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December 30, 2007

Zivity Founder Bares All To Promote Her Startup

Michael Arrington

63 comments »

Zivity is definitely one of the most controversial startups of 2007. It’s the first (as far as we know) adult site to have received Silicon Valley backing, including an announced $1 million angel round. And they certainly livened things up at the TechCrunch40 conference a few months ago. They went last, and their demo contained enough nudity to make much of the crowd shift uneasily in their chairs.

But that isn’t the end of the controversy. The site, which we first covered in August, allows models to upload photos to the site and gain followers. As people vote for models, real dollars flow to the model and photographers who were involved in the shoot. And one of those models is co-founder Cyan Banister. She’s uploaded one set of photos for the beta period, without nudity. Next week, she says she’ll add another set that includes topless photos, and may go completely nude in the future.

Banister says that a few years ago she would not have even considered taking her clothes off for a camera. But she isn’t new to getting attention for her looks. In 2000, when she was just 22, she won the “Sexiest Geek Alive” award. When starting Zivity, though, she knew she had to, as she puts it, “eat her own dog food.” For most founders that just means actually using their own product. But for Cyan, it also means taking off her clothes and modeling for Zivity.

So how popular is she with users? The beta has just 500 users so far. Cyan has gathered 25 votes, putting her on the leaderboard of the most popular models. But she’s still well behind the no. 1 model, “Pearl,” who has 117 votes.

Expect more news on Zivity in the next several weeks. They are expanding their beta users (this will be a popular one for our readers), and will soon let in more of the 20,000 people who have signed up to get a look at the site.

Lots of founders say they’re willing to eat their own dog food to support their startup. But how many will shed their clothes?

Zivity was also one of the 100 startups nominated for the Crunchies Startup Awards in January.

Zivity
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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 2:25 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Blern

    December 30th, 2007 at 2:23 pm

  2. The Drama 2.0 Show

    December 30th, 2007 at 7:46 pm

  3. rebeculous blobulation » Blog Archive » zivity - good porn business model

    January 6th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

  4. The Woodwork » Blog Archive » Geek. Set. Match…

    February 1st, 2008 at 5:29 pm

  5. Zivity Founder Bares All | Daily Tech Bits

    April 20th, 2008 at 8:18 pm

Comments

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  1. Pat Phelan

    December 30th, 2007 at 2:39 am

    Hmmmm
    Thinking about doing the same on MAXroam Mike
    Buy the sims or I take my clothes off :-)
    what do you think? will it work?

  2. Jon

    December 30th, 2007 at 2:39 am

    Hmmm… there’s an idea for attention but I don’t think I want to see the founders of Google showing off their assets to promote their newest launch of Google Talk although the Zipperfish guy you wrote about yesterday did come close. I don’t see entrepreneurs stripping for prospective VCs and Angels to get some $$$ anytime soon though.

    Jon

  3. Michael Arrington

    December 30th, 2007 at 2:45 am

    Pat - I won’t if you won’t, and everyone will be happy. :-)

  4. Boris

    December 30th, 2007 at 2:50 am

    When we visited SF last year to do a little promotion for Fleck.com we went skinny dipping in the hotelpool every night. But hey, we are Dutch: http://www.flickr.com/photos/p.....181272264/

  5. Paul Montgomery

    December 30th, 2007 at 3:01 am

    So she’s going to get naked and also eat dog food? Kinky.

  6. Jacob

    December 30th, 2007 at 3:25 am

    500 people in the beta and they make the award finals? wow! Who was left out so Zivity could get in?

  7. mojaam

    December 30th, 2007 at 3:38 am

    Zivity’s CEO Cyan Banister http://www.digatechgirl.com/images/img_93.jpg got 25 votes behind the #1 model Pearl http://www.flickr.com/photo_zo.....amp;size=o with 117 votes. I can see how that’s justified. Anyways, how on earth is this business model going to last long with thousands of free models/photographer networking sites and flickr and the rest of the free stuff (yeh porn) on the internet? Only celebrities might be able to make this work.

  8. johns

    December 30th, 2007 at 3:53 am

    Yabba-Dabba-Doo, Barney!

  9. MP3Nation

    December 30th, 2007 at 4:24 am

    Hey can we be a part of the review committee of Zivity????

