Category: FriendFinder

Various, Inc. (FriendFinder) Acquires Bondage.com

Posted on February 15, 2007

VariousEMAIL WIRE — Feb 12 — Various, Inc., the leading owner of intimate dating and relationships websites, has acquired Bondage.com, a highly popular site devoted to alternative lifestyles. The newly acquired company will join the Various site Alt.com and together they will create the world's largest online community for bondage, discipline and fetish enthusiasts (BDSM).

The full article was originally published at ChatMag, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: This deal was a long time in the making. Since 2003. It's the perfect fit for extreme niche dating site, Alt.com.

Profits Don’t Always Woo Investors

Posted on November 2, 2006

AdultMERCURY NEWS — Nov 1 — In Palo Alto, Andrew Conru looks like a typical Silicon Valley entrepreneur. The bespectacled, sandy-haired 38-year-old Stanford Ph.D. runs one of the best-known but least discussed Web destinations, Adultfriendfinder.com (25 million users, #58 on Alexa). In comparison, Facebook (9.5 million users, #56 on Alexa) is for sale for ~$1 billion. Most investors can't do anything about Various other than watch it expand. Many firms have "sin clauses'' with their financial backers that outline the types of companies they are strongly discouraged from backing, such as adult entertainment outfits. An IPO is an option, but stocks of publicly held adult content companies get discounted heavily because so many investors, like mutual fund managers, can't buy the shares. There also aren't many potential purchasers and Conru says his company is worth more than they can afford. There's no easy way to "exit'' Various. He employs 300 people, including 100 programmers. According to one former employee of Various who asked not to be named and his company has been making money since 1996, mostly through Adultfriendfinder.com and Alt.com. Conru owns 90% and is worth $100 million+ (The other 10% is owned by Lars Mapstead, whose start-up, Cams.com, was acquired by the company last year.)

The full article was originally published at Mercury News, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: I worked for Andrew in 2003 as his PR manager, amongst other things. Tough role, great guy. After working with Friendster I realised I needed to work for a real company and learn the ropes.  Whenever I advise my clients I often ask myself, "what would Andrew do." I heard Various will bring in $400 million this year. I'm sure AdultFriendFrinder will contribute well in excess of $100 million to that revenue number. In 2003 the official, but very rarely mentioned revenue number was $75 million. That number was, if anything, conservative.  Here's what Matt Marshall of VentureBeat had to say…

Owner of Adultfriendfinder Raking in "$100s of millions"

We're left with some questions. We're not sure why Conru needs the cash if the company is profitable and raking in so much revenue. The article says Adultfriendfinder is the 58th most popular site on the web, just behind Facebook, citing Alexa web-measurement data. Alexa data is notoriously unreliable — especially when it is used to compare something against Facebook. Alexa can be seriously gamed, because it relies on software downloaded by relatively small number of people to track traffic patterns.  Perhaps there's no one else willing to track this area? 😉 FULL ARTICLE @ VENTURE BEAT

Mark Brooks: He doesn't need the cash. But, he'd like to take a break. But, there's noone he can trust (besides Lars and Charlyn) to run the company. It's no small entity. Andrew knows every single corner, facet and feature and is master of his kingdom. The real problem is, he's a genius. Which makes his job of replacing himself rather tough. The thorn in Andrew's side, of late, is the sexier, sleeker, rising star SexSearch.com which is slowly but surely, using every means possible, stealing away adult/casual dating market share.

Lavalife ‘Click At A Flick’

Posted on October 19, 2006

Lavalife_logo_3CNW — Oct 19 — Lavalife, Fido and Cineplex Entertainment announced today a new partnership to expand the online dating experience with an innovative "offline" singles event series that will take place exclusively at Cineplex Entertainment theatres in select cities across Canada. "Click at a Flick." Featuring movie screenings in cities across Canada, launching in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. Single moviegoers simply buy a ticket for the featured movie and proceed to the designated Cineplex Entertainment auditorium where they can mingle and click with other singles before the lights go down.  Singles will also enjoy a series of hi-tech dating games powered by Fido, such as a text flirting game that allows singles to send messages across the theatre to other partygoers using their cell phones. Lavalife's open-minded approach to dating allows members to choose how they want to "click" with other singles by offering three unique communities: dating, relationships and intimate encounters.

