Badoo has been getting a lot of great press recently. Last month, the FT noted that its flirtatious “social dating” service had overtaken Farmville to become the second most popular app on Facebook. Then the UK edition of Wired magazine put Russian founder Andrey Andreev on its front cover, claiming it was on the verge of an IPO or fundraising that could value the 120m-member “freemium” site at $2bn.
So with all this publicity, how come its Facebook app lost almost three quarters of its daily active users in the space of a few days last week?
If Facebook is the site largely for connecting with people you already know, Badoo’s execs pitch it as a way to meet new people. It has a “nightclub”-style feel, they say – insisting that it’s for more than just “hooking up”. That hasn’t stopped the likes of the Daily Mail running stories playing up its seedier side. But the model is proving very popular, attracting thousands of new users every day across a variety of platforms, including its own website.
Badoo says that Facebook isn’t its primary channel, putting more emphasis on its location-based iPhone app – which finds and sorts through nearby users based on things like gender, age and interests.
But Facebook has been a huge source of new users for Badoo, with monthly active users peaking at more than 65m a couple of weeks ago, according to AppData, which tracks such things.
Badoo says it has never paid to acquire users, but critics (and rivals) say its viral mechanism is somewhat aggressive in encouraging new users to let it post to their friends’ walls or invite entire address books of people to join the service.
Upon first installing the app, users saw a quiz asking questions such as “Would you go on a date with [friend’s name]?” or “Would [a friend] play spin the bottle?”.
Inside Facebook, which owns AppData, last month described the app sign-up process. If users opted not to have the app notify their friends about the quiz, a pop up appeared nagging them to change their mind. Inside Facebook reckoned Badoo’s “virality-over-content could annoy some users”.
Whether it was the sudden growth spurt or the press for a would-be competitor, Facebook seems to have picked up on Badoo recently. One immediate result of a series of meetings: at the end of last week, Badoo’s daily active users dropped from more than 4m to just over 1m in the space of a couple of days. That figure has now risen back to just under 2m.
Chart from AppData
“After working with Facebook last week, we made requested changes to our application which has resulted in an initial drop in daily active users,” said Lloyd Price, Badoo’s marketing chief.
“Facebook asked us to make various changes, the first being to the questions in our friends quiz, second to the user interface when downloading our app, thirdly when a story is published on a users wall having played the quiz.”
Mr Price notes that daily users have started to grow again and that it was continuing to monitor the changes in user behaviour.
He insists that Badoo did not breach Facebook’s platform policies, but admits that Facebook did ask it to make it clearer that answering the quiz would lead to posts on friends’ walls, and other automated messages.
“We have been in regular discussions with Facebook for a number of months and both sides recommended a number of changes,” he said. “Fail quickly and learn fast – that is the whole culture. We are always changing something.”
Facebook said in a statement: “People on Facebook install 20 million applications every day. To ensure each application is providing the best user experience, all developers who work on Facebook Platform are governed by the same set of rules, our developer guidelines. We work closely with many large and small developers working on the Facebook Platform to help them build better applications and our team has and continues to have a supportive relationship with Badoo.”
