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Fleshbot Examines Yet Another Smut Site With a Dubious Business Plan

Posted by Bryan Christian

 

Hey, anybody out there been using Zivity, a subscriber-based upscale smut site that's curently in that nebulous state known as "beta testing"? They're posing themselves as "the HBO of the Web” -- and getting a bit of investor cash in the process -- but we ain't drinking the Kool-Aid just yet, and neither is Fleshbot.

According to insidery Valley blog Techcrunch, the site will remain in "private beta" mode until at least 2009, but has already secured $8 million in private financing. When it does eventually go public, it will pay the models and photographers who generate the most interest based on user votes ... but not with that $8 mil. That money will come from user subscription fees, since you will have to pay to look at and vote on content.

... and of course, you can guess where this going: who's gonna pay for boobies when they're everywhere online for free? We'd like to put it another way: how is HBO possibly a model for a website when it's fundamentally a different business scenario? If we had to purchase access to 100 websites at a time, then yeah, we might consider a package that had high-class smut like this. But since it don't work that way (yet)... well, let's just say we're pretty skeptical too. Not that we're not open to perhaps having an open-minded look with one of those beta testing accounts... (hint hint).

Previously: Like Wal-Mart for Boobies, Porn.com Now Open for Business


+ DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT

Comments

cyan said:

Bryan - send me your email address and I'll get you a beta invite :-)

cyan@zivity.

March 12, 2008 5:18 PM

About Bryan Christian

Bryan Christian has worked as a writer for Epicurious, GenArt and ID magazine; a web producer for WWD and Condé Nast; and a cameraman for his friends. He's married and lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

in

about the blogger

Emily Farris writes about culture and food for numerous publications and websites you've probably never heard of, including her own blog eefers. Her first cookbook, Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff for Your Oven was published in 2008. Emily recently escaped New York and now lives in a ridiculously large apartment in Kansas City, MO with her cat, but just one... so far.

Brian Fairbanks is a filmmaker living in the wilds of Brooklyn. He previously wrote for the Hartford Courant and Gawker. He won the Williamsburg Spelling Bee once. He loves cats, women with guns, and burning books.

Colleen Kane has been an editor at BUST and Playgirl magazines and has written for the endangered species of dead-tree magazines like SPIN and Plenty, as well as Radar Online and other websites. She lives in exile in Baton Rouge with her fiance, two dogs, and her former cat. Read her personal blogs at ColleenKane.com.

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