The full article was originally published at CNW, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Lavalife is especially strong in Canada and New York. PlentyofFish is stealing a lot of their market share and has taken #1 spot in Canada according to Alexa which lists PlentyofFish is the #22 site and Lavalife at #41 and AdultFriendFinder as #51 (probably largely due to this link on PlentyofFish. Lavalife ran a similar program with Loews cinema last year. I think it's  a GREAT idea. I'll say it again, singles don't want tens of hours of IM and communications online each week. They want dates. They want real world connections. The more dating sites focus on improving the number of quality, well matched dates their users can go on, the better they will do in the long run, and the more they will be able to charge.

Scientific Reasons for Having Sex

Posted on October 9, 2006

S THE REGISTER — Oct 9 — Sex helps boost the immune system, boosts longevity and helps ward off cancer according to Dr Carl Charnetski of Wilkes University. Sex results in a more youthful appearance according to a study by Dr David Weeks of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, and co-author of Superyoung (1999). Sex helps reduce stress by lowering anxiety levels, boosting relaxation, and aiding sleeping. Sex helps fight depression according to a study by Dr Gordon Gallup of SUNY Albany. Sex is good exercise and helps circulation, lowers cholesterol, and releasing helpful endorphins and sex helps in losing weight, a little. 

The full article was originally published at The Register, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Over the next couple of years internet dating sites will extend beyond personality profiling and offer more sexual matchmaking options. SexSearch and AdultFriendFinder deal with sexuality and casual dating head on. TRUE offers a (relatively tame) test called Sexploration. Other sites get into fetish matching and Alt, takes things to the extreme. 

Lavalife Launches Magazine

Posted on October 3, 2006

Lavalife_3CNW — Oct 2 — Lavalife Magazine charts dating, relationships, sex, life and style among urban singles, featuring regular lifestyle stories, advice columns, pop culture digressions and opinion pieces infused with humor and common sense. Editor, Kim Hughes is a widely published writer and editor whose work has appeared in NOW, The Globe & Mail, National Post, Toronto Star, Report On Business, Salon, Amazon.com and Billboard. Features include "A History of Sex Toys," "Dating after the Death of a Partner" and "How to Avoid Dating a Jerk."

Mark Brooks: Adding compelling content to your dating site is a good move. Their are two methods.  1. Pay writers, 2. Encourage users to write. Match and Lavalife have gone with option 1.  FriendFinder and PlentyofFish have gone with option 2 in the form of a user contributed magazine where readers vote up the good articles, and in the case of PlentyofFish, user forums. 

FriendFinder Celebrates Ten Years and 130 Million Registrations

Posted on September 15, 2006

Friendfinderlogo_1MARKET WIRE — Sep 14 — FriendFinder was founded in 1996 by Andrew Conru. Passion.com is for those interested in "spicy" romantic liaisons. AdultFriendFinder.com, the most popular site of all with more than 1 million new registrations a month, caters to people interested in finding a more intimate but not necessarily romantic partner. Other communitires include OutPersonals, Senior FriendFinder, Bigchurch, Amigos and AsiaFriendFinder.  "On some of our sites, more than 40% of all those who have registered remain on our active file," said Dr. Conru. "We are rapidly moving into the mobile phone arena, upgrading payment systems to make it easier for people to purchase our premium products directly through their mobile phone carriers, and we are launching more sites that meet the needs of specific groups."

Mark Brooks: Sexsearch (7 million registrants since 2003) is FriendFinder's top competitor and is biting at AdultFriendFinder, Passion.com's and Outpersonals heels. It's newer, glossier, and more straight to the point. It's amazing how large this adult dating 'niche' is, and how rarely it gets covered in the press…because it's still viewed as porn by most of the press and analysts. Yes, it's risque, but it's still internet dating: the antithesis of eHarmony. I noticed that Hitwise is now including AdultFriendFinder in their Australian rankings.

Monogamy or Monotony?

Posted on September 1, 2006

PolygamieTHE VILLAGE VOICE — Aug 30 — "I prefer to cheat with other married people because they have as much to lose as me typically" says a 35-year-old executive at a large corporation in midtown Manhattan. Married for seven years, he and his wife have sex twice a week. He cheated for the first time with another married woman he met through the Ashley Madison Agency. He's one of over a million members of Ashley Madison, which—like Married Secrets, Affair Match, Discreet Adventures and International House of Wives—caters to cheaters. The company's founder, Darren Morgenstern wanted to offer a service where folks could be up-front about their marital status.  Membership costs $240 for three months. Sites like Ashley Madison tap into a very profitable niche within the online personals arena by bringing honesty to the dishonest practice of cheating. Statistics show that 12% to 25% of women and 22% to 60% of men cheat.

