Affinity Labs

Affinity Labs is a company that builds social networking sites for niche groups such as firefighters, police officers, nurses and the Armed Forces.[1] In January 2008, Affinity Labs was acquired by Monster Worldwide for US$61 million.[2]

Affinity Labs Inc.
Type of businessPublic
Available inmultilingual
Founded2006
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
,
U.S.
OwnerMonster.com
URLaffinitylabs.com
Current statusactive

Affinity Labs sites have over a million registered members, as of January 2008.[1] PoliceLink, aimed at law enforcement personnel, is one of Affinity Labs' most active sites with over 717,000 unique visitors per month.[3] Other sites include: SalesHQ, ArtBistro, TheApple, FireLink, NursingLink, InsideTech, GovCentral, IndiaOn, Excelle, AllHealthCare, and the European communities, HMForces.co.uk, ProNurse, and WerPflegtWen.

In 2008 after Monster acquired Affinity Labs, it then bought a French military website, Armees.com for an undisclosed fee, then transferred the site to its Affinity Labs social networking vertical.[4]

Affinity Labs still successfully operate across North America but in March 2012 it shut down its European operations. Despite HMForces.co.uk[5] being its most successful vertical, and having shared resources with Military.com, the global recession did not assist its longevity. HMForces.co.uk still has a strong presence on social networking sites[6] to this day, evidence of its popularity. Further references to this military vertical can be found on UK e-commerce sites,[7] and there is also a HMForces blog[8] still surviving despite it not being updated regularly.

History

Affinity Labs was founded by Christopher Michel[9] in 2006 after he sold Military.com to Monster in 2004 for $40 million.

The Mayfield Fund[10] and Trinity Ventures invested in Affinity Labs prior to its Monster Worldwide buyout.[11]

Between 2010-14, the President of Military Advantage and Vice President of Monster Worldwide,[12] was former Navy Admiral Terry McCreary. He oversaw the military Affinity operations in Europe which had a product manager in London reporting to the former Admiral in the US.[13] However, this operation was closed down in 2012 after Monster unsuccessfully bid for a Recruiting Partnering Project (RPP) with the UK's Ministry of Defence. Capita won and signed the contract worth £44 million over 10 years.[14]

gollark: Also cool.
gollark: Look, it's really squiggley.
gollark: NOpe.
gollark: Cool graph, right?
gollark: Brilliant.

References
  1. "Monster buys community site, Affinity Labs, for significant $61M - VentureBeat - News - by Matt Marshall". VentureBeat.
  2. "Monster buys S.F. Web operator Affinity for $61 million". mercurynews.com.
  3. "Policelink.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics by Quantcast". quantcast.com. Archived from the original on 2012-10-18. Retrieved 2008-02-21.
  4. "Armees.Com - Actualité". armees.com.
  5. "HMForces.co.uk : Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army, Royal Air Force". hmforces.co.uk.
  6. "HMForces.co.uk". Facebook.
  7. "Media Centre - Product Reviews - Military Reviews at UK Gear". ukgear.com.
  8. http://hmforcescouk.blogspot.co.uk
  9. "Affinity Labs, Inc.: Private Company Information - Businessweek". Businessweek.com.
  10. "Mayfield Announcement". Archived from the original on 2007-04-21. Retrieved 2007-04-13.
  11. "Monster Worldwide - Bringing People Together to Advance Their Lives". corporate-ir.net.
  12. "Team". Military.com.
  13. "Linkedin - Corporate Social Network".
  14. "Capita signs armed forces RPP contract".
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