Adult FriendFinder

Adult FriendFinder (AFF) is an online sex and swinger personals community website. It allows members to meet friends or sex partners.

The site was founded by Andrew Conru (aka Andrew Conreux). It is consistently ranked between the 40th and 60th most visited website on the internet, [ [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&compare_sites=&y=t&q=&size=medium&range=6m&url=adultfriendfinder.com Alexa rankings for Adult FriendFinder] ] and claims to have over 20 million members. [http://www.startupjournal.com/ideas/hitechonline/20060306-kesmodel.html] Originally started as FriendFinder, a more traditional online dating site, Adult FriendFinder was spun off when members began uploading more risque photos than were appropriate. FriendFinder has since spun off several other communities focusing on more specific segments.

The parent company had difficulty finding venture capital due to the adult nature of its signature property. [cite news
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/business/27venture.html?n=Top/News/Business/Small%20Business/Innovation
title=A Thaw in Investment Prospects for Sex-Related Businesses? Maybe
author=Matt Richtel
date=July 27 2007
publisher=The New York Times
accessdate=2008-02-02] In December 2007, the company was sold to the Penthouse Media Group for $500 million. [cite news
url=http://www.avn.com/index.cfm?objectid=CF456ABE-B199-C335-1E1150FD9F671142
title=Penthouse Acquires AdultFriendFinder for $500 Million
author=Bianca Fox
date=2007-12-12
publisher=AVN (magazine)
accessdate=2008-02-02] The acquisition is the subject of a 2008 lawsuit by Broadstream Capital Partners, a merchant bank that assists with mergers, alleging that Penthouse breached a 2006 contract in order to purchase the company, a claim that Penthouse denies.cite news | first=Tom | last=Hymes | coauthors= | title=Penthouse Denies Every Claim in Broadstream Adult FriendFinder Suit | date=2008-08-31 | publisher= | url =http://www.xbiz.com/news/98496 | work =Xbiz.com | pages = | accessdate = 2008-09-02 | language = ]

Overview

Anyone can join and post a profile for free, but cannot respond to any emails from other members unless they pay a "membership" fee. Paying users can view others' profiles, and access communication services such as anonymous email, chat, webcam, a webzine, and blogging. Members can purchase a higher membership level for benefits such as higher search rankings. Members can broadcast their webcam publicly to each other. Webcam viewers can page the broadcasting member in an attempt to initiate a chat session.

The website has an affiliate progam, whereby webmasters refer users to the site and are compensated up to $1.01 per unique click.

Criticism

There is some controversy over the true ratios of male to female members [ [http://www.articlesbase.com/communication-articles/adult-friend-finder-is-it-really-involved-in-a-scam-60326.html Adult Friend Finder: Is It Really Involved In A Scam? ] ] . Additional reports state that the user database is rarely purged, a larger-than-average number of members are professionals "looking for clients" [ [http://dating.about.com/od/adultdatingsites/fr/AdultFriend.htm Adult Friend Finder Dating Site Review - Adult Friendfinder ] ] . Others are scam-advertisers' fake profiles using photographs taken from the internet, who are simply "fishing" for e-mail addresses or advertising for other websites.As with most websites, they offer a free trial period and free memberships. There are thousands of reports of problems with the free and paid memberships. A free membership allows members only to edit their own profile, they can not see or communicate with any other members. To actually use the site and be able to see and communicate, a Gold membership is needed which costs about $50 a month.

References

*Robert McMillan: "AdultFriendFinder settles pop-up adware charges" in PC World of 2007-6-12 ( [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/06/AR2007120601813.html online version] )
*Jim Hopkins: "'Penthouse' makes $500M hookup with social site Various" in USA Today of 2007-31-12 ( [http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/corporatenews/2007-12-12-penthouse_N.htm online version] )

See also

* FriendFinder
* Sexual revolution
* Online dating service

External links

* [http://vinylfile.net/aff.php Adult FriendFinder]
* [http://www.friendfinderinc.com/ FriendFinder Corporate website]
* [http://www.ripoffreport.com/searchresults.asp?q1=ALL&q4=&q6=&q3=&q2=&q7=&searchtype=0&submit2=Search!&q5=Adult+Friend+Finder Ripoff report: Adult FriendFinder]
* [http://www.audetlaw.com/case.php?id=58 Fake Profile Class Action Lawsuit Investigation]