  10. TechnoQ

    December 30th, 2007 at 4:26 am

    What a way to promote a site.
    Yippeeeeee

  11. xenbet

    December 30th, 2007 at 4:47 am

    Its pretty sad if you have to bare all for a PR stunt. It should be more about the product that about nudity.

    And who the heck voted the girl “sexiest geek alive ever ” ?? she doesnt look all that sexy or attractive.

    —————————
    http://www.xenbet.com

  12. Mattias Johansson

    December 30th, 2007 at 5:39 am

    Who is the guy that is high on drugs in the audience in that demo?

    :) And why is this thing on techcrunch? It seems extremely vapour, since they haven’t even launched the beta yet?

  13. Igor The Troll

    December 30th, 2007 at 5:44 am

    Michael seriously, why not tell Googel to go take a flying hike?

  14. Jeff O'Hara

    December 30th, 2007 at 6:21 am

    Yawn…

  15. Lapp

    December 30th, 2007 at 6:45 am

    I could think of worse things to look at naked! Will you all visit my site if I start stripping?

  16. Ron

    December 30th, 2007 at 6:54 am

    Stop covering adult sites. They’re evil.

  17. Florian SEROUSSI

    December 30th, 2007 at 7:14 am

    Pat - Don’t go trying any Full monty stupid thing!! I can’t partner up with a nudist…

  18. sage

    December 30th, 2007 at 7:29 am

    xenbet (comment #10), it’s a porn site!
    So taking it all off it IS about the product.
    Save your entrepreneurishialispeech for the right time.

  19. lawrence

    December 30th, 2007 at 7:37 am

    she’s not even sexy, big deal.

  20. vic

    December 30th, 2007 at 7:39 am

    most of the animals on dogster are already naked. show me something new.

  21. Bingo

    December 30th, 2007 at 7:44 am

    So this is what women have to do to get funding in the valley. Why am I not surprised.

  22. Mik

    December 30th, 2007 at 7:55 am

    Correction Mike, these girls are not “models” but “adult actresses” and the people taking the photos are not “photographers” but “guys with cameras” …

    It’s sites like these that give the modeling profession a bad name, when they have nothing to do with modeling and real fashion photography. This site is more like http://www.hotornot.com.

    So where is the money that is to pay the “models” and “photographers” coming from?

  23. Andy

    December 30th, 2007 at 8:10 am

    This is pretty depressing stuff. There’s a lot of good things about America, but it’s when I read about this sort of thing that I’m glad I’m at the more enlightened side of the Atlantic. May Zivity flop like the erections of a thousand sniggering teenage boys.

  24. Andrew

    December 30th, 2007 at 8:54 am

    they better get some google maps on that site. lol.

  25. David

    December 30th, 2007 at 9:03 am

    I’ll make a bet that this site (http://www.southern-charms.com/) will always kick the crap out of Zivity.com in terms of page views, and revenue generated and I’d bet they didn’t raise a single dollar of VC money.

    Seems like a lot of work for the Zivity folks when the market is already mature and generating crap piles of cash.

  26. Dan and Jennifer

    December 30th, 2007 at 9:08 am

    “Correction Mike, these girls are not “models” but “adult actresses” and the people taking the photos are not “photographers” but “guys with cameras” …”

    No, not that! How dare they? And Michael Arrington is “a guy who started a blog”. :-)

    And Pete Cashmore started one too. Oh No! Whatever shall we do? How can these regular “guys” try to do something without the stamp of approval from the ivory tower crowd?

    Of course that’s exactly what the old guard media’s been saying about the blog explosion. It’s sad to see that naive and unsupportive perspective in this forum though.

  27. mikebee

    December 30th, 2007 at 9:11 am

    Dear lord, please folks, pay her not to reveal more. Whoever told her she was attractive was doing so out of mercy.

  28. Zoli Erdos

    December 30th, 2007 at 10:28 am

    “they certainly livened things up at the TechCrunch40 conference a few months ago. They went last, and their demo contained enough nudity ”

    Mike, I think you’re already promoting next year’s TechCrunch 80 :-)

  29. made my day

    December 30th, 2007 at 10:29 am

    #27 - rotflol! You have a way with words my friend!

  30. Zoli Erdos

    December 30th, 2007 at 10:30 am

    The best job at Zivity: User Experience Director:-)
    http://zivity.com/about

  31. EH

    December 30th, 2007 at 10:38 am

    That “about” page is pretty wacky. Is there some connection between facial hair and masturbation?

