Wandering on the edge of morality: cheating websites are earning 30 million dollars a year

A 2001 online, the site of the main business of cheating in Europe and the United States market development is good, and began to profit. A website that undermines social structure and stability, but earns money, is undoubtedly a business that moves on the edge of law and morality. Its annual profit is as high as $30 million trillion, and it will start a new business in Asia ....

Noel Petermann (Noel Biderman), dressed in a gray-brown casual hoodie, sits in front of a computer screen and shows no weakness in his behavior--you know, he returned from Los Angeles to his home in Toronto the day before, and he was in New York a week ago. The controversy and skepticism of his web site, which came to Hong Kong and Singapore this year, has been overwhelming.

Biederman founder of the cheating website named Ashley (Ashley Madison), under the Avid Life, users can register the site to find their own extramarital affairs object.

Biederman's business has been growing since 2001 started the site in its home town of Toronto. In his CEO's company Avid Life, in addition to the fist products Ashley Madison, there are four sites: Established Men, Cougar life, man Crunch and swappernet. These are Ashley Madison market segments, Cougar life even had the deep pockets of inviting Madonna to write songs for her, and promised 300,000 dollars in reward. But, no matter which website, has not covered Ashley Madison's thunder.

The best thing for Peter is to get enough cash from his client's pockets. Though, it has been widely criticized by all sectors of the community. The website, with its slogan "Short life, instant gratification", earned $90 million a year last year, earning $30 million trillion and expected revenue this year to reach $120 million trillion.

These profits are all derived from the user's hands, Ashley Madison no advertising revenue. Over the past 5 years, the number of users in Ashley Madison has grown 3 times times, with total users reaching 21 million, more than half of them from the United States and 8.3 million users in more than 30 countries and regions.

However, the success of the European and American markets did not satisfy Peter Mann, so he focused on Asia. Last year, Ashley Madison successfully opened up Asian markets for Japan and India, where registered users broke through millions in the months that they landed in Japan. In August and November this year, Ashley Madison also announced the landing in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Now, Peter Man Zheng is eyeing his next target market-mainland China. (I do not think Ashley Madison can enter the Chinese market, but it uses the rapid rise of human nature method, with China's rapid rise of the gun tools like the same. Perhaps, Ashley Madison to those about cannon tools, accumulate enough users, and then the transformation is a good choice. ）

Invite celebrity dignitaries to "model"

Ashley Madison has been developing well in the past few years. The number of users of Ashley Madison soared from 100,000 to 3.6 million in 2009, becoming one of the few contrarian companies to thrive in the global recession. Of course, this momentum has to do with the great environment of the economic crisis. In the context of the recession, people are always willing to take some of the money out of the stressful workplace to have some fun. Biederman's explanation is: "The occasional infidelity in marriage can improve and help the insecure person regain confidence." ”

After the economic crisis, Ashley Madison once out of sight of people. Ashley Madison, a website that deals in cheating, has faced moral accusations throughout the world, and its advertising has been blocked in many areas. In Peter's own words, "everything depends on the attitude of the other side."

In 2009, Biederman to the media that NBC refused to broadcast Ashley Madison's advertisement in the Super Bowl, and the following year Biederman tried to buy the naming rights of the Phoenix Bay International Airport at $10 million, even though the city was facing an economic crisis, But refused Ashley Madison's proposal; Social media, such as Facebook, also rejected Ashley Madison's ad-launch requests.

The lack of mainstream media resources makes Ashley Madison only through the use of high hanging billboards for marketing. The "models" on these billboards are often "starred" by celebrities and are accompanied by sensational advertising words to attract eyeballs. A billboard with Kim Jong Un's iconic clapping is the most talked about, with the slogan: "It's a promise to have an affair now-even if you look like him." ”

Of course, this kind of marketing means will inevitably stab Lou. In 2012, Ashley Madison was accused by Spain's 74-year-old queen Sophia of damaging her reputation, as she became the protagonist of the Ashley Madison AD, with a half-naked male shoulder, alongside a few big characters: "You never have to sleep alone." "In her 50-year marriage with King Juan of Spain, the latter had repeatedly been accused of having an affair, and Ashley Madison to ridicule Queen Sophia." In the end, the farce ends with Ashley Madison apologizing and guaranteeing never to use its photos for marketing.

In 2012, French police even issued a ban on the site and banned it from further advertising in French media. The reason is that Ashley Madison listed three former French presidents Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy and French President Francois Hollande, and added a red lip print to their faces, with the slogan: "Question: What are their commonalities?" Answer: They should think of Ashley Madison website. "The implication is that their extramarital affairs will not be exposed if they use the Secret Service provided by the website."

