friendfinder review

Confirmed, FriendFinder Network Sold!
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Last month we reported this story, Rumor - FriendFinder purchased for $1 Billion?. Well it turns out that most of the rumor is true according to the New York Times. The FriendFinder Network was sold but for $500 million. There are over 25 sites in the FriendFinder Network with about a total of 1.2 million paying subscribers out of 260 million members. The projected profits of the network is estimated to be $340 million this year.

Some more of the popular sites in the FriendFinder Network includes their first site created, FriendFinder.com and Passion.com geared towards adults.

Rumor - FriendFinder purchased for $1 Billion?
FriendFinder Networks

TechCrunch have posted a rumor from what they call a reliable source that the FriendFinder Network of sites has been acquired for $1 Billion. In an update to this rumor the buyer is reported to be Penthouse Media Group. The FriendFinder Network of dating sites includes AdultFriendFInder, Passion, Senior FriendFinder and over 15 other different types of dating services. The article further reports that rumored revenues for the Network is over $300 million a year which makes this acquisition worth about 3 years of revenue.

Is this a good deal for Penthouse? Could be, the FriendFinder dating sites have always done well financially and they don't seem to be slowing down. At a cost of 3 years worth of revenue seems a little on the low end to me but most likely there is more too this deal than we know about (if it actually is true!).

2007 Dating Sites Reviews Choice Awards - Sexy
Recipient
Passion.com
The Editor's choice for the Top Pick - Sexy award for the best dating service which offers you a chance to meet other people for intimate encounters goes to Passion.com. This is an extremely popular dating service with over 20 million members who have joined to date. There market is very competitive with many dating services vying for members for which Passion.com has come out on top (no pun intended). How did they do this? By being one of the first sites to offer an adult oriented dating service in the industry with a very feature complete site. Passion.com is constantly evolving to make the online dating experience easier and more enjoyable for there members. This is easy to see by just the sheer number of things to do and explore on the site.

Passion.com embraced video early on. Members can not only upload there own videos but can view a large number of high quality live member webcams. You also can participate yourself or try out the video instant messenger (text is available as well) for a more private conversation. There are always thousands of members chatting and instant messaging at any one time.
Members are always posting in their Blogs and Interest Groups with almost 6 and a half million messages available to be read.

It's easy to create or find a local event in your city which members are participating in. Plus it is simple to find new places to visit with member's recommendations, comments and ratings on local businesses. These include places like bars, restaurants and clubs.

There is a lot of information to digest at Passion.com but they make it easy to do with a well designed web interface. Everything from updating your profile, adding pictures and videos, to browsing profiles, articles and forums is simple to do. Plus if you every have a question, Passion.com's customer support staff is just a phone call away and are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Read our review of Passion.com for more information about this dating service or visit Passion.com directly.

This Years Runner Ups for this award include: Lavalife.

Article on CNNMoney about FriendFinder.com Founder Andrew Conru

Here is an interesting article on CNNMoney.com about the founder (Andrew Conru) of the FriendFinder Network of dating sites. It talks about his failures and successes including AdultFriendFinder, his biggest success which generates more than 60% of his total revenue (over $200 million). This site rivals the likes of Match.com and Yahoo! Personals in total number of members. Last year AFF had more than 35 million visitors and on average 75,000 new user registering each day (not paid members).

FriendFinder Sites - New Instant Messenger V3.0

FriendFinder has recently updated ther Instant Messenger tool to 3.0. This free tool has been enhanced to be more simple, fun and responsive. New features include sound effects and improved language support. As always you have the main features of Video Chat, Text Chat, Viewable Members Photo Gallery and the ability to trade photos. This new instant messenger is available on all online dating sites of the FriendFinder Network.

FriendFinder Networks Files for IPO

I've been sick lately (and still am) so I have some catching up to do on news posting.

On December 23, 2008 FriendFinder Networks filed for a $460 million IPO. My first thought was it is an interesting time to file with the downturn of the economy. Adult FriendFinder is the major revenue generator of the FriendFinder Networks and with the latest posts about dating sites doing better in these market conditions, maybe the recession is not as much a concern. Still, there are less people out there with money to invest.

