Radio industry This article is more than 17 years oldObituaryGary Frisch
This article is more than 17 years oldMaking a date with the gay communityIn late 1999, a gay professional friend approached Gary Frisch with a problem - he was too busy with work to find a boyfriend. Gary, who has died aged 38 after falling from his balcony, offered to write an internet computer programme that would help the friend find one. Christened Gaydar - a portmanteau word gay men use to describe their ability to spot other gay men - it went online in November 1999. At the time Gary was running QSoft Consulting, a gay-friendly IT company he had founded with Henry Badenhorst, his business partner and former lover.
There had been gay dating sites before, but they were slow and laborious. Gary developed two features which speeded things up: Who's Online told participants who was actually there, and Instant Messaging made immediate contact and chat possible. After its first year, Gaydar had 78,000 registered members. Gary and Henry quit their jobs to concentrate on building the company - Henry mainly on the business side, Gary on the technology. Soon they employed several co-workers, although for years Gaydar continued to operate from the back bedroom of a terrace house in Twickenham.
The company now claims more than 3m members worldwide. It is important as a virtual gay community, socially as well as sexually. It is used by gay men who are just coming out, or who live far from big cities' gay scenes. Its global reach provides a sense of communication for gay men living in more repressive countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. It is a place to find friends who share an interest in, perhaps Fassbinder films and Fanny Cradock, or to find long-term partners - although it is joked that Gaydar is responsible for breaking up far more relationships than it started.
Gary was born in Johannesburg, where his father Eric ran an engineering business and his mother Rona worked as an accountant. He was educated at Boksburg high school and after studying computer sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, he founded a software company. In 1991, Gary met Henry. They moved to Britain in 1997, where they launched QSoft Consulting.
Gaydar made them heroes to many gay men. But they were notoriously publicity-shy. When I wrote a Gay Times profile on the Gaydar phenomenon in 2004, questions had to be addressed through an intermediary, no publicity photos were available, and they asked if they could be referred to by their first names.
After Gaydar came the digital radio station GaydarRadio and GaydarGirls. Gary and Henry then bought one of their main rivals, Rainbow Network, held GaydarDays at Alton Towers and sponsored pride events, such as the Sydney Mardi Gras.
The original Gaydar site is now twice as popular in Britain as the biggest straight dating site, and accounts for more than half of all traffic to gay websites. Registered British members topped 1m last summer. Boy George has recently sung the site praises - although he is far from the only celebrity who trawls its well publicised pages. In 2003, the Sun printed a photo from the Gaydar profile of Labour MP Chris Bryant wearing only his pants. It is a sign of the times that it caused barely a ripple in his Rhondda constituency.
So successful has Gaydar been that it has been blamed for a downturn in the numbers of men visiting gay bars, clubs and cruising grounds. Some have also blamed it for a rise in unsafe sex. But its reach is so great that the Terrence Higgins Trust now hosts a chatroom, offering sexual health advice, and many police community safety officers have profiles enabling gay men to report homophobic crimes.
ยท Gary Frisch, entrepreneur, born January 22 1969; died February 10 2007
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