While similar marketing practices are controversial, it is undeniable that Ashley Madison's name is indeed getting louder.

Meanwhile, despite the scarcity of mainstream media resources in Ashley Madison, the mean American talk show host has not given up on the "cheating website", an appealing gimmick. This also median Ashley Madison: Public opinion more criticism, Ashley Madison market more flourishing, biederman in the media constantly for their own defense instead became Ashley Madison free advertising resources.

In an American interview program called Dr.Phil, Biederman and Cheaterville's founder James Magibney a lively debate about who is ruining the marriage. Cheaterville is a website that exposes marital infidelity-if you find someone cheating on your marriage, you can expose him on this site. James Magibney naturally rebuked Peter Mann for destroying his family, but in Biederman's view, Cheaterville was the murderer of the marriage: a person having an affair meant that he did not want to leave the family, and the affair was exposed only to make the marriage no further.

"If Neo (Biederman) has an affair I will be sad, but I will not blame this site, it did not cultivate infidelity, but to solve a user needs." "For this topic, wife Amanda is a staunch supporter of the Ashley, and she has repeatedly Madison on the platform for the TV show."

Due to the moral controversy, Ashley Madison often hit the wall in capital operation. Ashley Madison's parent company, Avid Life, had an opportunity to publicly market in 2010. However, in the half month before the listing, the Canadian journalist found the Canadian GMP Capital CEO Kevin Sullivan, who was in charge of the Avid Life listing, and read him a personal profile of Ashley Madison users- I am looking for a generous uncle who is willing to take care of young women, I am now 18 years old, just go to college, my parents can not pay my tuition. If there is a good gentleman now who can help a young lady to lighten her burden, she will repay him spiritually and physically.

Sullivan's feeling flushed. 3 days later, the GMP Capital announced the withdrawal of the transaction, Avid Life listing plan.

It's not hard to understand. Although Ashley Madison is not illegal, the moral controversy has undoubtedly increased the financial challenges facing the site. Think of any fund manager who would like to go home and announce to his wife that he has invested in Ashley Madison? Some employees of the company are unwilling to publicly acknowledge that they work in Ashley Madison. Biederman admits that he sometimes even worries about his own safety, after all, the business that the company is engaged in is opposed by most people.

But in recent years, social media and dating sites have sprung up again and again, and tabloid-made gossip scandals have broken the American psyche again and again, with gambling, spirits and cigarette companies, which may also be "against religion and morality", have become frequent buyers of the NYSE. More importantly, the changes in social attitudes are giving Ashley Madison the soil that best suits it. (I think, a lot of successful products are hit the weakness of human nature, Ashley Madison undoubtedly hit the color, since the advent of the Internet, pornography has been the largest Internet revenue field, and wandering in the legal and moral edge of the Ashley Madison success is also obvious, A product hits the human "Seven sins" any point, to succeed in fact it is not difficult. ）

The AARP has reported a group of data: In 2009, 22% of people believed that extramarital sex was wrong, compared with 10 years ago, about twice times the number of 2009. The change of the concept of gender and marriage in modern society makes the capital market more and more aware that the market prospect of Ashley Madison is available, they are willing to try to touch this piece of seared cake.

As a result of this change, Ashley Madison's position in the capital market is beginning to pick up, and many investment companies have invested in the olive branch to Biederman. Compared with adolescent social networking sites, the target users of extramarital affairs are more able to pay, have better cash flow, and are more likely to gain the favor of capital. The fund manager of a Canadian asset management company with 1 billion dollar assets says 25% of its annual revenue comes from investments in Ashley Madison. "We can make a high profit by spending very little money." Ashley Madison has ample cash flow and a seemingly unbreakable balance sheet, and they have a highly operational and passionate CEO. "So far, Biederman's Canadian anonymous investors have earned more than 90 million dollars in cash dividends from Ashley Madison," he said.

In addition, according to Newsweek, the Fengze investment has recently declared its willingness to lend 5 billion of billions of dollars to Avid life-Fengze is a new york-based hedge fund with nearly $54 billion trillion in assets, as well as Jeffrey Investment Bank in New York (Jefferies). Partners also found Biederman to discuss the possibility of Ashley Madison public offerings. And Brazil's biggest independent investment bank has also found out about the issue of equity acquisitions and how to use the Ashley Madison brand.

Open a user's wallet with large data

It can be said that the success of Ashley Madison, thanks to Biederman to seize the social development trend. For him, in the face of strong user demand, the so-called moral criticism will not be a fatal impediment to Ashley Madison expansion, he believes he is doing a controversial but with vast market potential of a good business.

