Ginger Jolie, a typical Penthouse employee.
The announcement that Penthouse has bought Various Inc, the home of Adult Friend Finder, has been comically miss-reported in the mainstream press.
Various isn’t an adult social networking site. It’s a dating engine and most importantly, it’s an affiliate program. As a scocial network the $500 million sales price is ridiculously low. That’s not close to 10 times earnings which, conservatively, would be $1 billion for Various given the numbers they claim (260 million users, 1.2 million of those being paying subscribers).
If Various was a social networking operation it’d be worth even more in the current climate. The price paid by Penthouse is based on how they’re value Various ability to deliver traffic to their other properties, and in recognition of their almost unassailable position in the adult dating market.
Various were happy to sell because the options for large adult company are limited, they have no debt to service (I assume) and $500 million is a very nice payday.
A big move in adult social networking? I don’t think so. Anyone care to correct me?
Maybe I’m confused as to what makes a social networking site and how that is different from a dating engine. Does the former offer some broadly extended functionality that separates it? Dude, I totally don’t know what makes a social network, and I’m not being snide I’m just uncommonly not up on it. But I thought they were all mostly interchangeable, where as something like Adult Friend Finder was explicitly for people to hook-up (emphasis on ‘hook’). Or is it that AFF does nothing to promote the social aspects and exists solely to generate web traffic like you infer.
What a nice picture of a typical Penthouse employee - got a name, Sam?
Edco - I think a social network should let users define themselves. A dating site defines you as someone who needs a date. It’s no more a social network than a auto-parts forum to me. Not a bad thing but you’d hardly ask your aunt to join Alt.com to trade holiday pics. Some might say it’s a ’specialized social network’ but I don’t buy that. Once it’s specialized it’s no longer a social network, it’s a tool for achieving a specific result which is of little use to anyone who doesn’t desire that end-point.
Chris - Ginger Jolie. Sorry.
Haha - no reason for an apology.
…
Hot damn, I’d forgotten about Ginger Jolie. There oughta be a law against women that gorgeous being so goddamn unattainable.
Oh, as for Penthouse now owning AFF… if they had owned it a few years ago, before I briefly joined, I would not have joined. There’s a certain amount of (foolish) trust associated with such sites anyway, but a big corperation (heh) like Penthouse would have sent me in the opposite direction. Why? ‘Cause they’re like The Man or something, and trust goes right out the window when it comes to Major Names having access to your personals.
I don’t know… it just doesn’t seem like a good idea, and I’m thinking there will be people that won’t join specifically because of Penthouse’s involvement. It’d be interesting to see and compare the current bottom line to the one from this time next year.