Background about the company...
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/10 ... /oe-daum10n
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Ashley Madison's secret success
The dating service caters to people wanting to have an affair.
January 10, 2009|MEGHAN DAUM
'Life is short. Have an affair."
That's the slogan of the Ashley Madison dating service, a website for people who want to cheat on their partners. That's right, unlike traditional Internet dating sites -- where you're expected to say you're unattached no matter what the truth is -- Ashley Madison is honest about its duplicity. Unlike match.com, with its married interlopers, Ashley Madison isn't about to break the hearts of innocent singles who only want to live happily ever after with someone who loves Elvis Costello as much as they do. And although its mission can be perceived as very wrong (for the record: cheating is bad!), the fact that it claims 3.2 million members suggests that it's also doing something right.
For starters, the commercials are hilarious. One television spot shows a glamorous couple in the throes of passion. A title card reads, "This couple is married ... but not to each other." In another ad, a man retreats to the sofa to escape his obese, snoring wife while a voice-over declares, "Most of us can recover from a one-night stand with the wrong woman, but not when it's every night for the rest of our lives."
The ads, as well as the slogan, were written by the company's 37-year-old founder and chief executive, Noel Biderman, a former attorney, sports agent and self-described happily married father of two who started the company in 2001.
I met up with Biderman, who is from Toronto, on Monday at KTLA Channel 5, where he was a guest on the morning news. Despite much hand flapping and righteous indignation from the hosts (even the weatherman wanted in on the questioning), Biderman calmly suggested that because many members are in sexless marriages but don't actually want to leave their spouses, the company "preserves more marriages than we break up." He added that the most sign-ups occur around New Year's and that, ahem, Los Angeles is the company's biggest market.
When I talked to him after the broadcast, Biderman, whose mild-mannered comportment belies the seediness of his enterprise, explained that in hard economic times, a lot of people who've been planning a divorce suddenly cannot afford one. The money-saving solution? Seek carnal comfort in others. He also made an analogy between his extramarital dating service and handing out condoms to teens.
"Some people say it promotes promiscuity," he said. "But if you don't do it, you get behavior that's way more harmful to society. Infidelity has been around a lot longer than Ashley Madison."
Indeed, infidelity has been around as long as filthy disgusting Jews (and their father Satan) have been around.