| URL | AdultFriendFinder.com |
|---|---|
| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | Online dating service |
| Registration | Yes |
| Current status | Active |
Adult FriendFinder (AFF) is an online sex and swinger personals community website. It allows members to meet new friends or sex partners.
The site was founded by Andrew Conru. It claims to have over 30 million members.[1] In 1996, the site was launched as FriendFinder, a more traditional online dating service, but Conru created Adult FriendFinder as a spinoff when members began uploading home-made Internet pornography. FriendFinder has since spawned numerous niche dating sites, including Senior FriendFinder, Amigos.com, and BigChurch.com
The parent company had difficulty finding venture capital due to the adult nature of its signature property.[2] In December 2007, the company was sold to the Penthouse Media Group for $500 million.[3] The acquisition is the subject of a 2008 lawsuit by Broadstream Capital Partners, a merchant bank that assists with mergers, alleging Penthouse breached a 2006 contract in order to purchase the company, a claim Penthouse denies.[4]
AFF ranks among the 100 most popular sites in the United States and is a major competitor to leading personals sites such as Match.com.[5]
In 2009, hip-hop artist Flo Rida debuted the video for "Touch Me" on the site, which his representatives called "a very sexy brand".[6]
Contents |
Joining and creating a profile is free. However, users cannot access certain features without a paid membership, which comes in three levels, Silver, Gold and VIP (the third an upgrade only available to existing Gold members). Members can use the blog system to write their own blogs and respond to others in the community. Free members also have access to regular chat lobbies. Paying users can view others' profiles and access communication services such as e-mail, private chat rooms, webcams, blogging, and a webzine. Members can purchase subscription upgrades for benefits such as higher search rankings. Members can broadcast their webcams publicly to each other. Chat room viewers can page the broadcasting member to ask to initiate a personal chat session.
Adult FriendFinder has one of the web's most popular affiliate programs, whereby webmasters refer users to the site and are compensated up to $1.01 per unique click.
The site won the 2010 XBIZ Award for "Dating Program of the Year".[7]
There is some controversy over the true ratio of male to female members. Additional reports state the user database is rarely purged, and a larger-than-average number of members are prostitutes "looking for clients".[8] Others are scams advertising fake profiles using photographs taken from the Internet to phish for e-mail addresses, or to advertise for other websites. As with most dating services, they offer a free membership option, although there are thousands of reports of problems with the free and paid memberships.
In 2004 and 2005, the Ripoff Report published a report[9] written by a former employee which included allegations of deceptive and/or criminal activity. These allegations included the inflation of the member database using false profiles, using computer code and archived chatroom logs to provide the appearance of greater activity on the site, and the use of bots to send emails from profiles that are not of actual people.