A powerhouse of creativity and business savvy since 1996, Atlas Multimedia Inc, has produced many of the top standalone Websites in the industry. They've built their reputation by specializing in the production, hosting, maintenance and advertising of porn star Websites, reseller programs, merchant sites, and just about every type of adult video and content site under the sun.
Needless to say, it's been a busy seven years.
Of late, Atlas Multimedia has introduced a second version of their highly successful Porn Star Dollars affiliate program, originally rolled out on 1998. "Webmasters can make tons of cash by promoting our porn star and video company sites that they normally would not have access to," said Christian Amico, the company vice president. "Porn Star Dollars started with only a few porn star sites. It has grown to include 18 sites and two spin-offs of reseller programs, one for Red Light District Video and one for Seymore Butts."
He adds, "Our Webmasters love the program and most have been with us since the beginning. The majority of them have fan sites for our clients and this helps them make some money doing something they love."
Headquartered in Woodland Hills, CA, Atlas consists of seven employees, five in-house and two designers in Canada. "Basically we started out building Websites for the general public," says Donald Osterholt, president of Atlas Multimedia Inc. "A friend of mine introduced me to Brian Grady at iGallery who showed me their downloadable software that can access their live studio girls on a pay-per-minute basis. I took this software, built a Website around it and put it on the Internet."
Osterholt said the Website made about $8,000 the first few weeks, with an outlay of zero dollars. Then he placed an ad in the Los Angeles Times and sold it for close to $35,000. "I took that money and built a whole bunch of turn-key sites and sold them to people all over the world," he says. "We had a bunch of sales people who back then had to explain what the Internet was. We had no money, no investors, no partners, nothing. All we had was an idea and we made it work."
Today, with some 400 commercial adult Websites produced by Atlas, Amico says there are two specific reasons why they've been able to build and maintain success. "Having the official site for some of the top girls in the industry gave us a lot of room to work; the traffic that comes from all of them is as good as it gets.
"And," he adds, "we pay our clients every month, no matter what." Amico also mentions the company's motto of accessibility as a vital factor. "We actually answer the phone so you always have someone you can talk to."
Much like a house of fashion that designs exquisite couture dresses to the exacting needs of individual clients, so too does Atlas work closely with talent and companies to devise original Website proposals to fit their preferences. They currently manage around 30 pay sites and about 100 free sites. "We like to have our clients involved as much as possible in the designing process," says Amico. "The sites are usually a reflection of their personalities. Sometimes our clients wish to not be involved. That's when we all have to pull together and come up with some pretty creative ideas."
Osterholt, says there' s no magic potion. "The only secret I can tell you is that we build sites that we would like to see," he says. "What makes us stand out most is our network of sites. When a potential client comes to see us about taking over their site, being that we have so many and we cross promote them, it's really beneficial for a new porn star or adult video company that doesn't already have a Web presence."
In early 1997, Atlas built their first "official" porn star Website, NiciSterling.com. A snapshot listing of other Atlas clients includes Racquel Darrian, Tawny Roberts, Kobe Tai, Ginger Lynn, Stacy Valentine, Renee Larue, Lezley Zen, Metro Video, Red Light District Video, and Seymore Butts, to name a few. "We are kind of a one-stop shop for those looking to put up a site but don't exactly know what to do," says Osterholt.
"It was wonderful," adult star Tawny Roberts says of her experience working with Atlas on TawnyRoberts.com. "They're always right on top of everything. It was really easy to work with them. I'm really happy with the look of it."
While they've worked with companies like CE Cash, Babenet, and Python in the past, Atlas currently deals with a select few outside companies, such as Matrix Content, MallCom (who handles Atlas's video, DVD, and product sales), Webmaster Central (for membership feeds), VideoSecretes (for live shows), ARS, and their hosting company, SplitInfinity.
Atlas and MallCom have recently formed a partnership on reseller programs and various cross promotions of Websites. "It seems to be working very well," says a pleased Amico.
The adult market has become a lot more crowded since Atlas debuted, but the team remains keen on identifying fresh marketing strategies and keeping brand name recognition highly visible to Webmasters. "The Web market has gotten seriously saturated in the past two years. Our clients' names market themselves, because there can only be one official site; that helps our sites to stand out above the rest," says Osterholt. "But we're always keeping up with the latest marketing trends and constantly re-vamping our sites and reseller programs."
Amico's graphic design career began in New York City, where he created Websites for mainstream institutions like Tommy Hilfiger, Macy's, and the New York Islanders. "I started to fool around with porn sites back in 1996, and a friend and I registered about 20 names, one of them being Porn.com," says Amico. "We took that site from generating $500 a month up to making some serous money."
During the course of producing Porn.com, Osterholt contacted Amico about coming aboard at Atlas to work on various projects. "Flying back and forth from the East Coast once a month for about a year, helping Don with some new projects, was starting to get hard," says Amico, "so he made me an offer to come out and help run the Website part of Atlas Multimedia, and I have been here ever since."
The Webmasters have been there ever since, as well. "It's very important," says Osterholt about their connection to Webmasters, "because if you're going to have successful sites, you're going to need the help of the Webmasters.
"Just look back at all the top adult Web companies and most all of them were built from successful Webmaster programs."
Amico adds, "We constantly interact with our Webmasters, and they sometimes give us great ideas that we wouldn't have thought of ourselves. If it wasn't for some of them we would be where we are today."
And where Atlas stands today is as a company thriving on the adult Internet, continuing to push the bounds of imagination and commerce. "We have a bunch of new projects in the works," Amico reveals. "One of the bigger ones is a talent search contest where we will be giving out $100,000 to the winner," details of which are forthcoming.
The state of the adult Internet industry is always a hot topic for debate. Are we up? Are we down? And while many have said that the industry is on an up-tick, Osterholt notes that times of flux often push his team to pick up their level of play, to borrow a sports metaphor. "We have seen a small drop in revenues," he says, "but that only pushes us harder to find some areas that can be improved, and to come up with new and innovative ideas."
Amico is the first to admit that, just like any industry, the adult Web will go through its ups and downs, "but the Webmasters who run all these other adult sites," he says, "are a creative bunch, and between us all, we'll stay ahead of the curve."