The other big issue is the proceeds of this will be used for the most part to pay off debt. Most investors tend not to like this type of scenario. I'm not sure where this debt came from. FriendFinder Networks was bought last December (see Story) by Penthouse for $500 million. I assume at this point, the FriendFinder accounting books where in a positive territory. I can't see Penthouse buying them for so much money if FriendFinder had a huge debt. This new debt must of come from Penthouse.

FriendFinder Networks is calling themselves the largest Social Networking Company

On FriendFinder Networks corporate site they are claiming to be the largest social networking company in the world. The numbers they give to support this are:

250,000,000+ total profiles in their database since inception (for all websites).
On average, over 150,000 new members per day.
Over 10,000 private label social networking and live video sites in their network.
While FriendFinder Networks may be the largest social networking company in terms of number of profiles created, but how relevant are all those profiles. FriendFinder got its start way back in 1996, 12 years ago. I am sure many of these profiles are unused now or duplicates within the same site and across multiple sites. Adult FriendFinder, the largest site in the Network, says on their home page they have over 29 million active members. An active member to FriendFinder is someone with a valid email account who has logged in within at least 2 years. Now 2 years is a long time to be considered an active member but at least FriendFinder publishes how these numbers are calculate. Most dating sites do not. I would consider the largest social networking sites to be the ones with the most number of active profiles. In my opinion an active profile is one in which someone has used it in at least 2 months (and this is stretching it). I'm sure this honour would go to either Myspace or Facebook.

While we are on the subject, why are more and more dating sites calling themselves social networking sites? Sure they have social networking features but the main goal of the site is dating and to match you with a compatible person. If you are not single, there is no point in joining any dating site or the ones that call themselves Social Networks. These sites really should be called Social Networks for Singles.

An Online Dating Case dealing with the Communications Decency Act

The Communications Decency Act (CDA) regulates indecency and obscenity on the Internet in the United States. It also declares that operators of Internet services were not to be considered as publishers unless they actually created the material. This makes them not legally liable for the words of third parties who use their web sites. This includes everything from forum posts and comments too submitted articles.

The Friendfinder Network recently got into legal trouble when someone complained that someone else had created a fake profile on the dating site that “reasonably identified” her. Friendfinder did remove the profile from the dating site but the profile information and photo was still being used in advertising. The reason the Communications Decency Act was not applied in this case is:

... the right to control the commercial use of one’s identity is it considered a general intellectual property right. The judge reasoned that Friendfinder wasn’t entitled to the CDA’s usual brand of immunity due to the intellectual property provision that states the CDA does not preempt intellectual property laws.

In section 5 of Friendfinders Terms of Use Agreement it states:

By posting content to any public area of FriendFinder, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to FriendFinder Network, Inc. and its members, an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully-paid, worldwide license to use, copy, perform, display, and distribute such information, rights of publicity, and content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works and other media, such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.] This basically gives Friendfinder ownership over almost anything posted on their site. This may raise alarm bells when you read it but, it is common practice among dating services, social networks and other web services in which you post information.

While I am far from being a lawyer it appears to me that FriendFinder got into trouble because the information posted in the profile by the other person did not belong to them to post in the first place. Since the information posted in the profile was about some other actual person they had no right to post it, therefore they did not have the right to give up the general intellectual property right of the material to Friendfinder.

It is a sticky situation. Overall the person who actually posted the material is responsible, but Friendfinder did continue to use the information in advertising even after they were made aware of the problem with the information from that particular profile. I'm not sure how old this case actually is but, when you see profile information in FriendFinder Ads now (at least from the ads I see) they have a note at the bottom explaining "Photos and other data are for illustrative purpose only". I guess for the most part they have stopped the practice of using actual profiles in their advertising.

For the full story plus another example legal case, read the post at Public Knowledge and for more information on the CDA visit Wikipedia.

Jangl Text and Voice Service is Closing its Doors

It appears that Jangl is going out of business according to Mashable, but nothing has been posted on their website yet. Most readers of this dating reviews site and blog may not know what Jangl is. They offer text and voice messaging and chatting to dating and social networking websites. Jangl is pretty popular and had numerous large websites as clients. I am not totally sure how much they charged the companies using their service (if anything) but from my understanding is they made most of their money from audio ads inserted into the voice calls and text ads inserted into text messaging. Obviously this revenue model did not pan out since they are closing.

