EDGE Dallas

Rob Aboudi, an IT consultant who lives and works in Chelsea, is a quintessential "early adopter"--a gay man who has the financial means, motivation and patience to try out new technologies and acquire the next generation of highs-tech gadgets.

As a recovering technoholic, Aboudi has dramatically cut back on his monthly electronics allowance. "I used to buy everything, but finally wised up when I realized most of it was just gathering dust," he admitted. "I already have everything I need for the time being."

Technology’s reach goes far beyond the lust for new hardware: Social networking and other online innovations have a grip on the gay community that many say goes way beyond their straight counterpartes. Scott Van Tussenbrook, a gay Angeleno computer junky, is already "way on board with ’cloud’ services," that is, the latest Internet software and data storage services.

"I live and die by Google Docs," he added. "I do all my writing there, as well as most of my spreadsheets for work. I like not having to worry about what computer I’m working on-pick a machine, log in, and there’s all my stuff. I love that."

Although the only hard research that quantifies straight v. gay technology adopters was published a few years ago, anecdotal evidence-buttressed a raft of experts in the field-is overwhelming that "there’s something slightly indefinable about gay males that make them early adopters and important leading edge indicators," in the words of Stanford professor and noted tech blogger Paul Saffo.

"Gays and lesbians have a long history of being early adopters of new technologies," said Ian Johnson, managing director of Australian-based Out Now Consulting. He believes tech companies "seem willfully ignorant of a multi-billion dollar value market opportunity" from "these voracious consumers of the latest high tech gadgets."

Meanwhile, gay consumers continue to do what they’ve always done-adopt the latest products and technologies to their needs.

AOL Chatrooms Led the Way
The original intent of AOL chat rooms, for example, was to facilitate communications among families and friends. They quickly became mostly uncensored online real-time conversations for regional "M4M" ("Men for Men") rooms spanning everything from vanilla man-on-man sex fetishes encompassing everything from water sports and diapers to leather and bondage.

Despite the limitations of painfully slow dial-up modems back in 1989 and frustrating delays gaining entry into the more popular rooms, AOL’s chat rooms became a virtual coast-to-coast bathhouse, with multiple rooms in cities like New York where gay men flirted and exchanged PG to XXX pictures of themselves-all leading to the eventual live hookup (or, just as likely, frustration). "I can have a man at my door faster than a pizza," became the new mantra of the "take-out trick" Web 1.0 era.

Not that easy sex in every category was the only benefit. For gay men either still in the closet, too young to get into bars, living in rural or inhospitable areas, or married, the Internet finally provided an anonymous, non-threatening and efficient way for them to make a sexual or emotional connection.

Josh Rubin, founder of the popular technology blog CoolHunting.com, remembers his first AOL experience as a pivotal point in his coming out. "It was 1992 and I was 18-years-old," he recalls. "I had been using computers for a while, but didn’t get a modem until that year. Even though my approach was genuinely innocent and exploratory, my first online chat experience was in an M4M room-a place where I felt safe."

Get Online, Get Informed, Get Off
Today’s gay men are even more tech-savvy and never far (if ever) from a computer or mobile communication device. They also have a lot more than dial-up chat rooms, from omnipresent mainstream social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn, to gay-specific sites like Gay.com, Adam4Adam or the infamous (and hugely successful) Manhunt. The latter two rank as 6 and 8, respectively, on Hitwise’s March 2009 chart of top U.S. Internet "dating" sites.

AtomicMen.com (or the "Naked Facebook," as fans have dubbed it) describes itself in a new promotional campaign as an "all-encompassing site for gay men" that "brings features commonly used by youth-Twitter, Picasa Photo Albums, Blogs-and weaves them together." The owners revamped a former hookup site to create a gay Facebook-without all those pesky rules and restrictions. In other words, full-frontal nude images and video.

Now there is Find Fred. As described in an EDGE article, the site is an all-purpose virtual living room for gay men, where they can "meet, cruise, dish, chat, strut, cam, pose (verbally as well as visually) and just enjoy each other’s company."

Founder Rajesh Lahoti believe it represents "the next generation of m4m online communities. In terms of functionality, FindFred has a match feature designed by gay men for gay men," he adds. "This feature is easy and fun to use, but we realize you can only do so much behind a computer. Chemistry happens live, and FindFred is a fun way to get to that first date."

Not everyone online is looking to hook-up or even find Mister Right. Some of us go online actually to be informed. Sites like EDGE, Advocate.com and GayWired.com have been offering a well-balanced mix of gay-slanted news, opinion and entertainment for years. Now Edge Publications has bumped up the concept, with an iPhone application that seamlessly integrates Edge’s LGBT online content directly onto subscribers’ smart phones.

"As a publishing company," Boston-based founder David Foucher explained, "we’re always thinking about innovative ways to get news out to gay and lesbian readers who are always looking for the newest software or next big thing."

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