Online Personals Watch: News on the Dating Industry and Business

AshleyMadison.com Expanding In Australia

THE TELEGRAPH - Jan 16 - AshleyMadison, an online dating agency targeting people seeking extra-marital affairs, is expanding its company in Australia due to high demand for the service. The growing dating trend has already attracted ~500K members in Australia with women accounting for 40% of its clients. Ashleymadison.com founder and CEO Noel Biderman said Australia had the fastest growing female membership in the world due to the high proportion of successful career women.

by Samantha Williams
See full article at The Telegraph

See all posts on AshleyMadison

Hispanics Are 'Fastest Growing Community When It Comes To Infidelity'

HUFFINGTON POST - Nov 11 - According to AshleyMadison.com, the Hispanic community is "the fastest growing community when it comes to infidelity." Since launching the Spanish-language version of their website in 2009, 1.1M Latinos have signed up, accounting for 31% of their total new membership.

See full article at Huffington Post

See all posts on AshleyMadison

The World of Niche Online Dating

VANCOUVER SUN - Sep 30 - Specialized dating sites such as JDate.com, SeniorPeopleMeet.com, VeggieDate.org and even PiratesPassions.com allow users to meet their match based on factors including ethnicity, age, religion and lifestyle. There’s even Ashley Madison.com, a site for cheaters. Niche dating may sound unromantic, but details matter when it comes to love, says relationship expert Dr. Terri Orbuch. Orbuch is a psychologist and relationship expert for PeopleMedia, which operates more than 20 niche dating sites, including BlackPeopleMeet.com, RepublicanPeopleMeet.com and SingleParentMeet.com. Over 105K Canadians used dating sites run by PeopleMedia last year. Not all niche dating is done online. FastLife organizes speed dating events in Vancouver such as East Asian Dating, Tall Men Dating and Executive Dating. Justin Parfitt, the company founder and CEO, says speed dating is more fun and efficient than its online equivalent. “You’re instantly evaluating people and figuring out if there’s chemistry. There’s no hiding behind a fake photograph or fake profile,” he said.

by Laura Kane
See full article at Vancouver Sun

See all posts on JDate               See all posts on People Media
See all posts on VeggieDate       See all posts on FastLife
See all posts on AshleyMadison

Strings Attached: Online Dating for Married People

FOX BUSINESS - Sep 7 - Nothing is off limits when it comes to the Internet. Fox Business checked in with four dating sites for married people.

AshleyMadison.com
Started: 2001
Members: 11M in 15 countries, 7M in the U.S.

Q&A with Noel Biderman, CEO of Avid Life Media
Q: When do you notice an uptick in traffic?
A: The days after Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day.

Gleeden.com
Started: 2009
Members: 1M

Q&A with Kristiana Strandjeva, spokesperson for Gleeden.com

Q: Were you surprised at the response level/interest from people?
A: Not surprised at all. The concept of relationships outside of the marriage has been around a long time, it is as old as marriage itself. 

Q: Why do you think married people turn to a site like this?
A: In today’s day and age, it’s very difficult to be married and faithful.

NoStringsAttached.com
Started: 2010
Members: 3.4M

Q&A with Anthony Previte, CEO of FriendFinder Networks
Q: Why married people turn to a site like this?
A: The opportunity to cheat is the best with people you know. These are also the most dangerous because it's only a matter of time before your partner finds out. Sites like NoStringsAttached are safer.  

MarriedSecrets.com
Started: 2003
Members: “In the hundreds of thousands"

Q&A With Jason Baker, spokesperson.
Q: Why do you think married people turn to a site like this? 
A: Often times the main theme is that people are looking to find an intimacy that they are not getting at home. 

by Kathryn Tuggle
See full article at Fox News

See all posts on AshleyMadison
See all posts on Gleeden

AshleyMadison Hits 10 million Members

DIGITAL LIFE - Aug 10 - Extramarital "dating" service Ashley Madison.com has crossed the 10 million-member mark worldwide. Noel Biderman, founder and president of the site, who is married with two young children, launched the site in 2002 after he "discovered that countless numbers of married men and women were using traditional ‘singles’ dating sites."

by Suzanne Choney
See full article at Digital Life

See all posts on AshleyMadison

Honor Mom - Or Another 'Daddy' Will

NY POST - May 5 - This is a wakeup call to married men: This Sunday is Mother's Day. Do not scoff. The day following Mother's Day is the No. 2 date on which women seek love outside marriage. And No. 1? The day after Valentine's Day. For a decade, Ashley Madison, the online dating site that claims more than 9M members, has hooked up frustrated women with appreciative guys. On a normal Monday, 2,500 to 3,000 women join. But last post-Mother's Day, May 10, was a record. Some 31,427 women signed up. The average age is 36.

by Andrea Peyser
See full article at NY Post

Mark Brooks: This is pretty much the social warning call for the rise of the infidelity sites. Look after your girl, or someone else will.

