First Published 27 November 2014
Mark, creator of Naked Mates, comments on how the site came about…
I used to arrange naked parties and events on various other gay social neyworks for several years. My initial list of contacts grew quickly from just 10 or 12 initially to, eventually, almost 300 guys. The infrastructure of the other sites did not make it practical to organise events for so many interested guys, so I started looking at alternatives. Unable to find any other websites which fitted the bill, and with an interest in web design and web coding, I decided to set up my own.
The name…
The name Naked Mates came to me in a flash of inspiration and, quite by accident, after ages of going through various combinations of what sounded good and what was available – I did not want something too overtly sexual as the parties I was arranging were social as well as sexual, so it was important to encapsulate the social side in the name too. I did not want the site to be regarded simply as a hook-up site, but wanted to emphasis the naked element – hence I felt Naked Mates (which came to me in a flash of inspiration!) was the perfect name.
The basics…
The site started out as a basic mailing list, as in it comprised a home page with a “Please enter your email address and will will add you to our list” input box and a basic “Subscribe” button and that was it. It was not long before guys on the list, on receiving notification of a party started asking things like “Who else is going?” and “Any pics of the other guys?”. Hence a few tweaks of the code gave everyone the ability to create their own profile – a picture and a brief description of themselves and a list of parties they were attending. As soon as profiles were created the next question guys started asking was “Can you introduce a message sending facility so we can message each other directly?”. A message facility was introduced and this is when the site started to become less of a mailing list and more of a social network. After messaging, requests for the ability to create photo albums, chat rooms, an event calendar feature, a poke feature (like Facebook), some forums to discuss various topics all started to come in and, one by one, as my coding skills improved I introduced the requested features. The ultimate feature that became the turning point for the site was when guys became able to create their own events – up until then it had only been me that could create events – when I threw the switch which meant guys could arrange their own events, the calendar quickly began to fill and now, at any one time, there are typically 150 upcoming events, with the most popular events attracting 150-170 applicants.
Credibility and reliability and introducing Mates Points…
One major frustration I found when I was trying to arrange parties on other sites was the huge number of time-wasters I encountered. A tremendous amount of effort on the part of the host goes into creating a successful house party and the last thing you need is for guys not to show up. In my pre-Naked Mates days I always wondered why, if you could give feedback on the reliability of a seller on eBay, why couldn’t you give feedback on the reliability (or otherwise!) of someone who you invited to a party. Hence as soon as Naked Mates started to gain momentum I introduced Mates Points as a means of ascertaining a guy’s reliability – the more points a guy has, the more reliable, involved and committed to the ethos of the Naked Mates community he is. Guys get Mates Points for attending and hosting events and also for bringing their friends to the community – hence a guy with a lot of points is very active in the community whereas another guy with no points is not very active at all. It’s important too to mention that guys who simply don’t turn up for events after accepting an invitation (time-wasters in other words) get negative points. Hosts can see this data and can use it to decide whether they should invite a guy to their party or skip him and move on to the next guy on the list.
Picture Verification…
Another major issue which wrangled me from other online experiences was whether photos were genuine or not. Hence very early on I introduced Photo Verification – a simple processes whereby a guy submits an especially taken photo which includes a unique verification code from the site written on a piece of paper and held whilst the photo is taken, which helps to authenticate that the photo is a genuine representation of the guy.
Genuine and reliable guys…
All of this has resulted in a network of genuine and reliable guys who enjoy each other’s company naked. Three years down the line we are now at the stage were, as well as regular house parties and dedicated events in clubs across the country we now have an annual naked camping weekend (Naked Fest) which had over 100+ attendees last year and we are have just finished our third Naked Mates holiday in Gran Canaria, with a further two planned in 2015. The biggest surprise in the whole Naked Mates story is that I seem to have, by accident, created what appears to be a massively friendly social network which guys regard as their home on the internet and use almost exclusively, saying that Naked Mates is now a big part of their lives and they have widened their circle of friends significantly as a result of being part of our community.
This article was first published on 27 November 2014