A strong sense of ethics, dedication to a core business model, and the will to succeed can take a person – or a company – pretty far. Just ask the folks at VideoSecrets (www.videosecrets.com). Nine years after Greg Clayman and Constantine “Chuck” Tsiamis founded the Adult online entertainment powerhouse, it’s one of the few “Web originals” still going and growing strong.
“We mean business,” president Greg Clayman says. “We’re all about business. We all work together as a team, and we’re taking things to the next level.”
Clayman could have added “constantly” to the end of his statement. Since its inception, VideoSecrets, also known as VS Media, has pushed the envelope in its primary field of endeavor: live interactive entertainment.
“We’ve been doing live video from Day One,” Executive Vice President and partner Tsiamis says. “We constantly adapt to make it the most appropriate, clever, up-to-date product on the market. We’re scalable, adaptable, and able to change on a dime in order to grow.
“People are always going to be connecting,” he says. “All we have to do is keep pace with the people. That’s our puzzle.”
Evidence of VideoSecrets’ ability to keep pace can be seen in abundance at the company’s flagship online operation, Flirt 4 Free (www.flirt4free.com). The Web site recently underwent a remodeling, and the result is nothing short of stunning. Technically slick and attractively designed, the site works staggeringly well when one considers everything that had to come together “just so” to make it possible. The vast selection of live chat rooms available at any given moment offer video and audio feeds, as well as a text interface. Many offer user-controllable cameras that pan, tilt, and zoom to an almost infinite number of angles. Amazingly, none of the Flirt 4 Free technology requires additional plugins on the client side, nor does it require adjustments to security settings, a super-duper connection, or a computer with all the latest bells and whistles.
In conjunction with the Flirt 4 Free facelift, VideoSecrets also launched a new product, Flirt 4 Free VIP (www.f4fvip.com). Unlike Flirt 4 Free, which is operated on a “pay-as-you-go” basis (pay per minute), Flirt 4 Free VIP offers members an all-inclusive smorgasbord of exclusive content for one monthly fee. It also features special incentives for frequent users, archives of past live shows, and free access to live feature shows that normally charge by the minute. Affiliates earn 50 percent referral fees for all VIP signups and can join the program at VSCash.com, which also has been revamped to provide Webmasters more of what they wanted. VSCash 2.0, launched in November, provides more detailed traffic stats, a Java applet that will embed live chat images directly into an affiliate’s pages, free hosted galleries, and more advertising tools.
Now the exclusive live-performance and interactive chat home of Adult superstars like Ron Jeremy, Tera Patrick, Jenna Jameson, Gina Lynn, the Vivid Girls, and the Falcon guys, Flirt 4 Free, and Flirt 4 Free VIP also feature themed sex shows and live interactive chat with dozens of uninhibited, if lesser-known, girls and guys from around the world. Their mission, according to Clayman, is to draw users into their worlds and show them a good time with sincerity and warmth. Sometimes that mission includes one-on-one “sex chats.” Sometimes it includes dispensing advice for the lovelorn or the socially inept. Sometimes it simply involves being someone who’s willing to make a connection with a distant stranger who feels disconnected in a world that’s increasingly technologically cold and impersonal.
The site, and VideoSecrets itself for that matter, is not so much about sex as it is about forming relationships, Tsiamis asserts. “We’ve had several marriages [between cam girls and users] arise from it,” he says with a certain satisfaction.
The somewhat surprising revelation is not out of character with VideoSecrets’ philosophy, the company’s founders note. “Our philosophy is to grow the company with a ‘home cooking’ kind of feeling,” Tsiamis says. “It’s a small company on the inside. We care about everybody who works here.” Clayman adds that VideoSecrets employs a rigorous selection process for every model and studio with which VideoSecrets contracts. It seems only natural, then, that romances might develop in an atmosphere that fosters camaraderie, honesty, and integrity above all else.
“We have studios in 30 countries on four continents, and we’re working on one in South Africa, which would make it five continents,” Tsiamis reveals. The studios employ the models, and VideoSecrets contracts with the studios – after they meet some pretty stringent standards. “First, we perform an IP test to make sure they have the bandwidth to meet our needs,” Tsiamis says. “They also have to have attractive performers, and the broadcaster must convince us its business and its performers will provide good, solid service. They can’t be ‘ethically challenged.’”
Ethics, in all its many incarnations, is a resounding issue for VideoSecrets. “We consider ourselves the world’s largest professionally operated live video chat service,” Clayman says. The phrase “professionally operated” is important, he notes. By that he means the company, its employees, subcontractors, and affiliates keep their noses squeaky clean because “we’re in this for the long haul,” Clayman notes. “Ethics is a huge thing for us.”
Paraphrasing a well-known axiom, Tsiamis further defines the company’s view of ethics as “doing the right thing when no one’s looking and you can get away with doing the wrong thing. We have a responsibility to our users to fill the void in Adult entertainment. We have a responsibility to the performers to provide them a safe, profitable working environment. We have a responsibility to our affiliates to give them the best program available, and to pay them what we owe them. We feel like our success is largely a product of doing things the right way, treating people fairly – and hanging on when everyone else has let go.”
“Hanging on” is no small feat with an enterprise as active as VideoSecrets’ is. During peak hours, the Flirt 4 Free Web site features 55 female models, another 40-plus male models, and four or five transgender models. The goal is to provide “the ultimate interactive experience” while having something for almost everyone, Clayman explains. VideoSecrets also has signed exclusive deals with some of the largest straight and gay Adult entertainment studios in the world to provide “marquee content” to webmasters who want to license it at VSContent.com. “Our competency and core concentration is live video,” Clayman says. “We do what we do best, and we don’t veer too far from that unless there are complementary products and services we can provide to our partners, our affiliates, and our users.”
The future looks busy for VideoSecrets, as well. In keeping with complementing its core competency with related products and services, the company is working on strategic alliances that will allow users to watch a live performance by a major star, and then buy video-on-demand or a DVD from that star’s catalog. Clayman says VideoSecrets is exploring the penetration of new markets, notably Asia and India, and trying to come to grips with technology that will allow live chats on televisions in hotel rooms and living rooms. Perhaps most exciting for him is the company’s impending leap into mobile multimedia, which he projects will happen within the next six months. “Things are all set to go,” he says. “We’re just waiting for the technology to catch up with us.”
For his part, Tsiamis says expanding relationships into new areas is a natural evolution of the path VideoSecrets always has followed. “We’ve branded our name very strongly over the years,” he avers. “We’ve also co-branded with some of the biggest, strongest names in the business. Our future plans won’t change our core business – they’ll just add new dimensions.
“We’re in this to challenge ourselves,” he says. “We’re going to continue to grow.”
