Is it enough to know that an attractive, available man is 500 feet away? Like many of the gay men who use first-generation mobile dating apps, this has been the hot question on our minds since mobile dating apps first appeared.

A national survey of 537 gay men — conducted by Stagg —  shows a significant need in the mobile dating app market for users to learn more than just the location of an individual potential match. With never-before-seen technology, Stagg changes mobile dating for gay men.

Survey Highlights:

Sample Characteristics:

• Single gay and bisexual men.
• Culturally diverse.
• Age range from 18 to 73.
• Average age is 28.

Apps move dating away from computer screens and into public and social settings.

• 56% of the respondents said that they use dating apps in public.
• More than one-third of all respondents, 37%, use the apps while with their friends.

Apps bridge communication and build connections.

• 78% said that apps help them to start a conversation that they wouldn’t have otherwise initiated.
• More than one-third of respondents, 35%, said that apps are a way to have fun with their friends.

App users search for a deeper connection.

• 66% of the respondents said they use apps in the hopes of finding long-term potential, despite an almost universal belief that most guys on dating apps are looking for a hookup.
• 64% said that they use dating apps to find new friends.
• 16% of respondents – 1 in 6 men — choose dating apps as the most promising place to meet someone for long-term potential, a small but surprisingly substantial result given the reputation of first-generation dating apps for hookups.

Stagg satisfies the urgent dating needs of gay men.

• 77% of the men said that when it comes to dating they don’t know where or how to find guys who are like themselves.
• 65% stated that breaking the ice and starting a conversation is a serious impediment to meeting guys.
• 56% said that dating apps are not friendly, when compared to dating websites.

An open-ended question put to these 537 men about what is most needed in apps revealed that they are seeking more substance in the type of information and potential connection than first-generation apps can deliver. 

Photos of the nearby gay men on your smartphone is awesome!  With them you can quickly gauge if you’re likely to be attracted to a certain guy. But beyond the physical, how do you figure out if you’d be interested in hanging out with him?

To put it another way, once this exchange has run it course –

Dude: Hi

Bro: Sup

Dude: Nice pic.

Bro: Thanks. U2.

–then what do you talk about?

Or how many times have you met a guy in person – after meeting through an app, online, or even just by having the nerve to talk to a new guy in person – and you have no idea what to talk about? Then the attraction you feel towards him starts to disappear….

This happens to even the most socially gifted among us. It even more likely to happen when you’re attracted to a guy, since you’re apt to get tongue-tied around him.

At Stagg we set out to create a fun new way to get to know the men around you. We call it Rep – as in Reputation. It’s a mashup of what he’s into, how he spends his time, and what’s important to him.

You can quickly see, in an innovative way, what he’s about. This is what it looks like:

How does it work? How do the words and phrases get there? They’re based on continuously updated quizzes that are part of Stagg’s “Build Your Rep” system. Take our quizzes and your Rep “cloud” will be updated instantly. New words and phrases will replace older ones so that there’s always a continuously updated snapshot of what you’re about.

It’s the same for all other Stagg members. No more stale profiles!

Here’s the type of Rep quizzes you’ll see on Stagg:

When it comes to mobile dating apps, knowing a guy’s distance is an exciting beginning. It’s completely changed how we meet. But is knowing his distance the pinnacle of mobile dating technology? Not even close! At Stagg we think it’s just the beginning.

Stag revolutionizes location-based dating technology. One way Stagg improves upon first-generation mobile dating apps is by including a real compatibility score in each guy’s profile. Instead of the long questionnaires and detailed profiles required by some dating sites, Stagg uses a brief, targeted, science-based compatibility assessment to give each guy a BEST FIT score for you. A guy’s BEST FIT score predicts how likely you are to click with him in person – making it easier to find a guy you’ll love to spend time with.

Every guy’s Stagg profile includes his BEST FIT percentage for you.  And you can sort guys in your area by their BEST FIT scores. No longer will you have to dodge your friends when they want to set you up with the supposedly “perfect” guy for you. Instead, pick up Stagg and see which of the cute guys in your neighborhood – or perhaps right there on the dance floor with you – are the BEST FIT for you.

