I was mostly commenting on the old adage that in business you want to offend the least amount of customers to increase your market share e.g. the reason why mainstream news is so bland is that it helps to sell advertisements.

I was leaning towards calling it sexist because it by default chooses one gender over the other and has in its name a specific judgement on gender. "Girls around me" It could have been like Sonar and chosen the "networking" approach and named itself "People around me" and by default shown both men and women.

Perhaps they are like the Fox News of apps and are trying to target a very specific segment of the market i.e. creeps?

I wonder if someone has ever tried to quantify the bump you get from a "shock value" strategy for an app like this i.e increased press and people talking about your app. I would like to see it measured against taking a more general approach such as what the Sonar app did. I wonder if the gain in customers from a more measured marketing pitch would outweigh the increased chatter you get from something as blunt as "girls around me". Any thoughts? Does the old adage any publicity is good publicity still apply in the digital world?

I never met a girl who would seriously use an app like this. And I have met my share of crazy stalkers.