A survey conducted last April by the University of Chicago's National Center for Public Opinion found that 14.7% of married women in the United States and 21% of married men admitted to having had extramarital tryst. In this regard, Biederman: "The infidelity of marriage is biologically motivated, and technology only changes the way women cheat." ”

In order to better understand the needs of users to ensure the vitality of their own sites, Biederman has done a lot of research on user needs, which is Ashley Madison success and is increasingly popular in the United States and even the world's key elements of women.

In 2011, the book "Infidelity boom-how extramarital affairs rescued modern Families" was published in the book, citing data from many of the users collected since the founding of Ashley Madison. "We collected these user data to analyze our products, but we do not know the names of these women, only know which age group users tend to what kind of user behavior." "In recent years, WikiLeaks and Snowden leaks have been enough to make Americans sensitive to data collection," Biederman explains.

The book was originally dated back to the 2008, when Ashley Madison the limelight. "As time goes by, people will increasingly question the reason for our existence, people are always trying to blame us, so we began to accumulate user data to explain." Biederman says these novelty-seeking data are more interesting, and their presence makes it easier for them to explain the business when interacting with academics and the media, and we will see that extramarital affairs have become a social phenomenon.

"In general, it's hard to find a data report on infidelity, and even if people do, they won't tell anyone." "Using a huge user base, Ashley Madison can easily do this," says Biederman.

This type of infidelity data dissemination, whether positive or negative, will play a certain role in the promotion of Ashley Madison, especially in the Ashley Madison put ads everywhere. Moreover, the universal utility of large data-based on the data analysis of the market strategy, also began to Ashley Madison gradually reflected.

Ashley Madison data show that in 2012, the number of new registered users in the United States accounted for the highest proportion of the total population of the city is Washington, 6.18%, Austin (3.1%), Houston (2.89%) and Miami (2.75%) followed. Of the registered members, more than 70% of the paid members are men over the age of 40, and 84% of the men are married. The collection of these data provides an indispensable reference value for Biederman in the process of popularizing Ashley Madison market.

For example, Biederman found that Asian female registered users in the United States do not normally consider Asian males when choosing an extramarital affair, so Ashley Madison rarely recommend Asian males in the "You may be interested in" page of Asian women, and in the face of male users over the age of 65, Ashley Madison will recommend single women for them, because this group would prefer to find a mistress through Ashley Madison rather than married women for extramarital affairs.

Ashley Madison found that one of the most obvious changes in its own big data was the apparent increase in female users during the period from 2008 to 2013 – The proportion of men and women under the age of 35 was already up to 1:1 per cent – although the number of male users was generally high. The growth of female users stems from Ashley Madison's development of mobile apps: there is a higher risk of extramarital affairs being found with other people sharing a home computer, according to analysts. By contrast, mobile apps are more secure. Ashley Madison's data show that in 2012, the number of women registered to use Ashley Madison mobile applications was even more than that of men, who were nearly twice times as large as men, and were growing at an annual rate of increase and range than male users.

Of course, there may be some moisture in the authenticity of these growing female registered users. A former female employee of Ashley Madison sued Ashley Madison in court and claimed USD 20 million. The reason is that the company still does not allow her to rest, causing the pain to rise, as she has been unable to work since 2011, when she is fabricating thousands of women's data for her company, with pain in her wrists and forearms.

In order to attract more female users to register, Ashley Madison as far as possible to the woman in the payment setting, the female registered user can enjoy most of Ashley Madison's service without paying any fee, while the male user needs to spend 49 dollars to buy Ashley Madison's 100 credit points allow a male user to send mail to 20 female users. In addition, although moral accusations have brought Ashley Madison a lot of trouble, Peter Mann has duly turned the user's moral obsession into a business requirement--a user who spends 19 of dollars to erase all the data on his Ashley Madison.

In addition, for the growth of female users, Ashley Madison did not do too much special publicity and response. In Biederman's view, the high growth rate of female users is the natural form, mainly social reasons: women do not only have a family role, but also gradually have a social role. Women's financial autonomy is growing, they can meet a lot of interesting people in their work and life, and they are happy to deal with them. Moreover, most countries and regions no longer punish women for having extramarital affairs.

Challenge the traditional ethics of Asia

Of the more than 30 countries and regions Ashley Madison expanded to, the highest proportion of female users was in Australia and 40% per cent for female users. This is thanks to Biederman's large data research work. Before landing, Biederman spent several weeks studying the Australian market, he found: "Men can go to brothels, massage parlours, striptease clubs, while women have nothing." "In view of this situation, Biederman that Ashley Madison in Australia will be greatly welcomed by women," the Internet can help them open up a new battlefield.

In Biederman's view, the same logic applies to the Hong Kong market, where female psychology is very similar to Australia's.

