A dating website which encourages you to ‘meet new guys and girls near you’ has hit 130 million users – making it the world’s fourth largest social network.
Advertising itself as a place to ‘chat, flirt, socialise and have fun’, Badoo has over a million British users, a third of which recently admitted to using the site to find sexual partners.
Logging into the site’s homepage reveals a selection of faces, to which users can make selection by clicking “yes”, “no” or “maybe” – giving rise to claims it is being used ‘like Facebook’ but for sex.
According to TechCrunch, while Brits are using the site for quickies between the covers, in the Czech Republic Badoo serves as a marriage portal, while burqua-clad women in Indonesia are also registering
The London-based site is owned by Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev and is available for use in 30 different languages in over 180 countries across the world.
It claims to have approximately 125,000 new users signing up every day and over seven billion monthly page views.
The majority of services are available for free to users, but a small fee means you can see your status ‘promoted’ and increase the visibility of your profile.
The company has also announced it has over one million users now paying for premium services each month – all of which are available on iPhone, Android, Facebook and Blackberry applications.
Spokesman Bart Swanson said: “Badoo's success, and in particular the fast growth of its mobile app, is testament to consumers' desire for immediate, useful apps that help them connect with the world around them.”