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For the self-owned website, see Gays.com.
Gay.com
A login page of www.Gay.com
Gay.com as of August 2012.
Type of site
Personals, Chat, News, Social Networking for gay men.
Available inEnglish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
OwnerVS Media Inc.
Created byPlanetOut Inc.
RevenueAdvertising; membership fee for premium accounts.
URLhttp://www.gay.com/
CommercialYes
RegistrationRequired
LaunchedMay 1997 (re-launched October 2008)
Current statusInactive

Gay.com was a chat, personals, and social networking website catering to the LGBT community. The site was a digital brand of Here Media Inc.[1] In addition to community features, the site featured LGBT-related news and features. As of September 2005, San Jose Mercury News ranked gay.com as the most popular online gay personals site in the United States. As of March 2007, Hitwise ranked it number three in domestic American popularity after Adam4Adam and Manhunt.[2][3] Gay.com also used to compete internationally with dudesnude, gayromeo, and gaydar.

History

Gay.com was founded by Mark Elderkin in 1994 and launched with a Java-based chat system in 1996.[4] Gay.com's parent company acquired PlanetOut in 2001. In October 2008 the company relaunched gay.com.,[5][6] updating the visual style of the site and replacing the former Java-based chat system. Technical problems caused by the upgrade led to service interruptions and lags. In an open letter from PlanetOut management, "hardware configurations and software code" were cited as culprits. Many users asked the service to revert to its former system, and the formerly solid user base eroded after the relaunch.[7]

In October 2009, Here Media Inc. bought gay.com from PlanetOut Inc.[1]

In 2016, Here Media Inc. partnered with The Veloz Group to redesign gay.com and revitalize the business. Later that year, gay.com was sold to VS Media Inc. Upon purchasing the site was changed to a webcam model.[8] In 2017, VS Media Inc. donated the domain to the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and it now acts as a redirect to the center's own website.[9]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Dallas executive amassing a gay media mini-empire". Dallas News. 2009-10-25. Retrieved 2009-10-27.
  2. ^ San Jose Mercury News (September 11, 2005) "Busiest online matchmakers." Section: AE
  3. ^ Lifestyle - Gay and Lesbian Category: Weekly Market Share of Visits Rankings for the week ending March 17, 2007 Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Aceves, Raquel (2008-09-29). "GAY.COM Homepages – A Look Back". Gay.com. Archived from the original on October 2, 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-26.
  5. ^ "Gay.com parent company loses $51m". PinkNews.co.uk. 4 March 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-25.
  6. ^ "PlanetOut Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2007 Results". Trading Markets via PlanetOut Inc. 29 February 2008. Archived from the original on 4 February 2013. Retrieved 2008-03-25.
  7. ^ "Behind the Website: The gay.com Blog: An Open Letter to gay.com Subscribers, Members and Guests". Archived from the original on October 13, 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-26.
  8. ^ "Gay.com | Gay and LGBT News, Entertainment, and Community". www.gay.com. Archived from the original on 16 August 2016. Retrieved 20 July 2022.
  9. ^ Street, Sharan (August 2, 2017). "Flirt4Free Donates Gay.com Domain to Los Angeles LGBT Center". GayVN. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
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