See all posts on AshleyMadison

One Woman Goes Undercover On Ashley Madison

MSNBC - Mar 30 - Writer signs up for Ashley Madison and meets with husbands to figure out why they stray. In her profile, she says that she is married, because many of the men don't want the complications of seeing a single woman. Overnight she receive 164 messages. 68% of the site's members are men, and their average age is 44. You think this is a site for sex in motels. Ashley Madison's president, Noel Biderman, certainly does. He says that the men are there for one thing. "This is about sex." He is wrong that all the men on AM want sex and sex alone. There are plenty of men who says he is happily married when what he really means is he is complacently bored. They might be looking to fall in love. On Ashley Madison, wives are mostly reduced to pronouns, and in that reduction they are less a human than a fact that shares their home. In the most extreme, these pronouns become antiheroes to the plan. One of the most striking things about Ashley Madison users is that they can literally be anybody.

Scott Haltzman, M.D., author of The Secrets of Happy Families said: "Use this article as a starting point to talk about your fears and ways to keep things fresh." Haltzman's tip: Try something new together, regularly.

by Lisa Taddeo
See full article at MSNBC

Mark Brooks: My tips for a happy marriage. 1. Take a date night EVERY week at least once. 2. Always, always be honest. 3. No disrespect. 4. Take time to communicate clearly. 5. Get a really fast motorbike and go for a fast ride round a small island (like Malta) once a week.  :-)

See all posts on AshleyMadison

CEO Noel Biderman And Sexy Ashley Madison Banned Ad

POSTCHONICLE - Feb 22 - "People don't stray because it is easy or convenient. Most stray because they are missing something in their relationship and feel they need or deserve more than their primary partner offers. Providing a service like ours does not make someone more likely to stray any more than increasing the availability of glassware contributes to alcoholism", said Noel Biderman, founder & CEO of Ashley Madison. Below is a video interview of Noel on Huckabee.

By Mitch Marconi
See full article at The Post Chronicle

See all posts on AshleyMadison

Cheating, Incorporated

BUSINESS WEEK - Feb 14 - Noel Biderman is the CEO of Avid Life Media, based in Toronto. "Monogamy, in my opinion, is a failed experiment," he declares. Adultery has been good to Biderman, but defending his product is a full-time job. After spending several years as a sports agent at Chicago's Interperformances, Biderman founded Ashley Madison in 2002, naming the company after the two most popular names for baby girls that year. AshleyMadison is by far Avid Life's most successful brand with 8.5M members, 1.3 million of whom have actually paid something. Avid Life is expected to generate $60M in revenue this year and $20M in profit. Biderman is quick to explain why his business isn't hurting anyone. "You eradicate Ashley Madison, you're not going to eradicate infidelity.Do you think if you stop allowing divorce attorneys to advertise, we would stop people from getting divorced?" he says. According to Justin Wolfers, an economist, Ashley Madison provides liquidity to an illiquid market, which may make the market bigger. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WEEK

See all posts on AshleyMadison

Ashley Madison: Lessons In Promoting A Sleazy Business

FORBES - Feb 11 - Ashley Madison, the Match.com for adulterers with 8.5M users globally, is owned by Avid Life. Avid Life had $60M in revenue this year and $20M in profit, almost all of it from Ashley Madison. The site made a stink this year about its ads being banned during the Superbowl, as it has in previous years. One way the company may have gotten around this in the past is through guerilla advertising: slyly placing ads inside anti-Ashley Madison campaigns, like MyMarriageMatters.org — a marriage promotion website run by a divorce lawyer. One monogamy-supporting blogger traced an email address affiliated with the site back to Avid Life. This Marriage Matters ad arguably does more to show off Ashley Madison than to promote the sanctity of marriage. FULL ARTICLE @ FORBES

See all posts on AshleyMadison

Noel Biderman, CEO Of AshleyMadison.com - Changing The Face Of Matrimony

BENZINGA - Feb 9 - Ashley Madison, a controversial dating site that was launched in 2001, has received heavy criticism over its premise. The site serves as a platform for married persons to engage in marital infidelity.

