You say you're leery about passing on your credit card information when you decide to jump on in to pay adult Web sites? Well, that's what Adult Dial-in (ADi) is for - it's a new service through which you can, as its creators say, "join without joining" and no one can translate your personal data to conclude you like to spend time in the adult Net world.
"We started this about six to eight months ago," says Peter Whitehouse, co-CEO (with Tony Johnson) of Going Dutch Communications, which created the concept and program.
"In Europe and in the United States, there is a lot of trepidation about handing off credit information to adult Web sites," he continues. "And we found statistics proved that one in five thousand (users) already were converted to credit card paying. And we wanted to know how could we get the missing traffic? If we could dial in on a premium, the household bills would not show the recognized number."
The ADi system also offers Webmasters protection against potential fraud. "It enables an online clock," Whitehouse says, "so that you can see how long you're on. It will show you a popup window at about fifteen minutes saying you have been on that long, and it offers an automatic disconnect at thirty minutes, at which point you can reconnect if you want to. But you can't say that you didn't make the call."
The price is actually 40 cents per minute in the U.S., which Whitehouse calls neither a bargain basement rate nor an outrageous one. In other countries, it depends upon that country's call rate. Certainly, he says, it is far less expensive than the least expensive 1-900 type of call, which he says can hit as high as $5 per minute.
"The interest we have had in this program is quite phenomenal," he says. "Any ADi-ready site is recognized; we allow that consumer option."
In fact, a sizeable number of adult Web sites are already ADi-ready, he says. If an adult Web site has the words "ADi Ready" stamped on its front pages, the dialer software will ask the surfer if he wants to go to the member section - and, if yes, the software will take the user off his Internet service provider and reconnect him to the ADi network and bring him right to the members' section - without having to give up his credit information.
Webmasters finding that, by removing a $2.95 three-day trial, their members are using the ADI system to preview the site, spending more money than if they opted for the the 2.95 trial, Waterhouse says. "Sites using this system have seen no decline in their monthly memberships, in fact consumers involved in our market research have expressed that they would be more likely to by multiple monthly memberships because they can preview the site."
Whitehouse acknowledges, though, that Webmaster reimbursement per minute is less than the conventional high cost premium - but he's betting that a higher volume of traffic from adult Web users taking advantage of such a privacy-guaranteeing option could well make up the difference.
"Privacy for American consumers, and enhanced long-term system for Webmasters, plus a big cutback in fraud," he says. "Tony and I believe this could become something very big and very soon."
To see for yourself and to learn more, visit www.adinetwork.com
