Grindr Craze Grows At Rapid Pace

Grindr, the largest all-male mobile location-based networking service has reached its landmark 500,000th member and is still growing.

Since the inception of this innovative social networking application in early 2009, approximately 1,000 to 2,000 new users have been signing up every day. The Grindr craze has undeniably changed the game of social networking for gay and bisexual men around the world.

Grindr’s extraordinary growth is as revolutionary as the app itself and has significantly changed the ways in which guys are choosing to meet up with their friends, make new ones or find a friendly face in locations they are visiting. Whether you just want to know if any of your friends are nearby or are looking to see if there are other gay guys in your neck of the woods, Grindr has become the easiest, quickest and most simple way for guys to meet each other.

"Grindr's growth has come from one source, our users,” said Joel Simkhai, Grindr's founder and CEO “Grindr users are telling their friends about Grindr, they are blogging and Twittering about Grindr, and posting their success stories on their Facebook status updates."

The app, which runs on iPhone and iPod touch, uses location-based technology like GPS, cell towers and Wi-Fi to determine the user’s location. A quick tap delivers profiles, photos, and information of nearby guys. A user’s profile is available in seconds, as are chat functions and sending additional photos or even a user’s map location.

Simkhai adds, "We've been amazed with not only our growth but also by how engaged Grindr users are. A large number of users launch Grindr hourly and daily. Some guys leave it open for several hours a day. And when they change their location they will launch Grindr again to see who's nearby."  An unprecedented 30% of users check their Grindr daily, 44% check their accounts weekly. Best of all, the Grindr application is free.

"We've also been astonished that nearly half of our users are outside the United States. There are thousands of Grindr guys in London, Paris, Tokyo and Sydney. Even Tehran, Iran and Astana, Kazakhstan have Grindr guys." 54% of Grindr users are based in the United States, 17% in the United Kingdom and 9% in Australia. France and Japan take the fourth and fifth top spots respectively.

Users love the no-hassle membership, simple interface and that privacy is always controlled by the user — users can share as much or as little info as they desire.

To fill the need of Grindr users who want even more access to guys nearby — there is now a premium (extra) version for only $2.99 a month. Grindr X(tra) lets users see up to 200 more guys who are close-by (100 more than the free version allows) and it’s ad free. Grindr X(tra) also uses Push Notification, allowing users to receive messages when they are not online. Grindr and Grindr X(tra) work with both the iPhone and iPod Touch but will be available on the BlackBerry and other platforms in the near future.

To download Grindr, visit www.getGrindr.com and to download Grindr X(tra),  visit www.GrindrXtra.com.