet away. It could be north, south, east, or west. Then you can talk and give the exact location if you like.
Me: And it’s a big hit, right?
Simkhai: We’re the largest destination for gay men. We have about 500,000 active daily users. Right now, there are 43,000 gays on Grindr as we speak.
Me: And they’re all across the street! What differentiates you from Manhunt?
Simkhai: We don’t allow adult photographs in the profiles. And we’re about location in real-time—it updates as to where you are. Also, with Manhunt, you’re at your house, sitting in front a computer. We’re mobile. You’re on a bus, you’re at Duane Reade….
Me: Or you’re on a bus going to Duane Reade. But do some people use Grindr for things other than sex, or will they need Duane Reade for some rash cream?
Simkhai: It runs the gamut. It’s really what you make of it. We’re a provider of technology.
Me: Do you think most guys that hook up have safe sex?
Simkhai: I don’t have a good sense of that. Twenty years ago, HIV was very, very serious. Now it’s still serious, but maybe not as serious. So maybe that’s changed the mentality, unfortunately. But I think people should always be safe. There’s lots of STDs. The risk is simply not worth it.
Me: Do you use your own product?
Simkhai: Always! I’m on it all the time. I’ve met lots of guys and made some good relationships and dated and had friendships.
Me: So you’ve hooked up from it?
Simkhai: I’ve met all kinds of people and have done all kinds of things.
Me: Hmm. Are you looking for a boyfriend?
Simkhai: I don’t know. Can one look for a boyfriend?
Me: Absolutely. I’ve done it my whole life.
Simkhai: I can’t say I believe in searching for love, or you’ll end up with the wrong situation. Relationships are a lot of work. To make it worth it, you have to find the right person, not force it.
Me: Gosh, you sound so darned grounded. Don’t you have a horrible dark side, like the Facebook co-creator?
Simkhai: I don’t think so.
Me: Do you like being the guy who links all these people?
Simkhai: That’s the best part of the job—essentially being a matchmaker. I meet guys who say, “I met this guy through Grindr, and thank you.” That to me is motivating.
Me: And so is all that cash. Do you make more money from advertising or from the Grindr Xtra (premium service) subscriptions?
Simkhai: Half and half. Grindr Xtra is $2.99 a month.
Me: I always joked that I want to start Troll Grindr, which warns you when someone unattractive is across the street.
Simkhai: I think that’s part of it. You can see who you want to meet and who you don’t want to meet and navigate it. Maybe Troll Grindr should be our next project. [Laughs.]
Me: I want points! Actually, I mentioned that idea to someone and he said, “There already are trolls on Grindr.”
[Pause.]
Me: Tell me about your new app, Project Amicus.
Simkhai: It’s a geosocial network that will allow gays, straights, everyone to meet the people around you. It goes beyond social orientation, gender, any of that. You can go on Facebook and talk to all the people you already know, but how do you meet new people? We’ll hopefully launch this summer.
Read more @ http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-07-20/columns/grindr-joel-simkhai-gay-hookup-app/
Salon.com features Grindr 'A gay hookup app goes straight'
Joel Simkai, a slender, young-faced man, is eating granola and yogurt when I meet him for coffee. He is the founder of Grindr, a location-based app that allows gay men to “connect with guys in (their) area” and “browse men.” Since its launch, Grindr has grown to 2 million users and gained a reputation as something of a hookup widget for the gay community. (The app has a simple interface that shows photos of the closest 100 users at any one time, and allows you to chat and exchange photos with them.)
Now Joel and his team are about to launch their second program, code name Project Amicus, which has been referred to as a “Grindr app for straight people.” “Users can expect a unique mobile app experience unlike anything currently on the market that caters to how women and men communicate together,” boasts the press packet for new project. But does a straight version of Grindr even make sense? According to Joel, Amicus will do far more than help people have sex (which he argues is not what Grindr is for in the first place).
I interviewed Joel about his two apps — and what, exactly, the point of a “straight” Grindr would be.
How did Grindr get started?
Throughout my whole life I’ve always been walking into a room and wondering, “Who’s that?” Or when you walk into a subway and make eyes with someone, and then nothing happens. There’s all these missed connections throughout your daily life, and I just feel like, “I wish I could have said something.”
And as a gay man, you’re always wondering who else is gay. I used to use online chat rooms and dating sites for many, many years. I would talk to people in Minnesota, or Ohio, or wherever. And then as it got more advanced, I’d talk to people in New York. But it’s a big scene; there are a lot of people here. So location wasn’t even the biggest factor in meeting other gay men. At the end of the day, I realized it would have to be new technology.
When the second-generation iPhone came out with the GPS unit and the ability to write and distribute the apps, all these things kind of came together. All the pieces fell into place and I said, “This is it.”
Foursquare became famous for being able to track friends, and Dodgeball allowed you to see how you were connected socially (i.e., how many friends you had in common) to anyone else checked into a given space. How would you say Grindr is different from that?
Well, I’m not interested in helping you find your friends. I’m really interested in having you meet new people. It’s like, “You and me, we’re both here, let’s get together and see if there is some kind of chemistry.” There are so many invisible walls, and Grindr is really just a tool to break those down. I was just at New York Pride, and I met an Australian couple who said they had met over Grindr and they just got married.
Do you consider Grindr a dating app?
I’m less interested in what happens after you meet. Maybe you like them, maybe you just want to chat, and maybe you’re like, “This is not for me, I want to get out of here.”
If Grindr is at least partly being used to meet guys and hook up, how will this project you’re launching work for straight women?
Well, this new app is an evolution: taking what we know from Grindr and putting it on the next level. It’s not even focused on dating. Its code name is Project Amicus, and it’s a lot more about friendship, like a girl meeting another girl, and they are both straight. Or she can meet a gay guy, or whatever. It’s really about helping you meet people. There is that issue right now, of “How do I meet new people? Where should I go? What should I do? I’m bored!” And it’s really a tool to help you figure that out.
Will Project Amicus be open to men too, then?
Yes, though we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about women when developing this project. I’m a guy; I have a harder time getting into the mind-set of a woman. We’ve definitely made extra efforts to think about the woman: what she wants, what she’s comfortable with, who she wants to socialize with.
In terms of making a “Grindr for women,” I think, “Well, isn’t locating the nearest straight dude just called ‘Going to a bar’?”
Right. Well, I still think of both programs in terms of someone who wants to meet new people, people they want to meet, that special someone, someone to spend time with.
So you don’t think of Grindr as being focused on hookups or one-night stands?
I don’t care what people do, as long as it’s legal. You know, I’m happy people are using the program. It’s a whatever-you-want-it-to-be app. Some people want to hook up, some want to network professionally. You know we did a survey, and the majority of people said they used Grindr to find friends. It’s all kinds of things.
So if it’s a friend thing, will Grindr’s app feed its profiles into Project Amicus?
No. They are two separate apps.
So there is a distinction in terms of the purpose of what these two programs are supposed to do?
The new project is a social app. Grindr is somewhere between a geo-social app and a dating tool. People from Grindr can join the new project, but we keep them separate, because they are two different things.
