This is the news for the week of October 30th through November 5th, 2009. We hope you enjoy the new weekly news format. Here is the news we covered for this week:
WASHINGTON CITY PAPER – Nov 3 –
AshleyMadison.com, an online dating site for extramarital affairs, is
far from popular among the moral conservatives, and now things are
going one step further. Ashley Madison's population of gay and
bi-curious members is growing. Of the site's 4.7 million members,
143,427 are seeking a same-sex engagement. One third of this segment
is women seeking women, while the remainder are men seeking men. Noel
Biderman, CEO of Ashley Madison, is using this element to further
promote his business; using it to incite the conservative reaction
needed to keep Ashley Madison in the public spotlight.
FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON CITY PAPER
MSN MONEY – Oct 31 – Ashley
Madison's business isn't exactly popular among the main stream, but
that isn't stopping the company from pulling in tens of millions of
dollars a year in revenue. Noel Biderman, CEO of Ashley Madison, has
grown the site to over 4.6 million users worldwide, despite often
negative media coverage from the likes of CNN, The View, Dr. Phil and
The Tyra Banks Show. Statistics show that more than 50% of
men and women admit to cheating within a relationship at least once.
Business could be bigger, but most advertising channels have been
shut off for Ashley Madison. Noel claims, “If I could trade the
ability to market freely — the way eharmony or match.com
does — we would have $100 million [in annual revenues] with 20
million members.” FULL ARTICLE @ MSN MONEY
MERGER MARKET – Oct 26 – FriendFinder Networks, formerly known as Penthouse Media, filed for an IPO in December, anticipating $460m in proceeds to help pay off its debt. FriendFinder could look to sell off non-core pieces of its business that may be distracting to potential investors including GradFinder and Christian dating site BigChurch, online dating industry consultant Mark Brooks said. The company would likely keep its highly lucrative adult sites. Its adult social networking and live interactive video sites comprised 95% of the company’s revenue, as of six months ended 30 June 2008. FriendFinder’s international properties could also be spun out to a media company with more expertise in certain geographic markets, said Noel Biderman, CEO of Toronto-based Avid Life Media, the holding company of dating sites like HotOrNot and Ashley Madison. He pointed to IAC-owned Match which took a 27% stake in European dating operator Meetic in February, in exchange for Match’s European operations, as an industry example of this. In the case of FriendFinder, its Latino dating site Amigos has a strong membership base, and could be sold to an acquirer that can better grow and monetize the brand, Brooks noted. FriendFinder’s sites may fetch 7x to 8x EBITDA, Biderman said, using Match’s USD 80m acquisition of People Media in July as a comparable transaction. FULL ARTICLE @ OPW
Mark Brooks: FriendFinder's successful IPO and continued strong performance is critical for the reputation of the internet dating industry. FriendFinder could indeed look to sell its non-core businesses. Here's what I told the reporter…"GradFinder is a significant property that could be developed out to compete with Classmates.com. …BigChurch is a misfit community for them. They have been chastised by the Christian community for running the site. It should really be sold. Amigos has lots of traffic, is a great name, but South America still doesn't monetize anywhere near as well as the rest of the world. So its a longer term play for a potential acquirer, but the future is pretty clear, it will eventually make good money. FriendFinder needs to have money in the bank, and make good money quickly, so I think these communities would be most suitable for selling."
See all posts on FriendFinder See all posts on Match.com
See all posts on BigChurch See all posts on Meetic
See all posts on HotorNot See all posts on Amigos
See all posts on AshleyMadison See all posts on People Media
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY – Oct 12 – AshleyMadison allows individuals in search of seemingly
uncomplicated extramarital affairs to find each other in cyberspace and
then hook up in real space. Here is the interview with Noel Biderman, the site's founder.
Q: How would you characterize marriage and monogamy in America?
A: My own personal belief is that within the coming decades,
heterosexual monogamous marriages will become the minority of American
marriages
Q: How do you account for the success of your site?
A: Ashleymadison.com
is catering to a human need; sex is as important to us as the air we
breathe, and ultimately it is not in our DNA to be
monogamous.
Q: How did you come up with the idea?
A: I came across a research back in 2001 that indicated that 30-35% of people going to
so-called single/matchmaking services were in fact attached. I thought to myself, wow, wouldn't these people prefer a
service where they could meet other like minded adults and be honest
about their relationship status.
Q: What's your ratio of male to female members?
A: 30% female and 70% male
FULL ARTICLE @ PSYCHOLOGY TODAY
OPW — Aug 13 — AshleyMadison.com gets knocked off in the latest episode of Drop Dead Diva. "You only go around once, have a fling." TiffanyLexington.com is the name shown on the computer screen. The site was obviously inspired by the dating site for marrieds, Ashley Madison. The site's founder chose the Ashley Madison name by simply selecting two of the most popular girls names. Currently Ashley ranks as the #18, and Madison as the #4 most popular girls names. Tiffany and Lexington are nowhere in the top 100 however. In the show the sites owner is being sued for 'screwing up the plaintiffs marriage and ending her sex life,' to which he responds, 'that's ridiculous…if anything, my service can revitalize a marriage.' Who does that sound like?
BRANDREPUBLIC — July 9 – The UK Public Carriage Office, which
regulates advertising on vehicles across the UK, has banned married
dating website IllicitEncounters.co.
advertising on taxi cabs in London. The site, which is a dating service
for men and women who are married, was planning a large London-wide
campaign on taxis, but the PCO deemed the ad "unsuitable". IllicitEncounters.co.uk planned
to use the tag line: "If you're happy in your marriage, tell your
spouse. If you're not, tell someone else's." AshleyMadison.com
commissioned several billboards in the US last year that featured its
slogan "Life's too short, have an affair". The billboards were attacked
by moral and religious groups and some were taken down under pressure.
Ashley Madison also launched a TV ad at the time. FULL ARTICLE @ BRAND REPUBLIC
See all posts on IllicitEncounters
See all posts on AshleyMadison
TIME — June 29 — AshleyMadison.com, a personals site designed to facilitate extra-marital affairs, has released an iPhone and Blackberry app. AshleyMadison's membership has doubled over the past year to 4m. Over the past month alone, 679,000 men and women have used the service to contact a cheating partner. FULL ARTICLE @ TIME
ASSOCIATED PRESS — June 19 – AshleyMadison.com founder Noel Biderman was jilted when he tried to place an ad in Las Vegas Review-Journal to capitalize on U.S. Sen. John Ensign's extramarital affair. "They told me, 'How quickly can you pay us?'" Biderman said of the $20,000 ad. "I sent the money. I expected to see the ad." "I simply didn't think the Web site was appropriate for our daily newspaper," said Las Vegas Review-Journal Publisher Sherman Frederick. The ad was scheduled to run two days after Ensign acknowledged having had an extramarital affair last year with Cynthia Hampton, a Las Vegas woman who had worked on his campaign.
IRISH CENTRAL — May 7 — Ashley Madison, a Web site that helps people have affairs is to launch in Ireland with a major marketing campaign later this year. The site has been in operation in North America since 2001, and membership has gone up from 1m to 3.6m in the past 12 months – in part thanks to the recession. FULL ARTICLE @ IRISH CENTRAL