While location-based social dating apps haven’t gotten the best rap of late — Skout being a particularly egregious example — a certain segment of the population seems to just love them: the gay folks. Grindr has seen incredible success since its launch, and now a new gay dating app is set to make things a little more interesting.
Hornet, which has raised $500K in funding since its January launch, has seen 150,000 users in the past six months. And that’s only expected to keep growing, as PandoDaily reports 150 percent month-over-month growth and 100,000 sessions per day.
The reason for this may be Hornet’s new approach on gay social networks. Unlike Grindr, Hornet allows you to save and store certain users to continue chatting later, rather than a one-off connection. You can also search in different areas, rather than a default search of your current location, and users have the option to load multiple profile pictures.
But the real claim to fame for Hornet is the company’s focus on security. They’ve made it the highest priority, making sure that closeted users never have to worry about a hack or some other security breech. And the app takes it a step further, reminding users to get tested for HIV and other STDs every six months.
While Hornet is definitely different than Grindr, I can’t help but be bothered at just how similar the interfaces are. And beyond that, Hornet seems to be in attack-mode when it comes to Grindr, mentioning their greatest competitor over and over again, noting the faults and flaws of the first gay mobile social network. This isn’t all that attractive to me, but perhaps the gay men on Hornet are attractive to you.
So if this sounds like it may float your boat, check out the app in the App Store.