Operating well under the media radar compared with other social-networking companies like Facebook and MySpace, Various, headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., has a deceptively broad and profitable reach. Bell's agenda for revitalizing the company evolved significantly last December when Penthouse acquired social-network behemoth Various, Inc. Bankrupt and racked with debt, Penthouse was acquired in 2004 by a group of investors led by entrepreneur Marc Bell. The corporate parent of Penthouse-Playboy's raunchier newsstand rival, founded in 1965 by Bob Guccione-is taking a different tack. 'Today we are really a brand-management company.' But realistically it's not a business that we see growing,' says company spokesperson Martha Lindeman. 'Traditional print is a heritage business for us, and an important part of the brand. Betting on steady revenue from casinos, clothing and other products branded with its ubiquitous bunny icon, rather than from its media holdings, the company in recent years has recast itself as a lifestyle business. reported declining revenue in nearly every division and an overall loss of $3.1 million. In its first-quarter earnings report last week, Playboy Enterprises, Inc. Of that, adult media companies are painfully aware. 'You can get it over the Internet for free.'

'If you're looking for adult content today, there are so many more places and many other ways to do that,' says David Miller, an industry analyst and managing director at Los Angeles-based Sanders Morris Harris Group.

At a time when ever-raunchier Internet porn has made such mainstream mags as Penthouse and Playboy seem like throwbacks to more innocent times, these well-established brands have been trying to diversify and reinvent themselves. So it may surprise users that has a decidedly promiscuous corporate parent: Penthouse Media Group Inc. Further testimonial from a fresh-faced woman leaves little doubt as to the site's higher purpose: 'I feel like my prayers of finding a respectable man have been answered! Thanks BigChurch!!' 2:24) precedes the site's Bible-verse search library. Christian dating web site 's motto is 'Bringing people together in love and faith.' A pointed quote from the Old Testament ('A man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.' Gen.

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