The managers of A Small World, an invite-only social network backed by movie producer Harvey Weinstein and billed as "MySpace for millionaires," is worried — and not just because the company's financial footing is less than secure. Relying on luxury advertising, the site's revenue mainstay, is looking dicey.…
Another trio of small-time crooks have been charged with extortion for threatening to expose a California client of an online prostitute. These Fresno-based operators, working with an escort who used Craigslist to meet her client, demanded cash in exchange for keeping his prostitution habit a secret. Is this a…
Sex-tracking app Bedpost has offered up a round of beta invites just in time for a kids-today-and-their-websites! mention in the Washington Post. The concept is so close to something that has surely erupted a dozen times as drunken afterhours banter at MIT: If only we could monitor how often and how well we get…
There's something awfully honest about Gadget or the Girl, Playboy TV's lightly geeky reality dating show. The premise is that a guy is offered the choice of a hot weekend date or a shiny man toy — "Sometimes it’s best to go for the sure thing" says the promo copy. Viewers get to peek into the televised courtship.…
No one wants to give their last-minute, late-night, drunk-from-the-open bar Craigslist "date" their real phone number. It's this free-sex market that Hookupdigits hopes to tap: the site generates proxy phone numbers that expire after 7 days, good for calls ten minutes or less in length. Other startups have gone here…
An as yet unidentified "Silicon Valley businessman" just got away with hiring an escort off an also as yet unidentified "social networking service." Of course he's not the only one — we're just hearing about him in the Chronicle, the Mercury News, and even the Palo Alto Daily, because his session, in a Palo Alto…
Happy holiday weekend from the Alameda County Sheriff's office! They're already ahead of your Labor Day discount sex-shopping plans. Police answered Craigslist ads in the "erotic services" section and set up appointments in Dublin and Castro Valley hotels, posing to the prostitutes as clients looking for a…
Matt Richtel, the New York Times reporter and author of Hooked, has whored himself out on Twitter this week. The messages read as if they're written both by a hooker and the murderous john she meets, somewhere on the road to Denver for the Democratic National Convention. Tweeting in drag as a prostitute. Is it an…
It's a mark of social-networking penetration: Twitter is now being used by a customer of prostitutes to track his hired-sex conquests. Even the most seasoned search-engine marketing fool would have to doff his douchey hat to "Sexhobbyist," who's paying girls for the privilege of juggling their affections — and…
Lively, Google's entry into the 3D-avatar chat market, has been neutered before its time, writes the Economist. But in the midst of the starchy business newspaper's tour of the service, its editors hit on the solution: "Although some popular rooms—“Love Sweet Love” and “Sexy Babes Club”—have had thousands of…
Radar magazine has discovered hipsters in the sex trade. But make no mistake: These aren't San Francisco's Web-powered indie sex entrepreneurs. These women may wear little black leggings and sport Tina Fey glasses, but like most New Yorkers, they're employees at heart. Unlike their San Francisco counterparts, they…
When the sex shop Love Boutique placed Internet kiosks in its California storefront, for customers' "private use," the local zoning board decided Love Boutique was giving the clientele a way to find people to play with their new toys with, too, and threatened to pull its business license. The owners, sex biz…
Arizona police busted Night Entertainment Partners, a $3 million-a-year conglomerate of escort agencies, earlier this month. Caught in the sweep: William Ferretti, a venture capitalist who now faces felony charges. Night was far larger than Emperor's Club VIP, the agency most infamous for its former Client 9, Eliot…
Cruising for no-strings-attached relations with power players? That's what Manhunt's gay users thought they were getting from each other, not from Manhunt founder Jonathan Crutchley. Crutchley made a $2,300 donation to the hetero-lovin' McCain campaign, which sparked a minor mutiny on the sex site that made him…
"Police have arrested 16 men in a prostitution sting in which they posted an ad for sex on Craigslist.org." "Craigslist prostitution sting nets 8 arrests." "10 men arrested. The department launched the sting using an advertisement for "sexual activities" on the online classified site Craigslist.org." I see one of…
A dating site billing itself as the Facebook of kink has played host to the accidental debut of actual Facebook user Becky Spraggs as a model-for-hire. According to Spraggs, photos from her Facebook account were used to make a fakester profile at FetLife.com, listing her ex's mobile number as her agent's with the…
An addition to the Barackathon at the San Francisco ballot box this November: a measure to decriminalize prostitution among consenting adults. City officials are already complaining it will hinder their efforts to prosecute related crimes, or that its passage will be "a welcome mat for prostitutes and pimps to come…
After bringing viewers more streaming Leo Laporte and tween-scene queens than they care to admit watching, live video service Stickam is opening a pay-per-view platform, PayPerLive. Where there's video feeds and PayPal buttons — that's who's covering the money side — there's naked ladies, right?
MySpace's most popular escort, Ashley Alexandra Dupré, doesn't look like a sort-of bisexual reality star — not yet. "They're talking to MTV about Ashley being the next Tila Tequila," claimed a source supposedly close to the reality TV producers who aim to squeeze a few more minutes of fame out of the woman who's…
Aw, it's so darn cute when it's a twentysomething straight white boy looking to pay-for-play on Craigslist that no one even mentions prostitution. The Georgia Tech student just wants a girl to teach him how to kiss better, so he might please some other college girl he's got a crush on, but not, like, get all hung up…
