A unique adult community site with a strong focus on user-generated, i.e. amateur videos, Yuvutu.com offers thousands of amateur adult videos, photos and adult blogs, all available free of charge.
"The idea germinated from the fact that YouTube did not accept adult content and there therefore seemed to be a gap in the market," said Yuvutu.com spokesperson Steve Jacobs. "It was felt that adult content was an ideal niche for a tube site because unlike most other user-generated content it was internationally appealing to an adult free-thinking global audience."
The finished product was a site that gives viewers to ability to watch videos, upload videos, post comments and blogs and participate in the chat rooms free of charge and without suffering annoying pop-ups and pop-unders.
"It literally took just six weeks from us having the original idea to launching the site in June 2006," said Jacobs.
In addition to the fact Yuvutu.com was set up by people who have no background in the adult industry, another unique aspect of the site is the name itself.
"We wanted a short catchy name," said Jacobs. "We wanted a word that did not already exist and could be easily pronounced in most languages, but we were constrained by the fact that most words and short letter combinations are already registered. We settled on ‘yuvutu' because it fit the criteria, it sounded a little bit exotic, and is a contraction of ‘you view to'."
Approximately 70 percent of Yuvutu's content is user-generated by true amateurs who use video cameras, mobile phones, or web cams. Because of the way the site is organized, the amateur content accounts for 90 to 95 percent of the video views. All video and photo submissions are screened by Yuvutu moderators with approval sessions taking place several times a day. Professional content makes up the other 30 percent of the uploaded video content and is uploaded by webmasters who are promoting their sites. Professional videos are separated into a "Pro" channel.
"Professional videos are accepted because they provide some income," said Jacobs. "But they are not the primary focus of the site and are not given the same level of promotion as amateur content. For ethical, strategic, and legal reasons, we don't tolerate breaches of copyright. Stolen amateur videos ruin the community aspect of the site, because genuine members always get irate when they discover a fellow member is a fraud. Stolen professional videos are simply not needed, as professional videos are exclusively used to promote other sites. It is possible for a tube site to be profitable without relying on stolen content."
While there are hundreds of adult tube sites in existence, Yuvutu.com is one of only a handful that offers a variety of other community features, such as PM, IM, chat rooms, photos, comments, boards, and member search.
"We feel that we have the most, true-amateur straight videos (gay is growing, too) and the most international community," said Jacobs.
Top uploaders and paid subscribers also get additional premium features such as play lists, full screen playback, and alerts. Visitors and free members cannot download any videos, but subscribers are allowed to download videos where the uploader has given permission.
And there's plenty more on the way.
"We're constantly releasing new features," said Jacobs. "For example, recently we released pictures in blogs and videos in blogs. We are about to release customization of profile pages and we have an intense development program to roll out over time improvements to the community aspects of the site. Short-term goal: we'd like to obviously grow traffic overall, particularly in Japan and South Korea and eventually become a truly multilingual international site and a globally recognized name."
This article originally appeared in the February issue of AVN Online. To subscribe, visit AVNMediaNetwork.com/subscribe.
