A new dating app is connecting people based on something beyond looks, social status and career. Called Bookmark, it allows people to match with others on the basis of their interest in books.
It was created by Bengaluru-based Avrojyoti Das, Harsh Snehanshu, and three others, who are currently only working part time on the app.
While dating apps are a dime a dozen these days, Harsh believes that Bookmark is unique.
“When you match with someone based on books, you’re automatically filtering out factors like your political views, principles and other preferences,” explains Harsh, one of the founders of Cubbon Reads, a popular community reading initiative.
The feature that sets it apart, according to him, is that the profile picture is hidden until 10 messages are exchanged between two people.
While creating one’s profile, users are given book-related prompts such as ‘A book I can read over and over again’, ‘An author I’d love to hate with you is’, ‘Favourite book and why’, and ‘My topmost rule for lending books’. There are also some generic prompts like ‘The Gen-Z abbreviation I hate the most’, and ‘My biggest pet peeve is’.
Though it was officially launched on November 26, they began beta testing a month back. Till date, 1,500 users have signed up, says Harsh. A majority of the users — about 500 — are from Bengaluru.
Athul, a 24-year-old software engineer, recently moved to Bengaluru for work. He shares that the app has helped him build a small group of friends with similar interests.
“I wasn’t looking for a date. I signed up to find friends as I am in a new city. I was able to make friends not just in Bengaluru, but also in Kolkata, Delhi and Hyderabad. And also managed to get book recommendations,” he says. While other apps are littered with fake profiles, it’s not possible to fake it on Bookmark because you can’t fake having read a book, he adds.
“It was refreshing to see so many book lovers on a single app. A few prompts were hilarious, like ‘An author I’d love to hate with you is’. And the answers were fun,” says Simran R (name changed), a media professional.