The year 1996 especially stands out as a year in which many web entrepreneurs sowed their oats and created online success stories, and even more impressively, many of those companies are still around continuing to innovate.
So pop the corks and raise the champagne glasses as XBIZ recognizes companies that mark a decade of success in 2006.
Epoch/Paycom
Founded a decade ago by Joel Hall and Clay Andrews, Epoch/Paycom has grown into one of the most successful and widely known adult third-party payment processors.
“Ten years in the adult billing space, especially the last 10 years, is a monumental achievement,” Epoch Communications Director Rand Pate told XBIZ. “There were no instruction manuals about how to conduct financial business in the highest risk market on the web. Through perseverance and determination, as well as having a select client base, Epoch has stood the test of time to become the oldest Internet payment service provider in adult entertainment.”
VS Media
VS Media, parent company of VideoSecrets and Flirt4Free.com, also celebrated 10 years in the industry. Flirt4Free.com, the company’s premier interactive webcam site, has attracted some of the biggest names in porn to perform live shows for fans, including Jenna Jameson, Tera Patrick, Gina Lynn, Ron Jeremy, Carmen Luvana, the Vivid Girls and male talent from the Falcon Family of Companies.
Cybersocket
Cybersocket, also founded a decade ago, is the parent company of GLBT Internet and provides a search engine, several email newsletters, an annual guide to the GLBT Internet and the nation’s largest free distributed gay print magazine, with a circulation of 70,000 issues monthly. The company is universally recognized as a leader in the gay online marketplace.
Webair
Internet hosting company Webair celebrated its 10th anniversary recently as well by becoming accredited by ICANN, which allows the hosting company to provide services to online companies of all varieties and sizes to sell top-level domains at discounted prices. The New York-based company currently offers .com, .net and .org TLDs for $5.99 or less, and will be adding other domains such as .mobi soon.
FriendFinder
The preeminent adult dating community FriendFinder.com is celebrating 10 years of new-age hookups. Founded in 1996 by Andrew Conru, the success of FriendFinder has spawned more than 20 multicultural and multilingual personals sites with 130 million-plus registered members.
The online personals on FriendFinder span the gamut from those interested in sexual encounters to a romantic date or a lifetime partner. Other FriendFinder personals sites were created to cater to groups with special interests. The company developed niche-oriented sites that target different age groups, religions and ethnicities.
Brendon Marley
Gay content producer Brendon Marley celebrated 10 years in business by launching his latest reality website Brendon.tv. The site features a collection of more than 200 hours of Marley’s home sex videos. Marley began his adult career with Like-Em-Straight.com.
MenOnTheNet
Gay portal MenOnTheNet.com reached a milestone for written content after 10 years on the web, passing the 15,000 story mark for its erotic fiction archive. The site currently comprises a directory of more than 28,000 gay erotic websites, among them the Erotic Stories Archive. The archive typically receives around 30 story contributions per week, according to editor Craig Kasparek.
ASACP
Founded in 1996 by XBIZ President Alec Helmy with the mission of eliminating child pornography online, the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) marked its 10-year anniversary this summer. ASACP battles child pornography through its reporting hotline and by organizing the efforts of the online adult industry to combat child sexual abuse.
SEXMoney
When SEXMoney.com entered the adult arena in 1996, its main focus was on converting international traffic through browser language detecting links, multilingual sites and scripts. With the increase in free sites, TGPs and link lists specifically in the U.S., SEXMoney.com diversified its portfolio to focus more on U.S. webmasters. The affiliate program now operates more than 250 paysites in a variety of niches. The Amsterdam and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based company is owned by Cyberservices B.V. and also runs a successful phone sex operation.
Cubik Media
Tim Valenti and Greg Lindberg founded Cubik Media, the parent company behind Naked Sword, in 1996. Today, NakedSword (which began in 1997), through its innovative membership model, allows users unlimited access to an online library of 4,000 full-length titles from more 100 studios including Falcon, Jet Set, Titan Media, All Worlds Video and Raging Stallion.
Venus Berlin
Venus Berlin has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade and has grown enough to gradually replace a smaller fair aimed exclusively at the German market.
As a testament to the show’s success, this year it drew 355 exhibitors from 32 countries to demonstrate and exhibit their products, 5,597 retailers from 58 countries traveled to Berlin to sell their products and services and more than 24,500 consumers attended the fair, which took up eight exhibition halls. Additionally, international media coverage of the show was abundant show organizers said, with 717 accredited members of the press attending.
Eurowebtainment
Eurowebtainment, one of Europe’s largest trade fairs for Internet entertainment and telecommunications, celebrated its 10th anniversary Oct. 19-20 in Berlin. The show features programs similar to its American counterparts, such as legal, technology and business seminars as well as late-night socializing.
Silvercash/TrafficCashGold
Silvercash and TrafficCashGold also trace their roots back to 1996. Both companies continue to operate leading adult webmaster affiliate programs with many successful paysites.
XBIZ
Founded originally as a webmaster resource site, Alec Helmy has maneuvered XBIZ into the adult industry’s leading B2B media organization. The company has grown to include XBIZ World and XBIZ Video magazines, two annual tradeshows, a star-studded awards show and the recently-launched adult entertainment fan site XFANZ.com.