  32. david

    December 30th, 2007 at 11:07 am

    I think this is a great business model. Also, pretty great she’s willing to be on the site. I just saw her LinkedIn profile and saw that she’s actually pretty geeky and that’s hot.

  33. elegance

    December 30th, 2007 at 11:51 am

    nothing like a little bare skin to promote your services

    http://tinyurl.com/244asc

  34. Ryan

    December 30th, 2007 at 12:49 pm

    [Note: My opinion from a United States view on sexuality]

    The funny thing is, I think a girl taking naked snaps of herself in front of a webcam would generate as much money for her as this site. Sharing your money with a photographer will only eat into your profits.

    The way I see it, a shot of a woman’s breasts in good lighting and bad lighting is about equal to the guy or girl getting off on it. Look at the adult film industry as an example of how much quality people are looking for in production and anything un-related to sex appeal.

    What this site will try to do is provide some sort of societal legitimacy to taking your clothes off. They want everyone to believe this isn’t porn. If you create a perception that you’re taking your cothes off in the name of art, you don’t feel like you’re doing anything “wrong.” But the truth is, if photos of you naked and spread eagle find their way to coworkers’ desks or the local check-out boy’s computer, no one is going to come to you commenting on your modeling talents.

    I don’t doubt that this site will ensare a good handful of women who thought about modeling nude, but were afraid to because they wanted it to be tasteful. I have had quite a few female friends admit this clandestine desire and, in fact, even had one admit that she was considering Zivity after stumbling upon it.

    Safety of the models would be another concern for me. I would highly recommend any Zivity models doing a shoot with one of their photographers to bring a big, burly friend who isn’t afraid to open the can of whoop-ass. They probably(?) do background checks on the photographers, but getting naked, alone in front of a stranger in a highly sexualized situation should be cause for concern. Being a professional doesn’t mean you’re not a pervert. Rape and molestation are the most under-reported crimes.

    Now I understand that no one has to take their clothes off in order to model on this site. (Though it will be interesting to see how many photographers accept a shooting schedule with a girl who checks off she doesn’t do nudity) The girls who are gorgeous will probably be able to break into the top ten just by teasing the audience. But the majority probably will opt to take something off - they’re purposely creating competition on the site for a reason.

    Re: Dan & Jennifer,
    Just like with this website trying to create a perception of legitimacy with nudity, perceptions, valid or not by your measure, exist about how content is released.
    The moment you release something on the Internet only that can be hung in an art gallery, you create a sense of lesser value. The moment you create a money-backed voting contest, you undermine the quality of the art. (Yes, pretty much all great, valuable art is a popularity contest, but the stage on which they achieved it was more “legitimate.”) You’re free to think it’s pathetically sad, but at this point in time, it’s the reality. Here’s a good, befuddling example of perception: A jacket without an Adidas logo? $20. Same jacket with a tiny Adidas logo? $80.

    This site is like an amalgamation of the Suicide Girls and Stile Project Camwhores models. They say they have patented their voting system, but I wonder if any other voting sites would like to challenge that patent.

    Porn is successful no matter where it is on the Internet. So congratulations Zivity, making money off the backs of curious, oftentimes troubled, young adults. You’re not the first and you certainly won’t be the last.

  35. iHero

    December 30th, 2007 at 1:36 pm

    I think if you have faith in your business model you shouldn’t have to get naked for it — cause once you get naked on the internet — well — you are naked forever.

    But now if she just wants to get naked — as long as she realizes the backlash from advertisers for the rest of her business life — so be it.

  36. Richard

    December 30th, 2007 at 2:01 pm

    Ah, I’d love to see how much more attractive the authors of the comments are who claim she’s not really that hot.

    Apart from that, I think it’s sad that it’s a service focusing on naked girls only. Having the only female founder undress to promote the service reeks of sexism, and even though I personally wouldn’t care about them much, but having guys undress would at least give the service some balance.

    And at least the above mentioned authors could prove how much hotter they are.

