LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y. — It's all about branding and the new EdgeXD wants to become the brand for men's adult entertainment and lifestyle.
Officially launched this week by Top Shelf Media Partners’ founder Brent Chapman, EdgeXD already is looking like a Maxim/FHM of porn and that's just what he's going for.
Hosting a large and still-expanding library of adult content, from classics to original productions, EdgeXD features some of the hottest playmates, pets and porn stars, such as 2007 Penthouse Pet of the Year Heather Vandeven and Penthouse Pet of the Month, November 2007, Lux Kassidy as the site's featured stars and tour hosts.
EdgeXD’s exclusive content discovery and delivery system makes it easy for customers to not only find the video they want, but stash it, share it and enjoy it like never before.
"We're helping people find content in a world of largely generic content," Chapman told AVN.com. "If you stack adult videos end to end, most of them are relatively similar; there are different actions, genres and so on, but we wanted to come up with a better way for people to find the content they really like."
"I found, during research, that sites always push you site to site and I get nervous about giving my credit card to anybody," said Chapman, who comes out of legal background with a New York firm and worked for Cablevision.
"There's no customer experience and that's what we intend to do. We've been working since the latter part of 2006 to create a brand," he said. "A company like Playboy has given up the high ground when they could be the brand for adult entertainment. They lost their way and the world of webmasters is filled with largely generic companies that wouldn't be recognizable to anyone. It's a fairly brand-less world we ventured into."
Chapman told AVN.com the site hopes to create an inviting combination of customer branding, experience and service. Once joining as a member, the site's main page features a variety of options, which are strategically placed so it's not just another poke-around-a-site visit for the user.
"On the upper third, the banner, we curate the experience, we push them to videos we want them to see and expand their radius. If not, a guy is left to his own devices," he said.
Currently, EdgeXD has about 3,000 videos, under licenses of its own, with roughly 30,000 clips of six to 60 minutes, from classic late '80s early '90s porn to new material the site has shot itself, along with material from overseas that hasn't had much exposure in the U.S.
Working from adult material as its core, the site also includes lifestyle categories such as sports, gadgets and entertainment areas.
"Maxim leaves you showing a pretty girl in the shower with nipples visible, but you can't see anything," Chapman said. "We take it to the edge, that's where the name cam from. We want to manipulate a guy's time online. Many of them spend it from 11-12 (p.m.) on Facebook, ESPN checking their fantasy team scores and on Hulu, maybe. We want to eat away at a little of that time."
To pull that off, EdgeXD also features stock quotes, sports scores, gadget and tech pieces, music and film reviews and other non-adult content in its "Lounge" area. But porn will always be at the center of things.
One of the site's member features is a personal "Stash," where videos can be dropped and dragged from one of Edge's various 16-genre channels.Chapman explains it in detail on his Edge blog.
"You can watch the video, save an image into your stash and also creator your own channels of videos that other members can watch, too," Chapman said. "It's an easy way to manage your porn and the other content, ultimately, though videos are going to drive this initially."
The videos include key points with key words for "action moments" in the clips, so a user can toggle forward and back as they please. The video quality can also be switched from lower quality to higher quality, nearly HD, hence the "XD" of the site's name.
"It's not quite HD, but pretty close, so we called it 'X-rated Definition,'" Chapman said.
Another notable feature is a "panic button" in the upper left corner of a members screen, which changes the page view to a excel spread sheet, locking out a return to the site until the password is typed for logging back in. Sure sounds like an office safety protocol, doesn't it?
The site also includes a "Black Market" section for purchasing company-branded apparel and other items as well as gadgets/tech for sale. There's also an arcade of various video games (play topless tic-tac-toe with Jaimie Hammer or poker with Rachel Roxxx).
It's all designed to keep members on the site: A little porn viewing, some sports news, a video game, more porn and so on.
"There are more reasons to stay rather than go elsewhere," Chapman told AVN.com. "We're not looking to grow a base as much as nurture one. We're hoping the typical consumer will watch videos on the site, keep one or two and the next time, know they have video to go to and also more to see."
The company will press on full-bore with promotion, including Facebook and Twitter profiles, aggressively targeting guys in networking worlds. There's even a teaser on YouTube featuring Sunny Leone Wii boxing with Lux Kassidy, then just as Sunny's top comes off, the viewer is invited to head on over to EdgeXD.
"The idea is to make this thing fun - sexy but fun.The long term goal is to be THE brand. It's all about trustworthiness," Chapman said. "We're not in this for get-rich-quick. Over time, we'll have an affiliate program, a social networking program. We'll also have a growing number of sites to surround our base site from one giving sex advice to a relationship site with nothing X-rated at all. This is what's next and everybody is going to have to step up their game to compete."
EdgeXD memberships start at $2.95 for a three-day trial and go up to $24.95 per month for unlimited access. To celebrate the launch of the site, customers can sign up for unlimited monthly access for $12.95 until May 31.
