In just two-and-a half years, Pornication has grown to become a major content provider for the adult Internet. And Pornication co-owner Joshua Norber has been blown away by consumer response to his company's product. "It's amazing how much money people will spend on live online sex," he says.
The company's live feeds are extremely popular, particularly the one-on-one shows between the model and the surfer. Not only can the customer interact with the talent via E-mail, but they can actually talk to the model on the phone. Norber estimates that 60 percent of his one-on-one traffic is repeat business due to the shows' intimacy. "I've got customers who call up for two hours and talk," he says. "People are even dialing in from outside of the United States and paying international toll rates to talk to the models.
"We're reaching out to someone and making contact with somebody... somewhere... on a personal level," he says.
Like many adult Internet start-ups, Pornication is enjoying explosive growth. "Revenues double every three or four months," Norber says. He credits Pornication's team of co-owners and their diverse backgrounds for the company's success; Norber and his brother, Jeff, used to run an ISP and the other three owners come from business backgrounds. They've worked out a system in which the company offers its content free of charge to adult Web masters, who get paid a percentage for every upsell purchased through their site. When a surfer sees Pornication's free content on his membership site, he sees a general live sex show. But if he wants to have a personalized show where he interacts with the model(s) one-on-one, that'll cost him $5.99 per minute. Model interaction with the customer is key; when the surfer views the free general show, he can communicate with the model via E-mail. At this point, she'll only "tease" him and won't do what he requests until (hopefully) he feels compelled to purchase the one-on-one sex show. For this, the adult Web master earns a 10-35 percent commission on every minute sold. The more time the Web site sells overall, the higher the percentage of commission the Web master will make.
According to Norber, the system really works. "Over the last year it's gotten so big and it's so much work dealing with it," he says. Currently, they service 3000 Web sites with their feeds and they add about 20 new sites per day. As of mid-November, Pornication had nine feeds that were all-girl or all-guy shows. By December 1, they hoped to have girl-guy feeds available.
Pornication is based in Madison Heights, Michigan. Not surprisingly, Norber says that finding (and keeping) models in the smallish city is one of the toughest aspects of running the business. The company needs people who not only speak and perform well, but who also are reliable employees. "We try to keep our business as clean and legitimate as possible," Norber states. "We pay the models well and we offer things like benefits and tuition reimbursement for the college students. It's hard to get models so we want to keep the ones we have for as long as possible." Considering that in a year they want to have 50 to 60 feeds that offer "all types of sex content," their pursuit of the right talent probably won't be ending anytime soon.
And considering all the benefits... guess if my car ever breaks down near snowy Madison Heights, I'll know where to look for a job.
