Badoo–which you might recognize from the aggressive New York ad campaign–is a “social meeting site” with 150 million-plus members. It’s intimately tied up with mobile: You log on and immediately see a list of people in the area you might want to meet, many of them young and relatively attractive. According to VentureBeat, the social network’s sweet spot is single users 24 to 28, especially in France, Spain and Latin America.
Now, what’s the first use case that comes to mind? If you said anything other than hookups, your pants are on fire.
However, founder Andrey Andreev will not have you reducing his service down to the smoosh:
“Think of it like it’s a nightclub! It’s not just about sex,” says Andreev, slightly ruffled at my suggestion that it sounded like a Grindr for straight hookups. “Some people use the service in this way, but … If you own a nightclub – you have a space, you have music, drinks, lights – you bring people together and then it’s up to them to figure out what they want to do.”
That having been said, he added that, “we’re not a dating site. A dating site is a place where you are looking to find someone to live with forever, you know, 14 pages of profile questionnaire.” Mmmhmm, we know how it is. Not looking for Mister Right, just Mister Right Now, amirite?
He whips out his iPhone – “So what we have here, is just random people who are around. We’re a meeting network. People come here for a quick chat, a quick meet, a quick… whatever.”
Just meeting, for, you know, whatever happens when two strangers meet. Watch a movie, grab a coffee, talk about teaching Sunday school.