In fact, Ashley Madison choose to expand the Hong Kong market and have some relationship with the collection of large data. In 2012, Ashley Madison had 320,000 login clicks in Hong Kong without any market promotion. "They want to knock on our door, so why don't we?" he said.

Moreover, Biederman has also studied some of the data of Hong Kong society: The divorce rate in Hong Kong reached 30% in 2011, twice times in 1991, and the total number of divorces in 2012 reached a record 21,125. In addition, Hong Kong's legal framework and credit card payment channels are biederman. However, Biederman does not take into account the social ethics and religious beliefs of Hong Kong people, and according to his experience and argument, if anyone wants to be unfaithful, he will not be subject to these restrictions.

Of course, as an internet company, Ashley Madison to choose the destination of the market, must also consider the technical factors, which is why English-speaking and Spanish-speaking countries have become Ashley Madison after the United States pioneered the market, and South Africa has become a Ashley Madison a market that is more open than Asia. "There is no economic reason, just because of technology. Biederman said that one of South Africa's weaknesses is that the credit card payment channel is very inconvenient, the advantage is that it can be used directly in English web pages, and in Japan or Hong Kong, it needs to be converted into the language of their respective countries or regions. The initial technical preparation for the development of the Hong Kong market alone has cost Ashley Madison millions of dollars and a whole year's time.

In fact, a significant proportion of the 8.3 million users outside the United States are from Japan in Asia. Biederman admits that some of these users really want to have an affair here, and some people come to the site just out of curiosity, and perhaps even more curious than real users. "At first, female users may want to find out who will notice them, and it will be fun for them to feel the passion again." And the final extramarital sex will happen, but the probability is not very high. However, many things in the world are driven by curiosity, people are initially curious about kissing, curious about being with another person, and curious about extramarital affairs. "he said.

Although in Biederman's view, Asian countries such as Japan and Hong Kong may be more likely to breed extramarital affairs, thus becoming the next focus of Ashley Madison goal-he has always claimed that "the current market focus is in Asia" and hopes that Ashley Madison Here to achieve the same success as the European and American markets. What he may not have imagined, however, is that he will suffer much harsher ethical accusations and censorship than in Europe and the US, which will undoubtedly be the biggest stumbling block for Ashley Madison into the Asian market.

In fact, whether in Europe or America or Asia, Biederman has been unable to evade moral and ethical questions from outside: Helping users find extramarital affairs is a great damage to social organization and marriage. As Peggy Drexler, assistant Peggy Drexler professor of psychiatry at Cornell University's Weill School of Medicine, said: "Ashley Madison attract those who are unfaithful to marriage, but at the same time it does provide an outlet for those who are loyal to the marriage." ”

At least for now, Ashley Madison's Asian market is not going well. In August this year, Ashley Madison, who landed in Hong Kong, aroused strong dissatisfaction among religious and community groups in Hong Kong, and the affair website was pushed to the forefront of public opinion, and in November, Ashley Madison, which had just announced the imminent landing in Singapore, had been boycotted by the people, They called for a return to benign values, and the Singaporean government has thus shielded the Ashley Madison.

Zhing, a PhD candidate at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said that although the social culture of Hong Kong and Asia was pluralistic, it tended to return to tradition in the family. Although the law of Hong Kong did not abolish polygamy until 1974, the phenomenon of mistresses still existed, but the fidelity of family and love still accounted for an absolute majority in the mainstream discourse. In addition, the influence of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong is also an important factor in Hong Kong's family's conservative concept of marriage. The typical performance is that Ashley Madison landed in Hong Kong immediately after the collective condemnation of religious groups, the media in the street to do the investigation, from the young girls also received more criticism Ashley Madison destruction of family and marriage voice.

The good news for Biederman is that in recent years, some of the Asian community has tended to just maintain the status quo of marriage, regardless of whether there is still feelings, or even "infidelity to keep love fresh", "extramarital affair is because do not want to leave the family" such a tone is not uncommon. In such a background of social development, Ashley Madison can indeed provide this part of the people with an emotional vent platform, but whether this demand will evolve into a fact, in the win large profits without the social ethics of disruptive impact, for Biederman is a big question mark.

For now, despite ethical resistance to Asian market expansion, Biederman is still actively looking for ways to successfully enter the mainland market, "which is what we are now focusing on." He still looks confident. In fact, even he admits that Ashley Madison may not have achieved millions of registered subscribers in Hong Kong for as short a time as Japan, and he just wants to see Hong Kong as a springboard to the mainland market. Last year, he said, there was a huge market demand for 64万来 from mainland China, and "the demand from mainland China may increase 10 times times after the website is online." And for the specific time to enter the mainland market, Biederman reply is: "Very fast, next year or after." "Of course, the laws and morals of mainland China are not welcome to the companies that do the cheating business."