In a blog post one of the founders of Jangl, Michael Cerda, talks a bit more of the demise of Jangl. He also stated his opinion that Jangl:

... needed another 18-24 months worth of runway to realize its fullest potential ...

I guess the venture capitalist didn't see it that way.

Match.com uses Jangl for their anonymous calling, so does FriendFinder and Friendster. PlentyofFish also used it but, according to the owner Markus Find he is removing the links for the service from his site right now.

You can also use Jangl on Facebook and it was coming soon to MySpace.

I wonder what business Match.com and the others will be switching too now? Maybe they will develop an in house service instead? Voice chatting is pretty important to a dating service and I hope these companies have a contingency plan in place. When you use 3rd party services for important aspects of your business you always need a backup plan if something unforeseen should happen.

Dating Site Better Business Bureau Report - March 2008, Part 1

I've decided to do a little more research of my own on the Better Business Bureau in regards to dating sites. This was after seeing an article about rising complaints (see Increased Complaints Registered Against Dating Services).

First a bit more on how the BBB works. To do a BBB search on a company visit their home page. The best way I found to find dating sites was to type in the domain name without the www prefix. Just a note here, most free or small dating sites are not found on the BBB. Once you have initiated a search, a list of companies may then come up. Some have nothing to do with what you are looking for while others may deal with separate branches or offices of the company. As an example, do a search on "yahoo.com" and you will get 22 results. Another thing to remember (which I didn't realize at first) is a company doesn't have to be a member to have a report on them. Actual BBB members are denoted with an icon and usually contain a lot more information than companies that are not members. When you click on the name of the company it will bring you to the report page of the company on the local Better Business Bureau website. These local BBB websites are not all the same and some have a lot more information available than others. All the information I am giving below seems to be how most of the BBB websites display their information. Some BBB sites like the one serving Los Angeles displays the information differently. They grade the company and actually shows some or all of the customers complaints. This seems to be an update to the service and may be how other BBB sites will soon follow.

New FriendFinder Owner to talk about Acquisition

This press release notes that the CEO and owner of The Penthouse Media Group Inc. (Marc Bell) will be giving a presentation regarding their acquisition of Various Inc. Various owns the FriendFinder Network. This presentation will take place at the Internet Dating Conference which in running from January 31 to February 1, 2008 and is located at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

For more information on the Conference visit the iDate2008 web site. This should be an interesting presentation for those of us in the dating industry. I hope they will post a video of it.

FriendFinder Networks

I have been poking around the FriendFinder Network of dating sites lately and have notice that they have modernized the user interface a bit. The improved site design doesn't look as busy now, which should attract more daters. FriendFinder has always been in the forefront of keeping their sites fresh and up to date with new features. They were one of the first dating sites to offer built in members blogs and interest groups. The one problem with a feature rich site is they tend to have complex user interfaces which can turn less tech savvy members off (just take a look at Facebook now).

I also notice that they have removed the advertising again from their dating sites home page and from the members pages as well. This improves the looks of the sites 10 fold and I applaud FriendFinder for doing this. A site without ads looks so much more professional.

While not directly related to dating, I notice this in my searches: "FriendFinder.com Games". It's a flash games site that has over 8000 free games to play. It looks like the FriendFinder Network plan to make money from the Google Ads on the site.

If you want to find out some more about a FriendFinder Network dating site, you can check out our review of FriendFinder.

FriendFinder to Complete IPO by Year End

FriendFinder Networks said on Tuesday that they plan to complete the IPO process by 2010 and intends to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “FFN.”.

FriendFinder Networks Inc. intends to use the net proceeds of the public offering to redeem a portion of its outstanding senior secured indebtedness and to pay waiver fees to certain debtholders.

