It was America’s greatest postmodern philosopher, Kanye West, who said, “I don’t know what’s better, getting laid or getting paid, I just know when I’m getting one, the other’s getting away.”
Truth.
But what if you could get laid and get paid at the same time?
No, I’m not talking about male prostitution, although you’re certainly welcome to pursue that avenue. I’m talking about your favorite dating app possibly hooking it up with a new job.
Bumble wants to get into business networking.
That’s right. Business networking. It’s called BumbleBIZZ(ness networking). From Time:
The new feature announced Thursday, called BumbleBIZZ, uses the location-based swipe mechanism that’s become ubiquitous to dating apps and applies it to professional networking, allowing users to swipe for contacts the way they would swipe for potential hookups. Bumble’s bet is that the local and instantaneous nature of BumbleBIZZ could make it a more casual alternative to platforms like LinkedIn, which is tuned for prospecting rather than live conversation. The idea is that if you want to expand your network, Bumble is a way to find professional contacts right here, right now.
“What is that one connection that changed the course of your career? That’s the connection we want to provide to people every day,” says Whitney Wolfe, founder and CEO of two-year old Bumble. BumbleBIZZ is scheduled to be available in early fall for mobile phones.
Awww yea. When I’m bored on a Thursday, I know how to liven things up. With some fucking networking. Some handshakes. Some more handshakes. An exchange of business cards. That gets me jazzed.
The feature will let you tailor a profile to highlight your business accomplishments, which will be separate from your dating profile.
Just like the key feature of their dating app, women will still be required to make first contact. The CEO of Bumble, Whitney Wolfe, sees it as a way for women to ease into a networking situation, not having the traditional penis that makes getting a job so much simpler.
Wolfe knows that the women-first feature is likely to be controversial, especially in a business context. But she says the decision to maintain the feature on BumbleBIZZ is about making it easier for women to network, especially with men. “I think a lot of women to this day struggle with feeling respected and feeling like an equal when it comes to business connection,” she says. “They feel that sometimes when they’re approaching something in a purely platonic or business connection, they feel like the conversation goes in a different direction.”
This is actually a real phenomenon, in which many people are unsure if they are going on a date or a casual networking coffee, so this could help take a lot of the confusion out of that.
Or, sleazy dudes will use it to take advantage of women trying to make career moves.
Let’s not do that.
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[Via Time]