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Badoo

Type of site	Social network service
Available in	Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Slovak, Czech, Indonesian, Turkish, Hungarian, Hebrew
Owner	332 Agiou Andreou Street, "Patrician Chambers", 3035 Limassol, Cyprus.
URL	badoo.com
Commercial	free, but with a charge for higher prominence
Registration	yes

Badoo is a dating-focused social discovery website, founded in 2006. It is managed out of its Soho, London headquarters but owned by a company based in Cyprus, which is ultimately owned by Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev.

Opinions of Badoo.com on TrustPilot, which are based on user reviews, rather than press releases, rate the site as 'Very low', with a current score of 1.3 out of 10 (as of 20 March 2013). Complaints included fake profiles, and spamming of email accounts of signed-up users.

In a peer-reviewed study conducted and published by Cambridge University in 2009, it was given the lowest score for privacy among 45 social networking sites examined.

The site claims to operate in 180 countries and is most popular in Latin America, Spain, Italy and France. Badoo ranks as the 51st most popular site in Brazil and the 136th globally, according to Alexa Internet, a decline of 19 places since 2010. In December 2012, Badoo.com is ranked as the 59th most visited website according to Google, based on Google AdPlanner statistics.

History

Badoo was founded by the Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev and launched in London in November 2006.

In January 2008, the Russian investor Finam Capital paid US$30 million for a 10% stake in Badoo. The funding will be used to build Badoo in Russia, where the market for social networking is beginning to grow. As of 2009, Finam now has 20% ownership of Badoo.

In September 2011, The Economist published an article that explained how Badoo had a shot at becoming "one of Europe’s leading internet firms" and that Badoo seems to have discovered a large new market. That month, Blendr, "powered by" Badoo, appeared in the iTunes app store.

As of November 2011 Badoo claimed to have over 130 million registered users of which 6 million are from the US. According to their website FAQ, Badoo claims to employ over 200 people internationally. In April 2011 Badoo was threatened by Facebook with an audit and potential removal if it didn't make its Facebook app less viral. According to Insidefacebook.com, during the week of January 11, Badoo was ranked 17th in growing Facebook apps.

The official Badoo USA launch was on March 23, 2012 with Nick Cannon introducing the service in the US.

In April 2012, the company entered into a marketing agreement with the site Hot or Not to display its members in the companies service. It is unclear if that lead to Hot or Not profiles becoming Badoo profiles, and if original Hot or Not contributors had given consent for their images to be resold.

On April 19, 2012, Badoo announced it had appointed long-time Google executive Benjamin Ling as Chief Operating Officer to push its mobile and web platforms and US growth.

However, in October 2012, Badoo's COO Benjamin Ling left the company after a short tenure in the position.

In May 2012, the company claimed in a press release it had exceeded 150 million registered users.

Badoo is claimed to be the world’s fourth-largest social network with users spread across 180 countries. According to a Badoo press release reported by London Loves Business, it is growing by 125,000 new users a day. According to the article, in both Spain and Brazil, roughly one in eight people who use the internet are Badoo members.

Spamming

Many users complain they were signed up without their consent on Badoo and that it sends spam emails to all of their contacts without their permission telling them their friend "has left you a message". In truth, their friend has not left them any message at all. Blogger Daniel Stuckey says, "With its shiny presentation, sexualized premise and slick startup ploys, Badoo feels like a bizarre super-collider of radical honesty and spammy fakery; that is to say, a souvenir of the Internet".

Additionally Badoo generates users by harvesting information posted by users on other social networking sites, without these users consent. Many users of Okcupid will find their profiles have been cloned on Badoo without their consent and are freely accessible through an internet search.

Users who have never signed up for a profile report difficulty or impossibility of deleting that profile from Badoo.

Media reception and censorship

In 2008, Badoo was profiled in the PDA blog of The Guardian.

According to TopTenReviews Badoo is "like a chat room, dating site and picture rating site disguised as a social network." It was noted Badoo did not offer any group or other type of community to facilitate users meeting similar people.

As of April 2011 it is censored in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere. Techcrunch reports that as of January 2010, access to Badoo in Iran is blocked by the Iranian government.

Web of trust, the community-based website reputation ratings tool rated the site as trustworthy but with a risk of spam and phishing.

Finnish newspaper Iltalehti reported that numerous Badoo profiles have been created without people's consent, and that people have reported Badoo's actions to the police. The same article states there are images of women in hospital just after giving birth, raising suspicions about whether one would willingly upload such images to a dating service. It also states that Badoo may use several Facebook applications to automatically gather Facebook users' personal information.

In April 2011 Wired magazine carried a feature on the website and its founder.

Open source

Badoo has released several pieces of software under an open source licence, including various improvements to the PHP scripting language, the Pinba real time statistics server, and the Blitz template engine.

Michelle Kennedy, Head of Legal for Badoo, stated "Over the next six to 12 months the changes in cookies will be big for us, and we've also had a geo-location facility set up. Facebook did a check-in facility which allowed you to work out people's behavioural patterns, but we're more concerned about the safety of our users."

