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Turns out the rumor was true, Penthouse acquired Various, Inc. Various boasts 260 million members and about as many paying members as Match.com, most of the action coming from Adultfriendfinder.
Nice payday for CEO Andrew Conru and his merry band of alternative lifestyle gurus, although not as large as I expected. I wonder how the members of BigChurch feel about the sale? Imagine calling customer support and hearing, “Hello, this is Tiffany at Penthouse, how may I help you?”
When I was a kid my parents encourage me to buy a book when we went to town for the Sunday paper. While browsing the teen fiction aisle, I used to sneak over to the adult magazine rack, hoping to get an eyeful of the pocket-sized Penthouse Forum. Fast forward to today- forget reading titilating stories in a dead-tree media. According to AdultFriendfinder, the pervy Avon lady lives in the next town over and wants to meet you, today.
We’ll see if Penthouse know what it’s doing. Recent bankruptcy and the toning down of Penthouse Magazine to compete with Maxim have placed the organization in uncharted waters.
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As I posted over at Online Personals Watch:
How nice: Penthouse can now sell sex on BigChurch.com:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/technology/12penthouse.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
“….Various’s most popular Web site is adultfriendfinder, which describes itself as a personals community for swingers and sex. But Various owns a variety of other social networks like
Italianfriendfinder.com, gradfinder.com and bigchurch.com, which offers to help users “meet people who share the same spiritual beliefs as you.�
“For now, we are holding on to everything,â€? Mr. Bell said. He said the goal was to provide consumers, particularly 18-to-34-year-old men, with a wide variety of sex-related offerings in magazines, in videos and online.”
I can see that going over like a lead zeppelin…Pardon the pun, but will someone please tell the emperor that he has no clothes?