XRSkills Provides Back End Solution Down Under - and Everywhere Else

Christian, managing director of XRSkills.com, has come all the way from Australia to Chatsworth, Calif. to say to AVN Online - and everyone else within shouting distance - that his company has the solution to the problem, whatever the problem may be.

"This visit is about touching base with old accounts and establishing new ones," Christian says in his youthful Dundee. "We're an independent company; we decided to come up here to develop potential clients. This visit's an opportunity to contact [people like AVN Online] and get the word out." He's been all over the Valley of Sin - and outlying Hermosa Beach, where friends have provided R&B - in a rental van, promoting "one of the premier online adult industry service providers in the Asia Pacific region" (as described on the XRSkills.com site), carrying the message that XRSkills can provide twice the service for about half the money - Australian dollars being at roughly 2:1 to U.S. currency.

"XRSkills formed out of an already-established multimedia company," Christian says. "On the non-adult side, we're experienced with market research, out of which we build tailored, multimedia-oriented solutions for companies. But we got more and more requests from adult-oriented sites, so we decided to develop them separately. XRSkills.com was formed just based on demand" in November 2000.

Their portfolio includes the sites SNEN.com (Sex Net Enter- tainment), EroticFusion.com, and Jenna.com; their efn-tv.com is comprised of streaming broadcast. In re-development are Sex Net.com, SexAsia.com and Planetsex.com.

The XRSkills.com site explains that the company was "conceived as a design house for tasteful, refined yet explicit adult content"; it also specializes in "powerful 'intelligent site' features, such as user tracking, personalization, and tailored advertising to complement our high-end design and multimedia expertise. From stylish design and stunning multimedia to eye-catching banner ads, XRSkills can facilitate the entirety of your front end needs."

As to streaming, "Whether you use REAL, QuickTime, or Windows Media, we've also got your requirements covered by utilizing the latest editions of these great players with our video editing and streaming media preparation capabilities. So whether it's site design or CMS, when you come to XRSkills, you benefit from a sound knowledge of the online adult industry and the new media proficiency required to stand out in the 'driving force' of the Internet."

XRSkills re-developed EroticFusion.com for SNEN; Erotic Fusion Network (www.eroticfusion.com) informs on its member page, "This adult Website is part of a network of top adult/hardcore Websites.... By joining any site in the network, you receive access to over 25 other top adult Websites in EFN... with photos, videos, toys and live chat; SexAsia.com with hardcore Asian/Oriental/exotic entertainment; Ernest Green's fabfetish.com" and many more.

"As you can see," Christian says as he navigates the laptop presentation he's armed with, showcasing XRSkills' services, "we very much approach design as a 'non-adult' business. We're not doing black [backgrounds] and neon text. We've been playing a lot with 3D elements - these elements are all created in 3D. That's a deal we did with [a mainstream media player provider's branch in] Australia, where we provided R-rated content from Jenna Jameson's Roadshow [on DVD] and interviews with porn stars, and we stream it out from there. People can view a teaser for free, but they have to pay for full interviews."

One of the company's most ambitious projects in conjunction with SNEN is the re-development of the site AdultMovies.com. Christian describes, "We're building [it as a] movie search engine for adult movies. We plan to have more than 5,000 titles in the database; they all will be categorized into scenes. We're going a level above something like the Internet Movie Database; we're allowing the user to search, say, for something specific like 'Blondes,' doing a certain act... say you get 20 results; then you can specify the first result, the second, the fifth, the eighth; then you've got a pay-per-view option for the movie selected. You can actually watch the movie after that." The user can tailor exactly what they want to see.

It's a site where users "can cut scenes together, and play movies," he continues. "Every time a scene changes - it's possible to have scenes out of hundreds of movies. We also want to upsell, so the idea is that when a scene plays, you can always opt for [purchasing] the whole video.

"Still doing work here," he says as he shows off a prototype. "We're still going to post promotional specials, info, ad specials - right now we're keeping it open, while we're building. I'm finishing off the front end at the moment; the guys doing the back end, who are putting the publishing system behind it, [have made it so it] actually can be maintained very easily by someone who has no knowledge about the whole thing.

"[There are sites in development that] we want to tie together with another Website," Christian adds, "that provides databases and direct links for strippers, sex toy shops; when you have this many synchronized sites, you want to roll it out cloverleaf - that's one of the reasons we're here - we want to get people involved in our revenue models."

AdultAuctions.com is the enterprise commanding a high proportion of company energy. This venture is being developed with Planetsex Ptyltd [an Australian-based adult company where XRSkills is a share holder), and "DCSLive [Dynamic Commerce Solutions, www.dcslive.com] is providing the engine in exchange for a percentage of the revenue," Christian explains.

Sort of an eBay for adult, Christian does warn that "We do not provide consumer-to-consumer [auctions] at the current stage; what we feel is that we can't control what gets auctioned out, and we do not want to be a platform for illegal content. Everyone's got their freedom to a certain degree; but to keep ourselves safe, in the initial phase, we front for the consumer. So let's say you have stock, something left over; or you have some sort of limited edition magazine, you can register with us, [get approved], then you can auction the product off. This site is targeting the global market. We're starting off in Australia with our marketing campaign. Getting all the press behind it.

"That's another reason we're here," Christian reveals, "to gather content, like signed Polaroids of [adult] stars to sell; another thing we want to use as a marketing trigger is to sponsor a featured auction where we're supporting a charity [adult] foundation, for instance. So we're looking for some of the adult stars to give personal items to auction out that they're not taking the profit from, but that what it makes gets channeled into [whatever] organization [those interested in donating or more information can contact the company at [email protected] - Ed.].

Also available at the XRSkills.com site is a showcase of some of the company's work for different clients; a channel in development for Web WAP and Palm technology; and information on streaming media channel creation and content management. XRSkills' core services include "creative page design; banner ad design; flash design and programming; video editing for the Web; user tracking personalization and Content Management Systems (CMA/CMS)."

"Basically what we provide," Christian sums up, "are some really sophisticated back end solutions in combination with creative [design] work; we want to get away from the dodgy little dot.coms, and bring in the high-class [element]."

For more information, visit www.xrskills.com.