LOS ANGELES—Zbuckz has acquired PeterFever.com, beefing up its diverse portfolio of Asian-themed websites with one of the genre’s established leaders.
Zbuckz owner Daniel “Danny Z” Zeeman says PeterFever founder Peter Le handed him the keys to the site but will stay involved in a reduced capacity.
“He’s looking to focus more on his personal training and his fitness stuff and he wanted to not necessarily get out of the industry but to be able to have someone that he could give his brand to and leave it in good hands,” Zeeman told AVN.
“He will still be involved but he didn’t want to have all the responsibility of owning the website and having all the employees and shooting all the content himself. He thought our company was the best match so he just asked me if I’d be interested in buying him out basically.”
Zeeman, an 18-year veteran of the online industry whose management company, WebMediaProz, runs several affiliate programs such as Zbuckz and Glamourbuckz, lived in Asia for 10 years and speaks fluent Thai and some Japanese. His latest acquisition is something for which he’s always had a passion.
“It’s really a perfect match because he’s in a niche that I’ve always been personally interested in and invested in,” said Zeeman, who has made a career out of helping different studios and sites grow their brands through his creative marketing and business savvy.
PeterFever, online for the past seven years, was a pioneer in Asian American gay content, Zeeman said.
“He’s got a really big following mostly because he tried to break the stereotypes of Asians,” Zeeman reasoned. “Like people have this idea that Asians are kind of feminine or small or whatever. He’s this big, buff really masculine Asian guy. I think in the U.S. people have these stereotypes that Asian men aren’t attractive or have smaller penises or whatever it is, and he wanted to break all these stereotypes. And that’s what really interested me about him.”
Zbuckz already manages sites such as JapanBoyz and GayAsianNetwork “but they’re more twinkish.”
“There’s never really been a site that had some older Asian guys or more muscular Asian guys or more masculine types,” Zeeman continued.
“Most of the Asian porn content up until Peter was filmed in Thailand or Japan, which is where I’ve filmed before, but as far as Asian American content is concerned I think he really pioneered it.
“And he’s the first to break that stereotype of showing that there really are hot, muscular Asian men and not all Asian guys are these effeminate, skinny twinks or whatever people think of when they think of Asian men. That’s why I’ve always been a big fan of his since he started.
“We worked a deal where we were able to purchase it from him and still keep him involved with the directing. He’s not actually the main director but we’re using the same director that he was using. His role is as an organizer. He would organize all the models, the location and all that kind of stuff. Sort of being like the producer.
“So now we’re taking over that producer role and still working with him, too.”
Zeeman said the deal came together thanks in part to his strong working relationship with Le, whose mainstream popularity includes a successful series of fitness e-books. The two have done trade deals for content for years.
“So when he came to me and said he wanted less responsibility and to sell and I was the first person he thought of, I was honored,” Zeeman said.
Zbuckz is in the process of revamping the PeterFever tour, optimizing it for mobile and modernizing the site. The new tour—much of the content for it was shot just last weekend by Zeeman in Los Angeles—is on track to debut in about a month.
“We’re making it fully responsive for mobile phones and we’re improving all the streaming video quality,” Zeeman explained. “Because we’ve already got a large affiliate program with thousands of gay affiliates and a big pool of members already that are into Asian content that we can market to.”
Even though Le intends to not do any more nude solo videos as he turns his focus to his fitness career, Zeeman will be shooting him in various personal training clips that he’ll add to PeterFever as bonus content.
“So for example they’ll get an update where he’s telling people how to get a better six-pack. Or he’s flexing and showing people how to get bigger arms.”
Zeeman said PeterFever is going to be more selective with casting.
“We’re going to be a little more picky but we’re going to have a very strong brand association,” he said. “If you see a model that’s a more muscular and masculine Asian guy you think PeterFever. It’s kind of similar to if you think of TitanMen you have a certain image in mind. Like you’re thinking of a very muscular—usually a beard, maybe a little bit hairier—older guy. So the same kind of way Titan has branded themselves, that’s what I want to do with PeterFever.
“The challenge of course is it’s very difficult to find those kinds of muscular Asian guys that will do porn. Maybe if you approach a hundred of them one will say yes. It’s a definite challenge to find the guys.”
The good news is Zeeman has identified some prospects, finding a couple newcomers who “fit the mold" who took part in his recent content shoot.
Zeeman, who was born in Chatsworth and now resides in Chicago, also wants to bring more serious storytelling to PeterFever, noting he’ll personally write the scripts for upcoming scenarios. He recently wrote and produced The Hungover, which was a parody of The Hangover.
“And also focusing on the messaging. We want to break the stereotypes of what people think Asians are and even working that into the scripts. We have a lot of different ideas of different ways we can do that,” he added. “Like an allegory where you’re actually making films that have a message, too.”
Plans also call for making PeterFever content available on more than one channel of distribution, including for the first time bringing movies to DVD.
“That’s one of the other things that excited me about buying the website is the content hasn’t been anywhere other than on PeterFever.com,” Zeeman said. “It’s never been on VOD or DVD or any other outlet so I want to definitely start producing DVDs out of it and get it into broadcast networks.”
