Coming from a background in computers, Robert Contaldi felt that it was only natural for him to try his hand at something a little off the technological path. And so it came to pass that Contaldi – a programmer for an automatic warehouse in his native Canada – in the late 1990s applied his expertise to the budding and ever-evolving online adult entertainment business. Doubling not only as a successful affiliate program, but also as an Internet theater with hundreds of titles available for online streaming, Contaldi’s unorthodox venture, AdultBouncer.com, has emerged as a major contender for traffic in the increasingly congested and lucrative online market. The irony is, it all started on a whim.
“I like to try different stuff,” Contaldi admits of the impetus for his journey into adult territory. “I have a computer technical background. I started using computers when I was 14 years old.” Contaldi first experimented with some online adult entertainment while working from home with a friend, creating mainstream pay sites. Seeing the potential in the adult spectrum, Contaldi used some of the money he had earned from his work on the mainstream sites and launched his own AVS site. “It was pretty limited in functionality, but it did what it needed to in those times,” he recalls. “I got into it at the right time, which helped a lot and made us grow pretty fast.”
In retrospect, perhaps it grew too fast. Contaldi says that the expansion for AdultBouncer has been so big during the past few years that it threatened to derail itself. “Our biggest hurdle was growth – trying to keep up with server space, and at the same time trying to maintain the 250 servers [needed to keep the site running],” he recalls. “We must have had 10 machines going down a night, which took a lot of our time.” On a side note, Contaldi is happy to report that AdultBouncer has been streamlined and is a “hundred times more efficient. I can finally sleep at night.”
Web surfers familiar with AdultBouncer know that they can literally find hundreds of quality niche sites and DVD titles on the Bouncer’s network—available for unlimited downloading for one low price. All titles are made available on a variety of platforms to guarantee that the most surfers have access to the material, and the titles are also free from viruses and spyware. New sites and DVD titles are added on a daily basis and constitute the best that the business has to offer. From niches like group sex and water sports to gay leather and Fem Dom, there’s a little bit of everything (indeed, the site states that “every kind of perverted sex on the planet” is included).
Sites in the program are catered to discerning fans of adult content, while DVD titles (acquired from the most popular studios in the business, including Acid Rain, Zero Tolerance, Elegant Angel, and Blue Pictures) provide hours of, er, “enjoyment” as well. Most of these titles are also made available on AdultBouncer’s sister site Vixeo.com, which offers content strictly for downloading onto PCs. Contaldi says, “We try to buy content that nobody else has along with purchasing content they already have so we can have everything and anything.”
Surfers aren’t the only ones who profit from signing up with AdultBouncer. Affiliates can enjoy the benefits of high conversions (1:110 average), state-of-the-art reporting tools, biweekly payouts (with 50 percent paid on all joins and re-bills), live online webmaster support, weekly contests and prizes, multiple payout options (wire, check, courier check, and ePassporte), a variety of hosted galleries, AdultBouncer SITEBUILDER software, free TGP/MGP hosting, unlimited space, and unlimited bandwidth usage. “We like to keep our fellow webmasters happy,” Contaldi says.
Contaldi contends that his team uses TGP/MGP software to track where traffic is coming from and who sends the most traffic. He adds, “We also use tools available to us by programs [that] allow us to track where sales are originating so we can see which niches work best with the traffic we have available.” That said, however, Contaldi asserts that, in the end, niche popularity is really just a matter of exposure. “What we’ve noticed is any niche really works,” he explains. “Whatever we place into the recommended DVDs area will get downloaded the most. Stick to your niche and work on that because anything works. It all really depends on what content you place on the front end of your website.”
Nevertheless, Contaldi has kept one finger in the mainstream Internet pie. His Internet service provider company, Velcom, is touted in Canada as being the strongest ISP with the soundest infrastructure, and he says that he has acquired a great deal more knowledge from his excursion into porn—especially when it comes to staying on his toes. “I’ve learned that you need to launch things very fast in order to keep up with the industry,” he explains. “The Internet is so fast-paced; if you don’t finish programs quickly enough, then by the time you do finish them you are left behind.”
Adult has also taught him how to avoid unnecessary stress—by employing an oft-underestimated thing called teamwork. “You can never have enough man power trying to manage multiple projects,” he says. Of course, he adds, it always helps to stay on top of each situation, as well: “Try to be efficient in everything or you’ll get held back. [Being on] automatic is key in running a large program.”
As far as his future plans for AdultBouncer are concerned, Contaldi mentions that a Video-on-Demand site is currently in the works (“When that launches, we can better track with products that sell better,” he notes), and adds that AdultBouncer is “creating tools for our sites to work within AdultBouncer to optimize the way we work.” Not that Contaldi is in any hurry, mind you. In fact, he says, patience is imperative for achieving success. “This is not an ‘overnight millionaire’ deal,” he warns. “You need to work on your project just like any other business.”
Of course, Contaldi adds, it never hurts to try different things: “For me it’s all trial and error; if it fails, I move on to something else. If I knew what would work and what wouldn’t, I’d be retired.”
