Good news, Miami: You're the most flirtatious city in America -- online. A new study out from the researchers at Badoo, a multi-lingual social networking site with more than 100 million registered users in 180 countries around the world, ranks the top ten cities for online flirting with some surprising results. Tampa? Really? (See the gallery below for the other top ten cities, in order.)
To determine which cities across the country were hotbeds of Internet activity, Badoo looked at 12 million flirtatious contacts -- defined by the researchers as chats initiated with strangers -- made during a one-month period. "The average Badoo user in Miami initiatives 18.5 flirtatious chats per month," according to a press release sent out Thursday. "Badoo users in Miami also out-flirt their counterparts in Amsterdam, Holland (18.4); Berlin, Germany (17.7); Istanbul, Turkey (16.6); Buenos Aires, Argentina (16.3); and Rio de Janeiro (12.4) in Brazil."
Way to go, America! "This proves that American flirters can compete at an international level," said Lloyd Price, Badoo's director of marketing. Sort of, anyway. Users of the service is Athens, Kuwait City and Moscow all initiated more than 25 chats over the course of a single month.
Badoo isn't very well known in the United States, where it has to compete with many other social networking options (read: Facebook), but it is a growing presence. (Badoo.com is ranked the 132nd most popular website in the world by Alexa.) Launched in Spain in 2006, the service is one of the leaders in France, Italy and Latin America, with more than two million users in Mexico alone. That could help to explain how Miami, with its sizable Hispanic population, moved to the top of the heap when it comes to measuring online flirting. But how do you explain Boston?
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.