THE BAY AREA REPORTER – In 1993, Andy Cramer, the CEO of Caregiving Network, founded Gay.Net, one of the earliest platforms for gay men, especially during the HIV/AIDS crisis. This bulletin board system (BBS) later merged with Gay.com, reaching 4M users by 1999. Back in 1987, Jean Marie Diaz in the U.S. established Sappho, a hub for lesbian email lists. Amy Goodloe further expanded the online lesbian community with lesbian.org in the mid-1990s. In 1999, Gary Frisch and Henry Badenhorst introduced Gaydar, offering chat rooms for queer men. OkCupid launched in 2004 and, while not exclusively LGBTQ+, became popular within the queer community. By 2021, it had broadened its gender and sexual orientation identifiers to 60, collaborating with organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD. Joel Simkhai launched Grindr in 2009, the first geolocation dating app specifically for gay men, later expanding its offerings and user base. After leaving Grindr, Simkhai founded Motto, a dating app that aimed to counter "toxicity and discrimination" in some queer dating platforms. In 2015, Robyn Exton established HER, originally known as Dattch, as a platform for the "FLINTA (female, lesbian, intersex, trans, and agender) community," focusing on both dating and community aspects. Tser stands as a dating app for the transgender community, presenting itself as both a dating platform and social community for trans individuals and allies.
Category: Gay.com
Valued At $7 Million, Gay.com Domain Donated To LA LGBT Center
The 20 Most Useful Dating Websites
TELEGRAPH.CO.UK – May 10 - Online dating is now one of the most popular ways to meet a new partner and there are ~1400 sites in the UK alone.
- Match.com
- MySingleFriend
- eHarmony
- Friend Finder
- JDate
- Gay.com
- Christian Connection – the largest, and longest established subscriber based UK Christian dating site.
- Muddy Matches – For Single Farmers, Rural Singles, Equestrian Singles and Country Friends could be the place for you.
- Zoosk
- Telegraph Dating
- Lovestruck.com – for dates in your lunch hour.
- Parship
- Shaadi.com
- Saga Connections – for people over 50.
- Dating Vegetarian
- Dating Direct
- Flirtbox
- Love Arts – for singles who love arts
- Dating For Parents
- Green Singles
DateUnknown.com Partners With Gay.com
OPW – May 17 – DateUnknown.com, a site which films the first dates of people who meet on the internet, has partnered with Gay.com. Date Unknown will feature Gay.com members who have met through the site in video episodes. Date Unknown offers dating sites a cost effective way to show successful matches.
Gay.com Has Been Offline More Than It’s Been Online
QUEERTY — Oct 15 — PlanetOut's Gay.com spent untold sums of cash revamping its infrastructure in the past few months. Except ever since the gay hub debuted the new version of its site at the beginning of the month, Gay.com has been plagued by downtime. By our rough science, it's been offline more than it's been online. Gay.com sent an apology letter to members stating they were adjusting their hardware configurations and software code and fixing the bugs that have resulted in unplanned system outages. FULL ARTICLE @ QUEERTY
Niche Dating Sites Grow Steadily As Mainstream Ones Flail
TECH CRUNCH — Apr 24 — In the internet dating space, bigger is not always best. According to the latest U.S. numbers from Hitwise, the top niche dating sites are steadily gaining market share while their big mainstream counterparts stagnate. In March 2008, the top 5 overall sites held 7% less market share than they did in 2007 (Plentyoffish and Singlesnet were the only sites to buck this trend individually). Meanwhile, the top sites (Adam4Adam, Manhunt, Gay.com, BlackPeopleMeet, BlackSingles, BlackChristianPeopleMeet, ChristianMingle, JDate, and ChristianCafe.com) from the top five major niche dating categories made considerable gains. The biggest niche in terms of total traffic is casual dating, which consists of sites like Fling, AdultFriendFinder, and SexSearch. While the top 10 mainstream dating sites gained only 0.01% of total Internet traffic over the past year, the top three casual adult sites gained 0.07%. That's a hefty 56% increase in the traffic. (Authored by Mark Brooks)
FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
Online Sex: My Space Or Yours?
EDGE BOSTON — Apr 7 — Online venues, from IRC to AOL to Gay.com to MySpace and video chats, all seem to have replaced the function of the gay bar as a way for gay men to connect with other gay men. "Gay daters were some of the earliest, if not the first, to utilize the web for meeting potential partners. In the initial days of on online dating, users searched for profiles that looked interesting and eligible to them, whether that be for a relationship of a short-term encounter", said Patrick H. Perrine, MA, CEO and Founder of myPartner.com, who has worked in the field of human sexuality since 1997. FULL ARTICLE @ EDGE BOSTON
Gay Love Online, And This Time They Mean Business
GFN — Jan 22 — E-Harmony's discrimination towards gay clients, has led entrepreneurs to rethink services specifically for gay singles. Patrick H. Perrine MA, PhD is the founder and matchmaker behind myPartner.com. GFN spoke to Dr. Perrine about how he went from relationship counselor to online cupid.
GFN: Why enter into the competitive Internet dating world?
Patrick Perrine: I realized there was a major underserved market of gay and lesbians singles. Nobody was providing a place with the right tools and resources to create positive relationships.
GFN: What did you learn from sites like Gay.com to make myPartner different?
PP: We did a tough competitive analysis, and we took our initial user feedback very seriously. Match.com is incredibly successful because they are constantly changing. That was a big model for us.
GFN: Where did you get the financing to develop the site?
PP: I used my personal resources to develop the company. Recently, I did take on some angel investors.
GFN: What is your advertising/marketing plan?
PP: We get a lot of traffic from organic search. October 1st was the start of our major online advertising campaign.
GFN: Do you eventually want to address lesbians?
PP: It may be something we tackle in the future.
The full article was originally published at GFN, but is no longer available.
Gay.com Parent Company Sells Travel Business
PINKNEWS.CO.UK — Oct 15 — PlanetOut – parent company of The Advocate, Out magazine, Gay.com, and PlanetOut.com – has announced plans to sell its travel business RSVP Vacations to Atlantis Events. PlanetOut, which recently was rescued from bankruptcy by investors such as Bill Gates, is attempting to reverse declining advertising revenues.
The full article was originally published at Pink News, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Gay.com is down 5.6% over last year. Manhunt.net is up 38%. Free site, Adam4Adam is also up 38%. I tested Manhunt's customer service out after their CEO, Adam Segel, mentioned to me at the Shanghai Social Networking Conference that Manhunt.net has 20 minute email response times. Surely not?! But, it's true! And they picked up their phone line on the 3rd ring when I tried the customer service line. What's your site's email response time?
Gay.com Not For Sale
OPW — May 29 — A little birdie told me…”Also, update regarding PlanetOut, Inc. and Gay.com. Their investment banker, Allen & Co., said that no part of PlanetOut's business is currently for sale. Allen & Co. is a prior investor in the business and has confidence in the current management (and is being paid a fee in the form of warrants to buy 750,000 shares at $1.69 a share). They are confident they can raise the $15 MM cash to continue the business through this year and that the value will be there in the long run. Good luck to them and the Red Sox. If shares recover to $5, they'll hit a home run.” Take a look at PlanetOut stock now. Up from a low of 86c on Tuesday May 22nd to $1.39 now. Someone made a killing already. – Mark Brooks