Forbes: Dangerous Curves - Success of Penthouse

"Playboy is something of a flop as a public company. What would make Penthouse any different?"

"There's a lot of airbrushing under way. Penthouse is the tame front for a racy collection of 27 social-networking Web sites that Bell and Daniel Staton, company chairman, bought late last year for $500 million in cash and stock. The sites, previously owned by a Palo Alto, California company that carried the plain-brown-wrapper name Various, have turned Penthouse Media Group into the world's largest adult entertainment company.
The biggest site by far is the very X-rated AdultFriendFinder. With 22 million active members, the site is a Match.com for people who want to find bedmates. There's nothing subtle here, especially in the photography members send in. Special-interest groups include folks who like orgies in central New York State. There are listings from around the world. Kazakhstan has 2,644 swingers.
Fees from 1.2 million paying members of this site, who shell out an average $25 a month for full access, brought in $285 million last year, or 85% of the total from all the social networking sites Penthouse Media Group acquired. Last month AdultFriendFinder got 8 million unique visitors, who lingered an average 16 minutes on the site, says Nielsen Online. Playboy.com attracted only 1.3 million unique visitors, who dropped by for just more than 5 minutes."