Gawker: valleywag, online

No, Gay Hookup Site Did Not Do a Deal with a Gospel Choir

Brian Moylan — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:23:02 EDT

Ok, there weren't evil hate-mongering, gospel-singing homophobes cashing in on Manhunt, like we originally reported. As for the site's new redesign, Manhunt's CEO hates it as much as everyone else.

We had a nice chat with Jonathan Crutchley, the CEO of Manhunt.net's parent company Online Buddies Inc (nope, never saw that name on our credit card statement) and one of John McCain's most controversial contributors. Crutchley didn't have nice things to say about the site, which has the gays who go there to get laid in an uproar.

"I share your pain," he said about the new version of the site. "It's new to me. I don't like it either, but you get used to it." Asked if he's found anyone since the relaunch earlier this summer he said, "Of course."

As for our tale of evil gay-hating gospel singers cashing in on Manhunt.com, it's just not true. Crutchley told us that when the company tried to claim Manhunt.com back in 1998, but it was taken, so they got Manhunt.net instead. In 2001 they launched the popular website and trademarked using the name Manhunt for gay dating website. The company approached the gospel singers about buying the Manhunt.com domain name, but they said they were using it.

In 2006, the group stopped using the site and the domain name fell into the hands of Crazy Calm Media, who used Manhunt.com to link to their sex and hookup sites, including Bareback.com [NSFW, unless you work at a bathhouse]. In 2007, Online Buddies sued them for trademark infringement and won. Part of the settlement was ownership of the domain name, which now redirects traffic to Manhunt.net.

Yeah, way more boring than the original story. Now we're going to go and use Manhunt to see if we get used to it like Crutchley says we will. It's research, people. Research!

Sneaky ad startup Jellycloud deflates, taking $50 million-plus with it

Owen Thomas — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:40:00 EDT

The online-ad network market is clogged with startups; most are bound to fail. But no death may be greeted with more joy than Jellycloud, the latest incarnation of Gator, a startup whose software was caught spying on users. A tipster tells us Jellycloud, with 36 employees, went under this weekend, with liquidators repossessing their furniture. A hard death, after a questionable birth.

Gator had changed its name to Claria, and raised some $40 million to launch a personalized homepage which never caught on. In the sneakiest move of all, it then raised $11.5 million under a new company name, JellyCloud, with the same set of executives as Claria — Scott Vandevelde and Scott Eagle among them. Was Jellycloud just Claria reborn? It's now a moot point, if our tipster's report is accurate. And a painful mistake for US Venture Partners, SoftBank, Sand Hill Capital and Crosslink Capital — who have managed to lose $11.5 million in just five months.

Amazon's Complex Design Sells More

Ben Popken — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:48:14 EST

The prevailing trends in web design say go minimal or go home, so why then is Amazon's front page cluster bomb of choices? It sells more, writes Alex Moskalyuk.

Simple design in Amazon's case generated higher cart abandonment and statistically significant decreases in customer conversions.

That's based on slide 18-19 of "Front Line Internet Analytics at Amazon.com," [PDF] a talk Ronny Kohavi and Matt Round gave at at EMetrics in 2004.

It's an interesting read as you watch Amazon tweak and optimize... remember the tab mountain? — BEN POPKEN

Amazon: screw the simplicity, stick to what sells [Alex Moskalyuk]