At SXSW, New Sex App Focuses on that Other Type of Festival Networking - East Idaho News
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At SXSW, New Sex App Focuses on that Other Type of Festival Networking

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Smartphone?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1362923753140Hemera/Thinkstock(AUSTIN, Texas) — At SXSW Interactive this year one sex-related start-up knows their audience, and they are marketing to the techie and social media savvy, yet carefree and sexually amped crowd.    

The service doesn’t need much explanation, thanks to its very blunt name. Bang with SXSW is a spin-off of Bang with Friends, a service that launched last month to much Internet scrutiny, criticism and excitement.

Started by three young twenty-somethings, Bang with Friends allows you to sign into the service via Facebook and then select the friends of the opposite sex you’d like to, well, bang. If that friend also selects you, you will both receive a notification that the other is “down to bang.” Forget match-making, this is Internet sex-making.

“SXSW is just a place for people to meet other amazing people and usually some of those people have sex and hook up,” the founder of Bang with Friends, who prefers to be identified right now as C, told ABC News. “We thought, how can we make that a better experience for everyone?”

Since launching at the end of January, “Bang with Friends” has gained 750,000 users and according to C, there have been 180,000 successful pairings. Not that they confirm the actual sex acts: “We don’t follow them into the bedroom no,” C said.

The main service, while controversial in many regards, requires that you are friends on Facebook. The company says that that ensures people are using information they are already sharing with friends; it just allows friends to discreetly see if the other is sexually interested in them.

The SXSW version of the site, however, shows all the people who have registered for the service at the event; you don’t have to be friends on Facebook to select someone you might want to “bang” in Austin for the next few days.

“Bang with SXSW” isn’t just trying to make sure SXSW attendees “bang,” it is also focused on promoting safer sex in Austin this week and is marketing the site by handing out thousands of condoms across the city.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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