FORBES - DOWN Dating App founder Colin Hodge highlights Gen Z's preferences for quick, curated digital interactions and privacy. The app responded to these needs by improving its user experience and privacy measures, significantly increasing Gen Z engagement. Gen Z grew up connected online, and its members are accustomed to quickly processing huge amounts of information to find what they want. They want to get the information really quickly. "In the next five years, I suspect we'll see more and more pieces of dating apps automated," he says. "Imagine a profile almost entirely built using your content from other media, automatically selecting the most appealing photos, videos, even your bio." Concurrently, Gen Z's penchant for privacy While encouraging a private, safe environment, DOWN aims for a multi-platform verification standard, boosting user confidence.
25 posts categorized "DOWN"
Gen Z Trends: DOWN Dating App Founder Shares Insights
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How the Founder of Dating App DOWN Fought for His 'Casual Sex' App in Silicon Valley
TECHROUND - Colin Hodge, CEO and Co-Founder of Bang With Friends, shares the journey of launching a controversial app in Silicon Valley. The app quickly gained popularity, reaching 1M users within 3.5 months. However, it faced challenges, including bans from Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store and a trademark infringement lawsuit from Zynga. After rebranding to DOWN, the company persevered and celebrated its 10-year anniversary in January. With ~10M users, DOWN has seen a 500% increase in its user match-rate and a 268% revenue growth since 2019, making it a profitable top 20 dating app in the USA.
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DOWN Hookup App's New "Snap Match" Feature Gets Users Virtual Connections Instantly
DATINGXP - May 19 - DOWN Dating & Hookup App launches Snap Match, a quick matching feature, which allows users to find virtual connections almost instantly, around the world. This feature was just launched this week, it's free and available on both Android and iOS.
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Paktor Moves Into Live-streaming Via Merger Deal
TECH CRUNCH - Apr 26 - Dating app Paktor, 'The Tinder of Southeast Asia,' is moving into live-streaming and media content after it announced a merger deal with Taiwanese startup 17 Media. Paktor currently offers four dating apps - core service Paktor and acquired apps Down, Kickoff and Goodnight - while 17 Media's runs its 17 live-streaming app, photo social network Swag and video group chat service Lit. The new entity is expecting ~$100M in annual revenue and 50M users. The list of established companies moving into streaming is nearly endless. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, Momo, and fast-growing Kuaishou among others.
by Jon Russell
See full article at Tech Crunch
Update: M17 has raised an undisclosed amount in investment from Korean VC firm KTB Network as part of a larger round, which is due to close in a few weeks.
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
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Paktor Continues Spending Spree: Acquires Taiwan's Goodnight
SG NEWS - Feb 8 - Founded in 2015, Goodnight matches people with common interests, after which, they can engage in a voice chat of up to seven minutes. It claims a user base of ~500K. Paktor has formed a new division called Paktor Labs, which is a social apps accelerator headed by Colin Hodge, previously CEO and co-founder of Down and Sweet (two dating apps Paktor bought last month). Down and Sweet, Goodnight and Kickoff (acquired last May) will all be part of Paktor Labs. These newly acquired apps will increase Paktor's user base by ~7M, bringing the total number to 20M users.
by Yon Heong Tung
See full article at SGNews
See all posts on Paktor
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See all posts on Kickoff
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
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Paktor Acquires Casual Dating App Down
TECH CRUNCH - Jan 21 - The terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but the price was reportedly "several million". Colin Hodge, the founder and CEO of Down, will join the Paktor team and will run Down and Sweet apps. He will also be overseeing Paktor Labs and be responsible for acquiring other apps, amongst other things. Down started in 2013 (as Bang With Friends) and grew to 5M downloads, about 200k MAU and $1M annual revenue from in-app purchases.
by Katie Roof
See full article at Tech Crunch
See all posts on Paktor
See all posts on Down
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
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Down Is Introducing Anonymous Texting
NY MAGAZINE - Jan 30 - Down, formerly known as Bang With Friends, is planning to introduce anonymous texting as a new feature of its hookup-centric dating app. Down tested out anonymous texting on Sunday, with 1% of its total users. Straight females were slightly more likely to send messages compared to straight men. To rein in the potential for anonymous harassment, Down will permit each user to message a given number only once.
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Down And Tinder: A New Trend In Online Dating
SOFTONIC - Jan 15 - The recently re-branded Down app gives people the choice of 'getting down', or 'get a date' instead. The stats show British men chose to 'get down' 73% of the time, while women preferred to get down 84% of the time. With this app, users flip through Facebook friends and friends of friends. They chose who they'd be 'down' to get with, and wait for the match.
by Zuzanna Blaszkiewicz
The full article was originally published at Softonic, but is no longer available.
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Which Dating Sites Got The Best And Worst PR In 2013?
OPW - Jan 3 - Here are the Courtland Brooks rankings of the top 10 and the worst 4 performing idating sites for PR in 2013. We used Meltwater News and our qualitative analysis.
Best
- Match
- eHarmony
- Tinder
- OkCupid
- AshleyMadison
- Grindr
- Down (BangWithFriends)
- HowAboutWe
- Spark Networks brands
- Zoosk
- TRUE
- FriendFinder
- Cupid
- White Label Dating
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Online Dating Is Popular In Argentina
CLARIN.COM - Dec 2 - According to ComScore Argentina, 6.6% of the ~18K people surveyed in Sep this year visited dating sites. 27% of women were 15-24 years, and 24 % of men 25 -34. "Online dating has become a more attractive alternative," says Mariela Stescobich, Match.com spokeswoman for Latin America. Match.com claims 2.1M members from Argentina and visits grew 185% last year. Popular mobile apps in Argentina are Tinder, Badoo, Down and Grindr.
by Mariana Israel
See full article at Clarín.com
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Dating Apps Are Getting Creepier
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
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BangWithFriends To Change Name After Trademark Settlement With Zynga
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".
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Startup Club: Bang With Friends
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.
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Bang With Friends Back In The App Store
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
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Bang With Friends Adopts Neo4j Graph Database
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.
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