You may have heard about a new boy on the block … Kinkster App. Lots of people are getting excited about it, me for one. And lots of people are asking why do we need yet another bloody hook up app when we have Recon, Grindr, Scruff, FetLife, Twitter, Growlr, Grommr, Gaydar (is that still a thing?) and plenty other less well known or used sites.
I thought rather then just sharing my signup code I’d help explain why Kinkster is different, why it is needed and why you need to sign up.
For the benefit of the community
One of the biggest differences between Kinkster and pretty much all the other apps is profit.
The team being Kinkster have setup the company as a Community Interest Company and not the traditional Limited company most businesses use. A CIC has to be run as a community or social enterprise – the profits are for the community or to be put back into the organisation to help build it and develop it. Not for the profit or benefit of the shareholders.
So the focus isn’t on becoming rich – it isn’t on making money, by law it has to be on (in this case) connecting a community together and helping that community meet and support each other.
It isn’t actually an app
The name is Kinkster.App – it’s an app to meet like minded guys, girls and those yet to decide. And to build social connections, to chat to people, engage in discussion and find events to attend.
But it isn’t an app … you won’t get it from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
It’s a website, a website that does a lot of clever stuff to look and work like an app.
And why is that a good thing?
Take a look at Recon and Scruff – they are getting more and more restricted in what you can show on a photo, Scruff’s latest rules are incredibly restrictive for something based around sex. And that isn’t anything to do with Scruff – that is the choice of Apple. They are getting stricter and stricter with sex related apps and anything hinting at consensual sexual activity. BLUF recently worked tirelessly to get an app approved that was just for event listings. It mentioned fetish so they wouldn’t approve it for distribution via the App store. And if it isn’t on the app store it is practically impossible to your app out to iPhone users.
Recon photos have to be assessed to see if they are App friendly. For android you can get around this by installing an App that hasn’t come via the Play Store, but I do fear it is only a matter of time before Recon disappears from the App stores.
So if it isn’t an app and just a website that means it doesn’t need any corporates approval for you to use it. It just needs to satisfy the laws of the country. And it makes it a lot easier for the developers to roll out fixes, features and updates – because you don’t have to do anything!
And it won’t take up critical storage space on your device.
“But a website only works when online, an app works all the time.” Sure, but if your not online how you going to find shags and chat to people around you? How you going to send a message or read someones feed? Everything about a social connections app needs online access. So an App has no real significant benefit other then making development harder, slower, more expensive for the business behind it while making the stores (ie Apple and Google) money.
It’s not just for kinksters’s
There is a second site called GMeet … if Kinkster is a new Recon, GMeet is a new Grindr. Meet guys who want to fuck, but don’t want all the accessories and dressing up to go with it. And its also for the social side of life – its not just about wanna shag? Both apps are about the social as well as sexual connections we make, sometimes those social also involve gear, sometimes they don’t.
At some point I fully expect Twitter to succumb to the political pressure of being an American Corporate and have to ban any mention of knobs, bums and sex. Unlike tumblr it isn’t predominately porn based, but the business model of traditional advertising companies and sex don’t go together too well.
So GMeet and Kinkster will also have a feed option that you can follow people on, or maybe even a group to meet like minded people. Sounds like twitter, so it offers much more social interaction rather then just messaging,
And the sites lets you manage this through one login – so you don’t need to login to loads of apps. And it also lets you create up to three separate profiles on each site (three on Kinkster and three on GMeet), If you are a big scat perv and know that puts a lot of guys off, create a profile for your pig side and one for your sluttier side maybe and then one for your pup or inner baby. Or for the vanilla site a gaming profile, a cooking one and one for work maybe.
The site also won’t be exclusively gay, LGBT+ or male only. And this has been one of the problems I think sites like FetLife has faced in building its gay membership – a lot of guys don’t want to chat to people they aren’t sexually interested in. So there will be options on either site (Kinkster and GMeet) where you can set who you are visible to in searches etc. You may have a social GMeet profile that is happier to meet quite a wide range of people, but a Kink side that is targeted to only Male or Female partners.
Yes, but do we really need another app?
Probably.
All the existing ones have their failings, some too restrictive in content, some promote themselves and their own events too much, some only allow certain types of people (some sites even filter by are you good looking or rich enough to be a member).
Kinkster and GMeet are hoping to build a broader spectrum of appeal, that isn’t so restricted by corporate approval policies and that is designed to build connections and community. Not just about sex.
Still not sure? I haven’t seen the app myself yet – just seen what they have posted online and had some discussions with the developers. They are very open to suggestions and ideas on how to make it an amazing platform. But they need to launch it slowly, test it, develop it and see what the community wants. So give feedback and ideas, don’t expect it to be included on launch but if it is a good idea you may see it in a future version.
Claim your name
In closing, it will be worth claiming your name now. Your ID is your address online, so grab it before anyone else does. Even if you don’t want to use it you can make sure no one pretends to be you.
Click the picture above to signup, and let’s see what happens!
Images used with permission.