Grindr on Wednesday released a new
update to its 5-year-old location-based hookup app for gay and
bisexual men.
According to TechCrunch.com,
the update improves targeting in two ways. Users can select various
subcategories, or tribes, to help find a match. Tribes include bear,
clean-cut, daddy, discreet, geek, jock, leather, otter, poz, rugged,
trans and twink.
Free Grindr users can pick one tribe,
while paying users of Grindr Xtra can choose up to three.
Grindr's new app has also added filters
such as age, height, weight and ethnicity. Free users have access to
three filters, while paid users can choose as many filters as they
want.
Founder Joel Simkhai told TechCrunch
that the new options were needed to help sort out the millions of
users on Grindr.
“Now there are so many guys, people
would rather spend their time finding what they're really looking
for,” Simkhai said.
Grindr has between 2.5 and 3 million
monthly active users, according to Simkhai.
The update also includes larger photo
thumbnails and a new chat inbox.
“Our biggest focus with Grindr is now
speed,” said Simkhai. “There are lots of guys on it now, and
they all want it to be faster. So that's what we've done with the
next-gen version.”
The updated app
for iPhone is available now, and an Android version should be
available soon.