BEST FIT scores are just one feature that make Stagg the next generation in location-based mobile dating apps for gay men. Look for our upcoming blog posts on Stagg’s other exclusive features: our REP system and SONAR technology!

Technology is changing how people connect and date. Recent research shows that about 20% of all relationships begin via online dating sites. On average, if you think through your coupled friends, 1 out of every 5 of those relationships was likely started online. That’s impressive! However, that 1 in 5 number is only accurate if you think about your straight friends.

For your gay friends who are in relationships the likelihood that they met online is higher. MUCH HIGHER.

New research from Stanford shows that online dating plays a huge and growing role in how gay men and women meet and form relationships. According to the study authors starting around 2000 it became the predominant way that same-sex couples met. Even more startling, by 2008 and 2009, over 60% of the surveyed couples said that met online.

Said another way, over 3 out of 5 same-sex relationships was started online.

The data for this study was collected before the advent of mobile dating technology. So now things are going to get really interesting! First-generation dating apps have exploded in popularity for gay men. Just look around most gay bars and you’ll see many guys using these apps. So given the era of dating apps, what does this mean for the future of how gay men meet and find guys to date?

We’re totally convinced that apps are the future of how people will use technology to meet. Yet, first-generation dating apps have a strong — almost universal –reputation as being used primarily to find hookups. According to our recent survey of over 500 gay men, 91% said that first-generation dating apps are used to find hook-ups. So there’s a disconnect, since technology is so crucial to how same-sex couples get their start.

It seems to us that there’s  something missing in first-generation apps if guys think their primary use is hookups. We decided that we didn’t want to just wish for something better, so we built Stagg to occupy the space between the fun and frustration of hookup apps and deadly boring compatibility-based websites.

At Stagg we’ve tried to develop an app that hits that “sweet spot” between first-generation gay dating apps and compatibility-based dating websites.  We were convinced that we could split the difference between the fun (and frustration) of being able to locate nearby men who have a pulse, and the parochial, lecture-y experience common on compatibility-based dating websites. Stagg offers the best of both worlds, showing you where the guys in your area are located, AND giving you a sense of whether you will click with them if you meet in person.

Why did we attempt to do this? A recent nationwide survey we did of over 500 gay guys that use mobile dating apps shows that, even though we sometimes assume other guys on apps are just looking for hookups, TWO-THIRDS of guys actually use apps to look for long-term potential. Stagg is the best app for connecting in this way, because it uses never-before-seen compatibility-matching technology that no other app offers.

After you look at his profile pic on Stagg, catch a glimpse of his personality through Stagg’s exclusive REP system. Stagg’s REP system is based on a very short series of fun questions about personality styles and interests.

 Stagg also shows your compatibility with guys in your area, letting you know which guys are the BEST FIT for you.

With Stagg, make a connection by knowing more than just his location.

Like Stagg on Facebook, and follow Stagg on Twitter @StaggApp, to find out about Stagg’s other exclusive features and be the first to know about other important info and provide us with feedback to make Stagg even more user-friendly.

When it comes to finding nearby gay men, you smartphone is about to get a lot smarter.

If you’ve ever wished that that gay dating apps could show you more than just which guys are close, then you think just like us. We love gay dating apps and how they’ve rekindled spontaneity, excitement, and immediacy when it comes using technology to find dates.

Yet, we knew that first-generation gay dating apps were just the beginning of what our smartphones could do for us when it comes to finding great dates and making friends.  So, we decided to design and develop Stagg, an app that does so much more.

In creating Stagg, we

• researched and designed an entirely new type of matching algorithm technology,
• devised a fun and easy way to get to know a little more about the men near you, and
• incorporated features to facilitate meeting up, when you’re ready to say hi in person.

Stagg is coming soon to iPhones and Androids! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest Stagg news and updates.