TECHXPLORE - Jan 8 - Browsing the Internet as a young policeman in China, Ma Baoli recalls the sheer volume of web pages telling him he was a pervert, diseased and in need of treatment - simply because he was gay. Two decades later, the softly spoken 43-year-old now helms Blued, one of the world's largest dating platforms for gay men. The app went public last July with an $85M debut on Nasdaq. Ma's journey to the apex of China's tech industry began in the early 2000s when he began publishing Danlan.org, a blog about his life as a gay man. Ma's blog gradually expanded into an influential online forum for LGBTQ people in China. Increasing local media coverage of the website outed Ma to his coworkers and prompted him to leave the police force in 2012. He launched Blued the same year. The app today says it has 58M users. It has yet to turn a profit but company figures show losses have narrowed since the platform began paid memberships, livestreams and ads in 2016.
by Jing Xuan Teng
See full article at TechXplore
See the top news on Blued
| |
Comments