Fridae

Fridae.com announced today the launch of Fridae Version 4 to mark the third anniversary of the largest gay and lesbian web site catering to the Asia-Pacific region.

Fridae Version 4, which is the most significant update to date, will feature a brand new look and feel, new and enhanced content sections, forums and Asia's largest gay and lesbian Personals database.

Currently, Fridae boasts an average of 20 million page views per month, up sharply from three million just a year ago. Fridae's unique Perks programme, which includes unlimited access to the Personals, has seen 400% growth in the past year.

Just three years of age, Fridae has since become the premiere online resource for gays and lesbians with almost 150,000 registered members making the site the largest gay and lesbian portal in Asia. The top 10 countries include Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, China, Taiwan, and USA, Australia, Canada, UK with their sizeable Asian populations.

With its Chinese language Personals which was launched last year and a new full-featured Chinese website to be introduced in the second quarter, Fridae expects major growth in the greater China region, which includes mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as pockets in SE Asia. Launched in November, the Chinese beta version, had very quickly signed up almost 10 thousand users.

Fridae, which has been covered by numerous mainstream and industry publications such as The (Singapore) Straits Times and Business Times as well as Media Magazine (Hong Kong), has firmly established its market position as the primary channel to this fast growing market demographic. To date, it counts Subaru, Qantas/British Airways, Visit Britain and L'oreal as its advertisers and/or partners. This year, Fridae expects to roll out more advertising campaigns from major companies as marketers rush to stake their claim as first movers within their industry to target the gay consumer.

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Nation, Fridae's annual flagship event which would be in its fourth year this August, is expected to grow significantly as last year's event drew accolades from Time magazine ("3-day festival of international proportions"), Australia's DNA magazine, ("top 12 gay events in the world") and AFP (Nation: "a signature celebration for gays in Singapore and elsewhere in the region"). The event has also broken new ground locally by being the first ever gay event to be covered by the evening national TV news in four different languages on August 8, Singapore's National Day. Inbound tourism for Nation which was estimated to be S$4 million last year is expected to double this year. Nation 04 will be held over four days from August 6 to 9.

In the meantime, the next event, Squirt, to be held on April 10-11 over Easter Weekend is expected to attract some 3000 partygoers including numerous visitors from the region including Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia.

In the next quarter, Fridae will also conduct the largest gay and lesbian consumer survey in the region. This study, a follow-up to a groundbreaking study in 2001 in collaboration with market research company Strategic Intelligence, will seek to collect important data on the socio-economic behaviours of the gay and lesbian community in Asia.