Revenue

Badoo is a Freemium web site and generates income through a "Rise Up" feature which allows users to pay to have their profile given more prominence on the site for a limited time. In the end of 2007, it was reported that 20% of Badoo's then 22 million users accessed this function once a month. Lloyd Price, Director of Marketing for Badoo, stated "We expect to hit 140 million users by the end of 2011, continue to generate USD $100m + in gross consumer spend per year and expand worldwide."

References

1. ^ Badoo – Terms of Use Accessed August 2009.
2. "Badoo.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2013-07-25.
3. ^ http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/04/badabing-badaboom-badoo-hits-150-million-users-boosted-by-mobile/
4. http://eu.techcrunch.com/2012/01/19/hey-tagged-badoo-has-been-around-as-long-and-has-bigger-revenues/
5. "Another Russian IPO?". paidContent.org. Retrieved 2010-11-18.
6. Badoo Privacy Policy 28 Aug 2009.
7. ^ How Badoo built a billion-pound social network... on sex by David Rowan, Wired Magazine, 6 April 11. Accessed April 2011.
8. http://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.badoo.com
9. Bonneau, Joseph; Preibusch, Sören (2009), "The Privacy Jungle: On the Market for Privacy in Social Networks" (PDF), WEIS '09: Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on the Economics of Information Security.
10. Social networks ‘failing users’ The Daily Telegraph 21 Jul 2009.
11. Rooney, Ben (2012-01-24). "A Very Social Network". The Wall Street Journal.
12. "Google.com". Retrieved 2010-08-31.
13. "Alexa Internet report on Badoo". Retrieved 2012-12-02.
14. "Top 1000 sites – DoubleClick Ad Planner". Google. 2012. Retrieved 2 December 2012. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
15. ^ "Project Portfolio – Badoo". Finam Capital. 2009. Retrieved 2011-02-10.
16. Butcher, Mike (21 January 2008). "UK's Badoo pulls $30m for Russian launch, ahead of a home push". Techcrunch. Retrieved 2009-08-29.
17. "Social networking: A nightclub on your smartphone". The Economist. 19 September 2011. Retrieved 4 October 2011. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
18. "World's largest meeting network passes 130m user milestone". Badoo press release. 3 November 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-07.
19. http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-57383368-250/badoo-social-experiment-or-hookup-site/
20. "Badoo". Retrieved 2011-03-23.
21. www.businessinsider.com/badoo-facebook-2011-4.
22. Calderon Inés, Sara January 11, 2012. “Spotify, Yahoo, Bing, Badoo and more on this week’s top 20 growing Facebook apps by DAU.” http://www.insidefacebook.com/2012/01/11/spotify-yahoo-bing-badoo-and-more-on-this-week%E2%80%99s-top-20-growing-facebook-apps-by-dau/
23. http://mashable.com/2012/03/23/badoo-us/#55251Badoo-Project-in-New-York-City
24. http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/02/has-dating-site-badoo-found-a-love-match-in-the-form-of-hotornot/
25. http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/19/badoo-hires-google-exec-as-new-coo-to-push-its-platforms-and-us-growth/
26. http://allthingsd.com/20121018/badoo-coo-ben-ling-leaves-will-the-former-googler-reunite-with-marissa-mayer/
27. Hobson, Sophie (30 April 2012). "Badoo: Can the world's fourth-largest social network break Britain?". Archived from the original on 2012-05-02.
28. http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gmail/Jh2L2rlh4AU
29. Motherboard user "stfual". In a comment to: Stuckey, Daniel. "Badoo is an Enigma Wrapped in a Puzzle Wrapped in Spam". Motherboard. Vice Media. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
30. Stuckey, Daniel. "Badoo is an Enigma Wrapped in a Puzzle Wrapped in Spam". Motherboard. Vice Media. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
31. http://badoo-com-reviews.measuredup.com/Complaint-fake-profile-27490
32. http://raimundospark.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/badoo-doesnt-let-you-cancel-a-service-you-didnt-sign-up-for-2/
33. Kiss, Jemima (March 5, 2008). "Elevator Pitch: Why Badoo wants to be the next word in social networking!". London: Guardian. Archived from the original on 31 July 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-31. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
34. "Social Networking Websites Review – Badoo". TopTenREVIEWS. 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-29.
35. Butcher, Mike (January 5, 2010). "No flirting! Social network Badoo was banned in Iran". Techcrunch. Retrieved 2009-01-06.
36. "WOT Reputation Scorecard". Web of Trust. Retrieved 2011-01-25.
37. ^ "Treffipalvelu varastaa profiilitiedot: Varo tätä sovellusta Facebookissa" (in Finnish). Iltalehti. 21 January 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-25. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
38. "Badoo Developer Zone". Archived from the original on 2 September 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-31. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
39. "Social worker: Michelle Kennedy, Badoo". The Lawyer. 12 September 2011. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
40. Elevator Pitch: Why Badoo wants to be the next word in social networking, Mark Sweney, The Guardian, December 24, 2007 , Accessed March 2008.
41. "Badoo, Not Just For Teens Who Want To Hook Up, Hits 122 Million Users". BusinessInsider. 25 July 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2011.

External links

• Official website

• Social discovery websites
• Community websites
• Virtual communities
• Internet properties established in 2006