The company owes $442.1 million in debt in connection with its acquisition of Various and about $81 million in debt at the parent level. Here are some interesting facts from the FriendFinder Networks filing which was made public on Tuesday (most points deal with data from the six months which ended on June 30, 2009):

Online Dating Site Employees Reviews
FriendFinder Networks

Consumer reviews on the internet for products and services usually receive more negative posts than positive, since most people satisfied with a product or service tend to be using it rather than writing reviews. It is probably the same for reviews of employers. I found a website called Glass Door which allows visitors to review their current and past employers. The website currently has over 26 thousand companies listed, with most of them being publicly traded. The site is new and is in beta so most companies do not have a lot of reviews yet.

A reviewer can list their job title, the Pros and Cons of the employer and Advice to Senior Management. They also rate the company on 8 different attributes (which is then averaged to a 5 bar rating) and also select if they approve or disapprove of the company CEO.

There are not a lot of employer reviews for dating site companies but, here are a few I found reviews for:

Virtual Currencies

CNN did a post about virtual currencies and economies. It is estimated that at least $1 billion USD were transferred into virtual currencies last year. The biggest use of virtual currencies are online games, followed by social networks and virtual worlds. Some websites even earn more revenue through virtual currencies than online advertising. The massive online multiplayer game, World of Warcraft (or WoW for short) uses WoW Gold. Even though it is against the rules set by Blizzard, this currency is bought and sold on the black market. This currency is so sought after, workers in China have been known to play the game just to earn the virtual WoW currency to sell to players in Europe and the US.

Social networking sites like Hi5 and MyYearBook have created their own currency as well. Hi5 has the Hi5 Coin and MyYearBook calls their currency Lunch Money. Hi5 Coins are mainly used to buy virtual gifts while with Lunch Money you can buy virtual gifts, play games and even donate it to charities. Facebook is looking into a unified currency since all the games and application on their platform that use a virtual currency has been created by the application developer. The problem with this for members is, the currency is only good with that one application. Facebook also doesn't see any revenue from these virtual currencies. This could be a way out for Facebooks revenue problems. If they create one unified Facebook currency for the entire site, not only could members spend it through any Facebook applicationg they want, Facebook would get a cut from each transaction.

The virtual world Second Life also has a currency called Linden Dollars. You can trade real currency for Linden Dollars which you can then buy whatever is for sale on Second Life (virtual real estate, entertainment, stores, etc..). Just like with real currencies, the Linden Dollar fluctuates daily against the USD. The buy and sell prices are set by the residents of Second Life on the LindeX Currency Exchange.

Some dating sites have a form of virtual currency called points. While you can't trade or buy something from other members, you can purchase virtual gifts, features and extended memberships from the dating site itself. Usually the way you earn points is by using and / or participating in the dating site. Two dating sites that I know of who use points this way is, Plenty Of Fish and, the FriendFinder Network of dating sites. With POF, every time you log into the site you earn 60 points, with a maximum of 60 points total every 24 hours These points can be used to buy virtual gifts for other members. With FriendFinder you receive points for participating in the site by adding or voting on articles, replying to questions and voting on topics. When you have earned enough points you can then purchase membership upgrades with them. This can include adding extra months to your membership and having your profile highlighted.

FriendFinder Networks Financials

This story was originally from December 28, 2008 and has been in my draft folder ever since. I thought it was about time I should finish it up.

As we know FriendFinder Networks Inc. (formerly Penthouse Magazine) filed to go public in late December, 2008 and intends to list under the symbol FFN, on the New York Stock Exchange. (see Story). In order to do this they released some financial and subscriber numbers for investors. Lets review the reason for the IPO first. Penthouse bought FriendFinder Networks from Various in December 2007 for $500 million (see Story). Since then Penthouse decided to change their name to FriendFinder Networks Inc. for a number of reasons including to help market themselves as a Social Network to would be investors. The main reason for the $460 million IPO is FriendFinder:

2008 Dating Sites Reviews Choice Awards - Sexy
Recipient
Passion.com
This award was an easy decision once again this year, no other site even comes close to what is offered by this dating / hook-up site. The Editor's choice for the Top Pick - Sexy Award goes to Passion.com. This dating community continues to blow away the competition with the features offered and the number of members they have, which now totals more than 25 million. At most times of the day there will be more than 100,000 men and women online looking for intimate encounters and discreet relationships. Passion.com is part of the FriendFinder Network which was recently bought by Penthouse.

