A mobile app links single men and women within 100 miles and helps them to get together
A dating website is assisting more face-to-face meetings, replacing chat-up lines in bars with messages from the GPS-enabled app.u00a0
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Its founder calls it a ‘new frontier’ of finding friends and dating, using portable technology to immediately connect amorous or lonely men and women.
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Using GPS technology to link singles near each other together, the service aims to bridge the gap between dating sites and real-life chance meetings, bringing back the face-to-face spontaneity of dating.
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The app has rocketed in popularity, joining others in the booming and highly lucrative online dating market, which has an estimated value of 4 billion dollars.
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“Shortly we expect to hit one million downloads, and things are accelerating as word spreads,” the a major newspaper quoted the app’s founder Chris Klotz as saying.
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Launched in 2010, 550,000 messages were sent between singles all over the world last year alone. A Google map plots current locations and flags up users within 100 miles; after viewing a profile, winks and messages can be sent.
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Most of the website’s users are between the ages of 25 and 50, with the USA home to nearly a quarter of a million downloaders - and the site is keen to tout that most cities worldwide host its users.
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“We meet people when we’re out and about, not when we’re stuck at home behind a computer.
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“It is used to meet people not for a quickie, although I’m sure there might be those ambitions for some,” Klotz said on his website.
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While an initial judgement of the service may be to compare it to something of a similar app that geographically links gay users, often for casual sex - Klotz has found that his app has ‘become much more main stream’.
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The potential of the gay market is not lost on the founder, and two months ago he launched a gay dating website..
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