Increasingly, online adult companies are becoming one-stops for both consumers and webmasters. Videos, magazines, books, DVDs, toys, lingerie, and website services - you name it, more and more companies have it. WebZotic Inc. (www.webzotic.com) is one such company.
But with so much competition, what do you to set yourself apart from the others? In the case of WebZotic, it's finding and filling a niche: the company is exclusively all Asian, all the time, for all media outlets.
Shawn Dolven, CEO and President of WebZotic, didn't begin his career in the adult industry, but in Arizona, with a little start-up called TriStar Computer Corporation (www.tristar.com), a leading manufacturer and direct marketer of high-performance 3D graphics and animation computer systems, workstations, and servers. Dolven sold his interest in the company in 1991, and spent the next three-and-a-half years consulting on various manufacturing projects in Malaysia and Singapore. He moved to Los Angeles in 1995, where he opened a CD manufacturing facility in partnership with a division of Toshiba - which, interestingly enough, paved the way for his entry into the adult business. "I was doing replication for a couple of adult companies as well as for a few music companies in the LA area," Dolven relates. "I decided that adult was where I was seeing the most profits and consistent orders, so I wanted out of the straight manufacturing business. I had developed some industry contacts in Japan, and being married to a Japanese woman, I decided to move in that direction."
Dolven says one of WebZotic's most significant relationships is with a 20-year-old Japanese adult video and publishing entity whose sole specialty, like WebZotic, is Asian content. Dolven says thes affiliation enables WebZotic to broadcast exclusive content over every possible media outlet; WebZotic currently boasts a library of over 150,000 photos and over 1800 hours of video, with magazine rights to a large volume of Asian material as well; just a few months ago, WebZotic purchased three Asian adult websites from adult hosting company Windy City Inc: AllAsians.com (www.allasians.com), JapanPussy.com (www.japanpussy.com), and Urabon.com (www.urabon.com).
WebZotic is also using its connections to protect the copyrights of both Japanese content providers and their American counterparts. Currently, they're working with BayTSP (www.baytsp.com), a Northern California company that offers services and technology that tracks illegal content use and child pornography [see "A Plague Upon Our House," page 210, this issue - Ed.], ensuring the protection of American content in Japan and vice versa. "Language barriers and the reluctance to claim ownership of some adult material makes Japanese copyright infringement relatively easy," says David Grieshaber, Chief Technical Officer for WebZotic and co-founder of Geisha House (www.geishahouse.com). "We are working with BayTSP to put an end to that."
Dolven says the company is also starting up a new website/message board, at www.underaged.com, allowing webmasters and surfers to report on and discuss suspected child porn.
Just over 18 months ago, WebZotic entered into a partnership with Larry Flynt Publications (LFP, www.flyntdigital.com) that covers advertising, copyright protection and the development of adult e-zines. "The business relationship with LFP came by association of a close personal friend in a top management positon there," says Dolven. "Our business relationship with Flynt is based on several different business, personal, and advisement situations. It's a very strong relationship, and is key in our Internet and business-package development."
The company has a full production office in Tokyo, as well as offices in LA and New York; a fourth office was scheduled to open in Paris in September. But despite its growth and success, Dolven says things weren't always so easy for the company. "It took some time for us to establish the business relationships that we wanted," the CEO recounts. "There were also some legal issues that we had to deal with given the nature of the laws regarding pornography in Japan."
"Specifically," Dolven explains, "in Japan, any portion of a photo or video that shows genitalia must be digitally masked or obscured. But because we own the rights to our video and photo masters, we can release them legally in the US without the masking."
Currently, WebZotic is releasing one new adult Asian DVD per week (videos come out every second week). Webmasters can offer WebZotic DVDs and videos (over 250 titles and growing) for sale on their sites, receive a percentage of the sale and get a free video player for surfers to watch clips.
WebZotic has also introduced a new affiliate program for webmasters called the "True Partnership Program." Under the TPP program, webmasters pick a free domain name from WebZotic's database, design the front end of the site, and choose free content from WebZotic; webmasters are only responsible for marketing the site and sending traffic. In exchange, WebZotic gives webmasters 50 percent of the profits and also pays for bandwidth, updates and the server.
And if those are not enough one-stop services for webmasters, the company also offers numerous pay sites, free sites, a line of sex toys from Japan, an online guide to brothels worldwide, Asian Messaging with chat, online books (including an animated Kama Sutra), Asian dating and tour services, and live Asian video chat. "Our aim," says Dolven, "is to provide our content over as many media channels as possible, creating a distinct WebZotic brand name."
Sounds like mission accomplished to us.