Passion.com is a very active community and there are a number of ways for members to express themselves. There are currently 371 thousand personal blogs and over 125 thousand special interest groups of which 2.5 million people have joined. Web cameras have also become a large part of this adult dating site experience. Members can have video introductions as well as chat and IM with their webcams. Of course photos are a big part of the site as well. Most typical dating sites have members who post usually from 1 to 3 photos. At Passion.com you will find a large number of members who have posted 10 or more photos. This site just teems with activity and member participation. There is not another site on the internet where you will find more sexy personals.

At Passion.com they have a thriving international community. Besides English this dating site is available in 10 other languages. Countries that have at least a million members at Passion.com include the United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Read our review of Passion.com for more information about this dating service or visit Passion.com directly.

This Years Runner Up for this award is: Lavalife.

Passion.com Homepage Facelift
Passion.com

I notice that Passion.com got a much needed homepage facelift recently (bottom left). The bottom right image is what the Passion.com homepage has looked like probably for the last 4 years or more (it has been a while). The white to pink gradient background of the new look in much better and it doesn't make the homepage feel as "busy" ascetic wise or as blocky. I also noticed that they have removed any mention of FriendFinder. I guess this is to make the service have a more distinct image and reputation. I think the new look with the softer appearance will work for them and attract more females, which is the hardest thing for most casual dating sites to do.

FriendFinder Networks Makes Offer for Playboy

FriendFinder Networks Inc. made an offer on Thursday to buy Playboy Enterprises, Inc for $210 million. The founder of Playboy Magazine, Mr. Hefner, owns about 70 percent of Class A commons stock and 28 percent of Class B giving him complete voting control. The CEO of FriendFinder Networks, Marc Bell, stated that:

We look forward to Mr. Hefner and other key members of management being an integral part of the combined companies.

The problem with the offer is that last week Mr. Hefner made his own bid to take Playboy private at $185 million (or $5.50 a share). Playboy (PLA) is currently trading at around $5.65 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Passion.com Guarantee

FriendFinder's Passion.com now offers a Gold and Silver membership guarantee. If you do not hook-up with someone in 3 months, you will get an additional 3 months for free.

Here are the rules for the guarantee as stated on the Passion.com dating site:

Maintain a gold or silver account status for three months
Log in at least once a month
Send at least 3 emails a month
Create at least one blog or group post each month

The rules seem pretty straight forward, since all they ask of the member is to actually use the site. If you have followed the rules and have had no success, then all you need to do to claim your 3 months is email Passion.com's customer service. This offer is valid once per customer. Please confirm the guarantee rules on Passion.com before you sign up to this dating service as they may have changed since the writing of this post.

To find out more about this dating site, read our review of Passion.com.

2009 Dating Sites Reviews Choice Awards - Sexy
Passion.com

The Editor's choice for the Top Pick - Sexy Award goes to Passion.com. This intimate encounters website community continues to be popular with the singles crowd, thanks in large part to how easy it is to meet and interact with new people. Members can email, instant message, text chat and webcam chat (as a group or one on one). There are special interest groups to join and blogs to read. With these features and tools, Passion.com makes it is easy to expand your network of friends and partners.

Passion.com is an international adult dating site which has many men and women actively meeting and communicating with each other. They now have over 33 million members with at least 100,000 members logged in at any one time. This interactive dating service even has a guarantee. If you do not meet up with someone in 3 months, your membership will be extended an additional 3 months for free.

Read our review of Passion.com for more information about this dating service or visit Passion.com directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Lavalife.

FriendFinder Trading Rescheduled

There is more bad news for FriendFinder Networks regarding their IPO (see Story). FriendFinder was suppose to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange this Thursday under the symbol FNN. They now plan to launch sometime the following week. The dip in the market last week is said to take partial blame as well as some last-minute questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission. These questions are not uncommon and can delay the process of launching a deal.

For more information, read the Wall Street Journal.

Mingle2 has a FriendFinder Offer

Our new review for the free dating site Mingle2 is up now.