Q: What drove your decision to foray into this world?
A: More and more people who were already in relationships took advantage started joining dating sites. My paradigm was, why not build a social network of their own where these married people could connect with one another, as opposed to having to pose as something they weren't.

Q: One of the statements you've made is that your commercial in a 30-second spot is not going to convince anyone to cheat. But what about those that would shy away from starting an affair in the workplace?
A: We can't create prohibition. It fails every time that we do so. I'm part of the landscape that says, “Let people be who they want to be and pursue what they want to pursue.”

Q: So is it a question of cannibalizing this behavior, like you say, and putting it in a place where it's not affecting other people? Or is your stance closer to your previous comments, in which you said this can actually help a marriage?
A: Ashley Madison is not some kind of home-wrecking service. Some people are looking to pursue something outside of their relationship to preserve their primary relationship. 

Q: Describe the growth trajectory of Ashley Madison over the past few years?
A: Our site has gone from 800,000 to 900,000 users to 7.8M users in the span of the last two and a half to three years.

Q: You had an IPO in the works back in February. Why was that put on hold?
A: I don't have a ton of insight into that because I personally wasn't necessarily pursuing that directly. I, for one, am totally happy with Ashley Madison and Avid Life Media being a privately held company.
FULL ARTICLE @ BENZINGA

See all posts on AshleyMadison

Dating Sites Have Made It Easier For People To Click With One Another

ECONOMIST - Dec 29 - The new year can be an unhappy time but it is a golden opportunity for dating sites, as singles are hoping to find romance—ideally before February 14th. “The period between New Year’s Day and Valentine’s Day is our busiest six weeks of the year,” explains Sam Yagan, from OkCupid. Once seen as the last resort for a bunch of lonely geeks, online-dating services have gradually shed much of the stigma formerly associated with them. ComScore says Match.com and Zoosk saw 4.6M and 4.8M unique visitors respectively in November 2010. Deepak Kamra of Canaan Partners, an American VC firm that has backed Zoosk and BharatMatrimony, estimates that the industry’s revenues now amount to $3 billion-4 billion a year. The online-dating world has also spawned thousands of niche ones. Then there is the fuss over sites such as Illicit Encounters and Ashley Madison, which match people seeking partners for extramarital affairs. But to blame the service for infidelity is to confuse cause and effect. FULL ARTICLE @ ECONOMIST

See all posts on OkCupid                           See all posts on Match.com
See all posts on Zoosk                              See all posts on BharatMatrimony
See all posts on IllicitEncounters               See all posts on AshleyMadison

Ashley Madison Reveals Human Nature

FOX NEWS - Nov 1 - Researchers scanned ads from 200 men and 200 women chosen at random from Ashley Madison, a discreet dating service. The researchers investigated what the cheaters said they wanted in an adulterous relationship: "anything goes," "short term," "undecided," "long term," "cyber affair/erotic chat," or "whatever excites me." The men ~42 years old, advertised "anything goes" more than twice as often as women, while the women ~39, sought long-term relationships about two-thirds more than men. Women who were in relationships used significantly more adjectives describing the physical attributes they sought in partners and significantly fewer ones describing their material qualities than single women did. FULL ARTICLE @ FOX NEWS

See all posts on AshleyMadison

Ashley Madison Targets Adulterers In Europe

CANOE.CA MONEY - Oct 18 - Controversial infidelity website AshleyMadison is launching across Europe this month. CEO Noel Biderman said the European response has been “mind-blowing” with 600K clicks on the German site and 100K members already signed up to the U.K. service. After Germany, Ashley Madison will land in Austria and Switzerland before hitting France, Spain, South America and Asia next year. FULL ARTICLE @ CANOE.CA MONEY

See all posts on AshleyMadison

AshleyMadison Launches In UK

TNT MAGAZINE - Sep 30 - AshleyMadison is launching in the UK and its CEO is hoping to have 200,000 Londoners cheating on their partners by Christmas. Ashley Madison founder, Noel Biderman, claims that the affairs site is just being honest about something that is an unavoidable part of married life. “If 30 per cent of people who use mainstream dating sites are already in relationships, if they're having affairs at work which jeopardise their jobs or lead to unfair promotions, if they're visiting escorts and breaking the law, aren't we be better off cannibalising those destructive behaviours?”, said Biderman. FULL ARTICLE @ TNT MAGAZINE

See all posts on AshleyMadison

Noel Biderman Wants You To Cheat

YOUR TANGO - Sep 22 - Noel Biderman, the mastermind behind cheating website AshleyMadison, defends his dating site.

