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Mighty Aphrodite

From Poland to the Czech Republic to the Ukraine, Eastern Europe has had numerous adult entertainment companies in the post-communist era — and another East European country that has been known for its abundance of adult activity is Hungary.

Many adult companies are based in the Hungarian capital Budapest; one of them is FG Entertainment Systems, publisher of MissAphrodite 2012.com.

As we see it, the future of the adult industry will be built on three pillars: unique content, technical quality and interactive features.

A highly interactive website that allows adult models to compete for various prizes and invites members to vote for their favorite models in different competitions, Miss-Aphrodite2012.com brings the fun and excitement of a beauty contest to the adult Internet.

John L, FG Entertainment Systems’ director of marketing, said that with the adult industry having become increasingly competitive, FG needed to be as creative and imaginative as possible — and the result was Miss-Aphrodite2012.com, which FG unveiled earlier this year.

‘Miss-Aphrodite2012.com is a site which is completely different from any other site out there,” John L explained. “Miss-Aphrodite2012.com is a real contest for the most beautiful nude model of Europe, with members deciding which of the girls will receive prizes.”

Elaborating on how Miss-Aphrodite2012.com works, John L added, “Every week, our photographers go to one European city and make photo shoots with six girls there. These photosets are shown on the site, then there is a weekly vote: so-called Round 1, where members decide which of the girls should go to the monthly live show. Winners of Round 1 are invited, with all expenses covered, to Budapest, where they spend two days preparing for a show — which includes extensive rehearsals with our choreographer. On Sunday, there is a ‘live show’ where each of the girls receives her prize: €2,000 each for winning Round 1.”

After the weekly votes, website members go on to vote for Miss Aphrodite of the Month; Luiza, a model from Bucharest, was recently named “Miss Aphrodite for May 2011.” And in April 2012, the winners of the monthly contests will compete with one another in an annual live show in Budapest, where they will receive prizes of €5,000 each. Members of Miss-Aphrodite2012.com will decide who will be crowned Miss Aphrodite 2012 and receive a grand prize of €50,000.

These days, Miss-Aphrodite2012.com is the top focus of FG, which has been in business since 2008. Founded by Dave C and Andrew C, FG was started during a very challenging time for the adult entertainment industry; between the abundance of free erotica, an epidemic of digital piracy and a severe global economic crisis, 2008 was not an easy time to start a new adult entertainment company.

John L said that FG was created “with an idea to bring concepts of ‘ultra-reality’ and interactivity into adult entertainment, while also concentrating on being couple-oriented rather than single-male-oriented.

“The timing for launching our first site was very unfortunate, as it coincided with a very deep crisis of the whole adult industry. It took us a while to realize, the hard way, that most of the common methods used to promote adult sites in the past don’t work anymore, but it seems that we have found promotional mechanics which work for us under the new conditions.”

John L continued: “We strongly believe that these days, it is not enough to show members some ‘pink’ or certain sexual act. We also feel that finding new niches with the escalation of acts being weirder and weirder has already hit legal limit, so no further escalation is possible now. We feel that the only thing which gives an adult site a chance to succeed in 2011 is to differentiate (itself) from the free stuff. To achieve this, we see three possible ways: to have a highly original idea, to have high video/photo quality — which is very rarely found for free — or to have interaction with the site members as an integral part of the site.”

Interactivity, John L, stressed, is a crucial part of MissAphrodite 2012.com. John L said: “Overall, interactivity is so important for Miss Aphrodite that even if all content is stolen, there are still major reasons to join the site: to watch live shows and to vote.”

In addition to John L, Dave C and Andrew C, FG’s team includes Gina H (head of customer support), John T (head of software development) and producers Gary F and Norman P. Budapest-based Misty Mild, who made a name for herself as an adult model in Hungary, was recently hired by FG “to manage real-time post-processing of the photosets coming from different cities,” John L said.

There was a time when Hungary wasn’t the hotbed of adult entertainment activity that it is now. When Hungary still had a communist government, sexually explicit material was illegal in that country. But Hungary’s ban on erotica ended after the fall of Hungary’s old communist government in 1989, and Hungary’s adult industry grew considerably in the 1990s and 2000s.

‘Hungary is a great place to produce adult content,” John L observed. “One big advantage in Hungary is that people are much more tolerant of adult shootings than in the U.S. — even if we’re speaking about L.A. — so it is much easier to arrange for a shooting in an exotic location like a paintball range or a gokart track in Hungary. Overall, people in Hungary—at least in Budapest — tend to take sexual life just as one of (the different) sides of life, without trying to prescribe what others should do. It is one of the reasons why several erotic shows like Erotika Expo are traditionally held in Budapest, and why there are so many beautiful Hungarian models in adult movies released worldwide.”

It’s no secret that the adult Internet is much more competitive than it was back in the 1990s and early 2000s. But that doesn’t mean that creative adult companies with smart business models won’t be successful — and with MissAphrodite2012.com receiving an enthusiastic response, John L and his colleagues at FG Entertainment Systems are anxious to see what the future holds.

“As we see it, the future of the adult industry will be built on three pillars: unique content, technical quality and interactive features,” John L asserted. “And we’re ready to deliver all three.”

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