XXL is the all-inclusive London bear club that is renowned for its winning atmosphere and fun, sexy nights without any bad attitude. The team behind the club brand is now bringing its expertise to other areas of the gay scene with the introduction of their all-new XXL app. We caught up with XXL owner Mark Ames to tell us more juicy details …
What’s the basic premise of the XXL app?
It’s called ‘One App Fits All’ and its ‘daddy’ is the club! It’s an app that is inclusive to all gay and bisexual men from around the world.
What gave you the inspiration to set it up?
We have been looking into this for several years – initially we had a very good chat site on the original XXL website, but with so many things happening over the years we took our focus away from that although it was always bubbling in the background. And then the app revolution came and we wanted to jump in then, but sourcing the right developers wasn’t easy and we wanted to see how the current apps developed.
“Our core market will always be bears and big guys… But the target audience is everyone as the catch phrase says: ‘One App Fits All’.”
Who is your targeted user? Is it just for bears and big guys?
Our core market will always be bears and big guys: we will never deny that and we are always biased towards them, too. But the target audience is everyone as the catch phrase says: ‘One App Fits All’.
What have been early reactions to the app so far?
It’s been very successful. We launched the BETA version at the end of May during Bear Pride and we are now seven weeks into it with four updates, having reached over 65,000 users. We’ve had a few bugs to fix, but we’ve had very patient users and very positive constructive feedback, which is great for developing it to make it even more user friendly for the end user.
What sets this app apart from other ‘social networking’ apps?
It’s free! And it comes with all the premium services the others offer at a charge –
there’s no limit on searching, picture sending, chat, favourites. We’ve also listed our events and the ability to purchase tickets for them via clubtickets.
What updates are we likely to see?
There are two very interesting things in the pipeline with it – and the team is working on the programming for that now – but it will really set a bench mark with the mobile apps and that is very exciting.
• The XXL app is available to download for free for both Android and iPhone/iPad.
XXL is at Pulse(1 Invicta Plaza, South Bank, SE1 9UF) every Wednesday and Saturday.