iWorld
Urbanising, Jugaad and more – QuackQuack shares brand-new trends
Mumbai: The desi dating app, QuackQuack, celebrates its massive growth upon reaching 25 million users making its position firmer in the virtual dating market. Debuted in early 2010, QuackQuack saw a gradual and steady rise for the first ten years of its launch, followed by a massive boom in numbers, clocking over 20M app downloads. The homegrown dating app is currently adding more than 1,50,000 users a month, among which 26 per cent are from tier one and 74 per cent from tier two Indian cities; 20 of user growth is seen from the South, whereas 78 per cent of the new additions came from the Northern cities.
The Indian dating app maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward fake profiles and launched a feature wherein users can keep track of banned profiles in real time.
QuackQuack’s statistics show its growing popularity in cities like Surat, Lucknow, Jaipur, Bhopal, Patna, Indore, and Nagpur, besides the prime metropolitan cities. The app’s founder and CEO, Ravi Mittal, commented, “It delights us to see so many people place their trust in QuackQuack. In the last year itself, we recorded around 31.4 lakh matches on our app. There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing the steady growth of our community. We have always wanted to secure our footing in Tier two Indian cities along with Tier one; in the last nine months, QuackQuack has gained more than 72 per cent of new users from smaller towns and cities”.
Tier one Vs. Tier two
The app explains how Tier one and Tier two users have their own unique way of dating. Tier one users have no specific preference when it comes to location; they usually connect with Tier one and two women equally. Whereas Tiertwo men, especially the ones who have moved to metropolitan cities, are seen matching specifically with Tier two women based on shared nostalgia for the suburbs.
Women in the lead
QuackQuack shared how it has seen a massive rise in the number of women from the eastern cities of India, more than a 50 per cent increase in the last few months. The app has also witnessed a swell in female users from Tier two cities compared to Tier one cities. Moreover, speaking about the latest dating trends, QuackQuack disclosed how Tier two female users are dating for more reasons than love. Urbanising is the up-and-coming trend in the virtual dating world- female daters from smaller cities and towns are choosing to date and marry men from metropolitan cities and migrate for additional advantages such as better career opportunities and an upgraded lifestyle. 23 per cent of women found it opportunistic, while 41 per cent of women and 36 per cent of men believed it to be harmless.
Are you a Jugaadu?
Among other new trends unfolding in India’s homegrown dating app, Jugaad seems to be the most interesting and productive one. As the name suggests, it’s an innovative problem-solving approach wherein users relocating to new cities use the app to make the transition more seamless. According to QuackQuack’s observations, 36 per cent of men and nine per cent of women matched with people from the new city through the app to learn more about the local culture, find out the best restaurants around town, local hangout spots, traffic scenes, the easiest way to commute within the city and more.
GenZ, GenX, Millennials and more.
Almost 27 per cent of the new addition to the QuackQuack community is GenZ. Millennials, GenX, and more made up the other 73 per cent. The app says there are some stark differences between GenZ and Millennials daters. While GenZ rejects the concept of soulmates, the Millennials romanticize the idea and are almost enamoured by it. The daters between 18 to 22 are more open to experimenting with their relationship preferences, choosing open relationship, casual, serious, and more; users between 22 to 28 are seen picking both casual and long-term relationships, depending on their match, but the people above 28 generally prefer long-term exclusive relationships and dating that can lead to marriage. There has also been a positive increase in Gen X and Boomers, with more divorcees and single parents taking a second shot at love.
The app has deftly targeted Tier two cities with vernacular ads and brand campaigns, and its popularity has since soared in smaller Indian cities and towns along with the metros in the past few years. With over 25 Million users under its belt, QuackQuack is looking at a promising future.
iWorld
WhatsApp may soon let users to pick who sees their status updates
The messaging giant is borrowing a page from Instagram’s playbook as it pushes to give users finer control over their social circles.
CALIFORNIA: WhatsApp is quietly working on a feature that could make its Status function considerably smarter and considerably more private.
According to reports from beta tracking platforms, the app is testing a tool called Status lists, which would allow users to create named groups such as close friends, family and colleagues, and control precisely which group sees each update. It is a meaningful step up from the platform’s current blunt instruments, which offer only three options: share with all contacts, exclude specific people, or manually select individuals each time.
The new feature draws an obvious comparison with Instagram’s Close Friends function, and the resemblance is unlikely to be accidental. Both platforms sit within Meta’s family, and the company has been nudging them toward a common logic of audience segmentation for some time.
The move also fits neatly into WhatsApp’s broader privacy push. The platform has been rolling out enhanced chat protections and is exploring the introduction of usernames, which would allow users to connect without exchanging phone numbers. Status lists extend that philosophy from messaging into broadcasting.
Meanwhile, Status itself has been evolving well beyond its origins as a simple photo-and-text slideshow. The feature now supports music stickers, collages, longer videos and interactive elements, pushing it closer to the social-media-style story format pioneered by Snapchat and refined by Instagram. In that context, finer audience controls are not merely a privacy feature. They are a precondition for people sharing more.
The feature remains in development and has not been confirmed for release. WhatsApp routinely tests tools that are later modified or quietly shelved. But the direction of travel is clear: the app wants Status to be a destination, not an afterthought. Letting users decide exactly who is in the audience is how it gets there.