When I was creating a membership on the site for the purpose of doing a review, at the end of the process Mingle 2 asked an interesting question. They asked me if I wanted to automatically register for free on FriendFinder without filling out additional information. All I had to do was just click YES and FriendFinder would email me the log in information.

I thought this was an interesting way for a mostly free dating site to make some extra money (because the 2 sites shared profile information), but I was a little surprised. I had not even reached the dating service homepage yet and I was already prompted about another matchmaking service. This cannot really instill confidence in Mingle2 for new members. I wonder how many people actually click yes.

FriendFinder Networks Acquires JigoCity

FriendFinder Networks announced September 12th that they have acquired BDM Global Ventures which owns JigoCity. JigoCity is similar to the popular Groupon website which offers visitors local daily deals. JigoCity has about 150 employees and has offices in China, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and the US (Los Angeles). JigoCity has about 1 million members. Revenue in July for JigoCity was $600,000 and in August it was $1.1 million.

The acquisition cost FriendFinder 1.6 million in shares and about 6.4 million in warrants with exercise prices ranging from $5 to $18 per share.

FriendFinder Networks Acquires Perfectmatch.com

I was surprised this morning when I read that Perfectmatch.com has been acquired by FriendFinder Networks (FFN). I am sure there have been others but this is the first dating site that I know of that FriendFinder Networks (or Various) has purchased. The only thing in the press release mentioned about the terms of the deal is that:

... founder Duane Dahl will join FriendFinder Networks as General Manager of the Company's general audience dating websites group ...

Having Duane Dahl join the FriendFinder ranks is a good move on FFN's part. In the past Perfectmatch.com is one of the few dating sites that has been able to get their dating service featured in movies from Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. and NBC Universal. The dating site also has been a part of the "Dr. Phil Show" and "Dancing with the Stars".

For more on the story read the press release. To find out about the dating service FriendFinder acquired you can check out our Perfectmatch.com review.

FriendFinder Networks Expects $50 Million from IPO

FriendFinder Networks expected to raise $50 million in gross profit from its IPO which started trading May 11, 2011 on the Nasdaq under the "FFN" ticker symbol. The company expect shares to go for around $10 and plan to sell 5 million. The money raised from the IPO has been earmarked to pay down their debt.

FriendFinder Networks stock price currently sits at $5.67 per stock and it has been as low as $5.32 per stock in the past few days.

To find out more about dating sites owned by FriendFinder Networks you can read our review of Passion.com and our review of FriendFinder.

FriendFinder Networks Plans To Revisit Public Offering

Last month in a press release FriendFinder Networks announced that they want to re-launch its proposed initial public offering of common stock.

The story of their IPO started back in December of 2008 when FriendFinder Networks first filed their IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $460 million (see Story). In January 2010 they revised their initial public offering to less than half at $220 million (see Story). By February things were not looking so good and citing market conditions FriendFinder Networks delayed their IPO indefinitely (see Story).

For more information on dating services which FriendFinder Networks operates, you can check out our FriendFinder.com review and our Passion.com review.

2010 Dating Sites Reviews Choice Awards - Sexy
Passion.com

The Editor's choice for the Top Pick - Sexy award for the best adult oriented dating service is Passion.com. In a vastly competitive part of the dating industry where most adult dating sites are filled with tons of fake profiles Passion.com stands out as one of the best choices for men and women to hookup.

On Passion.com there is a lot to do. Besides searching for matches, members can chat online, read steamy member blogs, and peruse the adult location directory which lists thousands of adult-themed businesses from all over the world. Passion.com members also can now form and join local or topical interest groups. These interest groups let members meet similar people, participate in discussion boards, and setup real group events local to you.

With over 34 million members and usually over 100,000 members logging in every hour, Passion.com is an ideal dating site to join if you are a man or a woman looking for a private encounter.

Read our review of Passion.com for more information about this dating service or visit Passion.com directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Lavalife

FriendFinder Networks has Raised $551 Million in Financing

According to FriendFinder Networks Inc in a press release on Thursday, they have raised $551 million in debt financing. Any further details of this transaction were not disclosed.