Gay.com

Gay.com

Gay.com as of August 2012.
Type of site	Personals, Chat, News, Social Networking for gay men.
Available in	English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
Owner	VS Media Inc.
Created by	PlanetOut Inc.
Revenue	Advertising; membership fee for premium accounts.
Slogan(s)	Encounter. Experience. Enjoy.
Website	http://www.gay.com/
Alexa rank	3,135 (April 2014[update])
Commercial	Yes
Registration	Required
Launched	May 1997 (re-launched October 2008)
Current status	Active

Gay.com is a chat, personals, and social networking website catering to the LGBT community. The site is a digital brand of Here Media Inc. In addition to community features, the site features LGBT-related news and features. As of September 2005, San Jose Mercury News ranked gay.com as the most popular online gay personals site in the United States. As of March 2007, Hitwise ranked it number three in domestic American popularity after Adam4Adam and Manhunt. Gay.com also competes internationally with dudesnude, gayromeo, and gaydar.

Gay.com was founded by Mark Elderkin in 1994 and launched with a Java-based chat system in 1996. Gay.com's parent company acquired PlanetOut in 2001. In October 2008 the company relaunched gay.com., updating the visual style of the site and replacing the former Java-based chat system. Technical problems caused by the upgrade led to service interruptions and lags. In an open letter from PlanetOut management, "hardware configurations and software code" were cited as culprits. Many users asked the service to revert to its former system. The formerly solid user base has eroded since the relaunch.

In October 2009, Here Media Inc. bought gay.com from PlanetOut Inc. In 2016, gay.com was handed over to VS Media Inc.