MOTHERBOARD – June 16 – Andrew Conru started Web Personals, the first online dating site, in 1993. The idea struck him in his dorm room as a way to kickstart his love life after a breakup. He tried newspaper personals, and video dating. It was "a very manual process," Conru recalled. But Web Personals featured large photos and a whole page of text per profile. Web Personals took two months to build. It was written in C++. In the 18 months Conru ran the site, there were 120K sign ups. He later sold it to Telepersonals for $100K, and launched FriendFinder.com. FriendFinder had users posting nudes, so Conru created AdultFriendFinder.com. Penthouse bought FriendFinder Networks in 2007 for $500M, filing for an IPO in 2008. They hoped to raise $460M but only had $220M by 2010, which Conru bought back and has been the company's chairman since 2013. He has been dating online for 20 years and has never been married. He has no plans on settling down. "I'm still single, which is the irony of all this," he said.
by Nadja Sayej
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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team