The full article was originally published at Village Voice, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Sexsearch is into threesomes. AdultFriendFinder markets to swingers. Polymatchmaker also.  In some ways Ashley Madison, and others are providing a service to the dating industry by soaking up the marrieds that would otherwise venture onto mainstream dating sites and give them a bad reputation. By their mere existence they also encourage infidelity.  Do these services provide a useful public service? For or against? Your comments please.

FriendFinder Introduces Mobile Direct Billing

Posted on August 18, 2006

FriendfinderlogoMARKET WIRE — Aug 17 — FriendFinder.com launched a new payment system that permits its members to be billed directly by their cell phone operators. The system uses the Premium Short Message Service (PSMS) protocol. It was recently rolled out in the U.K. for all FriendFinder.com programs. It will be introduced over the next few weeks in Australia, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Korea, Taiwan and China. In the U.S. it will be available for FriendFinder.com and Passion.com members only, starting in September. Members can handle the entire membership transaction simply by entering their mobile phone number in a box on the billing page. The PSMS payment option is provided by Vidicom.co.uk. A billing confirmation message is sent to the member's mobile phone. When the member replies to the confirmation alert, the cost of the service they requested is charged to their telecommunications provider, providing a convenient alternative for people who do not wish to use a credit card.

Mark Brooks: This will increase FriendFinder conversions, especially on it's casual/adult dating properties.  AdultFriendFinder is the top adult personals site, followed by the newer, sexier SexSearch.com.

OnlineBootyCall, Only a Single Marriage

Posted on August 5, 2006

Obclogo1bn3SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE — Aug 3 –  OnlineBootyCall.com, a division of Mobeze, is proud to announce that they have received only one confirmed report of marriage since their Web site's inception three years ago. "Reaching the one million member mark with only a single reported marriage is a tremendous accomplishment," Moses Brown, Founder and CEO said.  While most dating sites focus on lengthy profiles and complex matching systems, OnlineBootyCall.com prefers a simpler approach; the sign-up process can be accomplished in less than one minute.  OBC makes 30,000 connections each day; that equals one marriage per 32,850,000 booty-call connections. "Nobody else can boast that kind of success," Brown said. The OBC membership base has grown through a very generous referral system: $100,000 in cash prizes to members. Every member who refers at least five people during the course of one month is placed in a random drawing for $1,000; five winners are picked each month.  he Booty Call Ten Commandments guides members towards success. The first commandment is "Thou shall get out before the sun rises." FULL ARTICLE @ SEND2PRESS.COM

Mark Brooks: Casual dating sites (Sexsearch.com, AdultFriendFinder) are doing very well, alongside the personality profiling 'serious dating' sites (eHarmony, PerfectMatch, LoveHappens).

Shades of Change Felt across U.S.

Posted on July 29, 2006

Multiracial_1STAR TRIBUNE — July 28 — The average American today, young or old, is 70% more likely than a generation ago to count a person of another race among his two or three best friends, according to an article in the current issue of American Sociological Review. The highest U.S. share of multiracial children is in Minneapolis. In 1992, 9% of 18- and 19-year-olds said they were dating someone of a different race. Ten years later, the figure was 20%, according to a 2005 (Grace Kao, University Pennsylvania and Kara Joyner, Cornell). In 1992, 9% of 20 to 29-year-old Americans were living with people of different races. A decade later, 16%. In 1980, 1.3% of U.S. marriages were interracial, according to the Census Bureau. By 2002, 3%. The pace of change varies by race, with Asians and Hispanics seeing more change than blacks. In 1990, two-thirds of Americans polled said they opposed having a close relation or family member marry a black person. That's dropped to about one-third. More integrated workplaces also have a lot to do with it.

Mark Brooks: Nice to see society is progressing along. Check out one of my favorite niche sites Interracialmatch.com. My first girlfriend was Persian (4 years). I've dated a Chinese girl (4 years), a Colombian girl (2 years) and an African American girl since then. Many singles find those of other races more attractive and appealing. Check out Friendfinder's sites AsiaFriendFinder, FilipinoFriendFinder and Amigos which actively caters to those interested in interracial relationships. WorldSingles.com offers ArabLounge, HyeSingles and IranianPersonals. Community Connect has been hugely successful with BlackPlanet, AsianAvenue and MiGente. An Indian friend advised me that he found it frustrating being on one of the major dating sites because he only wanted to communicate with women who were interested in meeting Indian guys. Reverse search was what he needed. i.e. He wanted to find the women who noted in their profiles that they were interested in Indian guys. Does your site offer reverse search?