Q: How do you feel about promoting infidelity?
A: We should stop being so judgmental about it. A monogamous marriage has a 50/50 chance of making it, you may realize that cheating happens in order to preserve marriage.

Q: Doesn't Ashley Madison encourage infidelity by making it seem normal?
A: I don't think people are so pliable that seeing a 30-second advertisement for Ashley Madison will make people want to go have an affair. 

Q: What made you start a dating site for cheaters?
A: It wasn't about cheating, honestly. It was primarily business research. Online dating was growing, and I read that 30% of its users were in relationships. 

Q: What's the breakdown between men and women?
A: 70% men, 30% women. 

Q: When is your busiest registration day? 
A: Monday morning between 7 and 9 am, and the day after Valentine's Day or New Year's—any big day full of expectation when you're let down.

Q: How did you come up with the name Ashley Madison?
A: Ashley and Madison were the two top baby girl names at the time, so it didn't sound tawdry. Women wouldn't sign up for something tawdry-sounding like The Affairs Club.

Q: How much does it cost?
A: It's free to join, and we do a pay as you play kind of a thing. You can buy 100 credits for $49. It's 5 credits to message someone, a chat is paid like a cab with a meter running.
FULL ARTICLE @ YOUR TANGO

See all posts on AshleyMadison

Marketing Affairs: How To Advertise Paramours

MARKETPLACE - Aug 19 - Noel Biderman is the president a company called Avid Life Media, which runs a bunch of niche dating sites. There's CougarLife.com for older women and younger men, HotorNot.com and AshleyMadison, a dating site for married people for which Noel has gotten a lot of attention. Noel buys traditional ads where he can. But of course, a lot of big media companies won't take ads from Ashley Madison. His response? Fine. He goes to plan B -- decrying them in the press for being unreasonable. Avid Life pulled down $30M in revenue last year.  Introducing cheaters to each other online has afforded Noel a pretty comfortable life. Noel does tend to defend his business with various theories and arguments about the future of matrimony and where we're headed as a society. But in the end, he says it really is all about the money. There's no way he'd be doing this otherwise. FULL ARTICLE @ MARKETPLACE

See all posts on CougarLife
See all posts on HotorNot 
See all posts on AshleyMadison

Vancouverites Cheat Less: Infidelity Site

METRO NEWS - Aug 3 - Noel Biderman, co-founder of Ashleymadison.com, a dating site for married people looking to have an affair, said business is booming everywhere except Vancouver. “It’s either something in the culture or the active nature of the citizens,” he said. He said he saw the opportunity for an infidelity dating site when he learned that 35% of people on singles’ dating sites were married. Infidelity need not be vilified, he said, adding that in some cases, it can actually save a marriage. FULL ARTICLE @ METRO NEWS

See all posts on AshleyMadison

More Texans Lured To Online Dating Service For Cheaters

STAR TELEGRAM - June 12 -  More than 355K people in Texas are members of AshleyMadison's infidelity service, 108K of whom are women. And in the past year, the number of female newlyweds who have signed up has skyrocketed. In Fort Worth, for example, female newlywed sign-ups have surged from 216 in April 2009 to 605 in April of this year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 55,755 Texans got divorced last year, compared with 53,895 in 2007. And while no reputable studies show how many of those divorces involved cheating, experts say it's a major issue. AshleyMadison.com now has more than 6 million members, ~30 % of whom are women. FULL ARTICLE @ STAR TELEGRAM

See all posts on AshleyMadison

AshleyMadison.com's TV Advertisement Draws Complaints

THE AUSTRALIAN - May 31 - A TV commercial that encourages married couples to have an affair by promoting dating website Ashleymadison.com has generated 20 complaints after it ran on Nine's hit crime drama Underbelly last night. A commercial for the website was previously pulled by sports network ESPN, which is part of the family-friendly Walt Disney Company, when it ran in the US in 2008. Ashleymadison.com, which is just one of many infidelity websites, is billed as having ~40,000 members in Australia, and is expecting more after the launch of its Australian marketing campaign this month. FULL ARTICLE @ THE AUSTRALIAN

See all posts on AshleyMadison