  37. Humble Pie

    December 30th, 2007 at 3:09 pm

    Ryan: You know, paying people for their time, effort, and content is becoming more and more of the norm now — i.e. Mahalo, Revver, Google’s forthcoming Mahalo/Wikipedia clone, Wikipedia (ya, they’ve started paying illustrators now…and more will likely follow), Gather, YouTube (which has started a rev-share with their top contributors, but will likely open it up further in the future), Kasidie.com and a host of other magazines are paying for articles, interviews, etc, and the list goes on and on and on… and is growing all the time.

    And now, with an economic downturn in the cards, users will likely have a NEED to start using the sites where they actually get something in return for their work.

    Startups need to stop exploiting their users and start sharing the “love”.

  38. ALLABOUTHEUGC

    December 30th, 2007 at 3:55 pm

    finally.

    humble pie #1! look at the wga strikes people. artists want to get compensated for their work. good on ya’ zivity.

  39. pamon

    December 30th, 2007 at 4:05 pm

    all for it… she’s pretty nice… will check out the site… nothing wrong w/ adult sites being covered but would prefer to see them covered in a separate tab of TC vs the mainpage. If viewed f/ work environment, might get 2nd stares

  40. Sarah Meyers

    December 30th, 2007 at 4:12 pm

    Wow! She is profiled here: http://www.topwebcelebrities.com/

  41. Lateral

    December 30th, 2007 at 5:46 pm

    Well, I think it’s shit.

  42. Rick Cook

    December 30th, 2007 at 6:36 pm

    “It should be more about the product that about nudity.”

    Yeah, but in this case the product _is_ nudity. :^)

  43. Allen Stern

    December 30th, 2007 at 6:50 pm

    sarah - check out the spam comments on that site - they are pretty bad :(

    even on your page

  44. M. Dillon

    December 30th, 2007 at 7:47 pm

    Judging from the large number of comments on this post,I say that Zivity will quietly become a hit. Last time I’d checked,sex STILL sells.

    Also,it’s worth noting that the Adult Industry STILL generates billions of dollars yearly(online included). Which is another reason,that Zivity will do well. Not to mentioned Social Networking Sites,as well(which is what Zivity is doing).

    Plus,last time I’d checked,Cyan Banister,not only,helped create Ironport;but,sold it to Cisco,for what I’m sure,is a nice profit. So that tells Me,that Zivity has strong mgt. to help this company become a hit.

    In closing,after reading the various replies to this post,I have come to the conclusion that many of the critics of Miss Banister,and Her Company based their comments on emotion;and,not logic. “Cattiness”;and,not facts. Therefore,one can’t take too seriously the advice of mostly,”Catty” men,who are devoid of facts,and living near,”SanFran”,in regards,to stating if Cyan Banister is attarctive;or,not. Which,in my opinion,She is not only attractive,and smart;but,VERY sexy,as well.

  45. s

    December 30th, 2007 at 8:27 pm

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tAgKXvkqLo

    I showed my husband the clip above and asked if there were a completely confidential photo shooting sessions like that with female photographer, he’d pay for that to preserve my image, and the answer was ‘yes.’ -Cyan, you don’t have to take off your clothes to promote your site. You still have a lot more you can do, just by being a woman.

  46. Webbyist

    December 30th, 2007 at 9:19 pm

    Nice stunt but she should leave the baring the to others.

  47. other

    December 30th, 2007 at 9:20 pm

    # Sarah Meyers

    December 30th, 2007 at 4:12 pm

    Wow! She is profiled here: http://www.topwebcelebrities.com/

    LOL - well, thats one way to show that you are on the site as well. By the way, like #43 pointed out, that website is complete shit.

  48. Chris T

    December 30th, 2007 at 10:47 pm

    That girl is f-ugly.

  49. digital-lifestyles

    December 30th, 2007 at 11:06 pm

    Cool! Hope this will inspire others too.

  50. joe

    December 30th, 2007 at 11:13 pm

    beauty is completely subjective.

    the fashion industry has made it so easy to just state off the cuff comments like “that girl is f-ugly” because you are so far removed from the person in the picture. in this instance, these are real people, who enjoy what they do. real people who might read tc. would you just tell random people they are f-ugly to their face or is it the safety of the internet and the anonymity that makes you such a f-tard?

  51. johns

    December 31st, 2007 at 12:47 am

    @48Chris

    Really Chris? How about putting your mug up so we can compare?

    IMO, she’s beautiful. I certainly wouldn’t be embarrassed seen walking down the street with her…..

  52. buckster

    December 31st, 2007 at 1:29 am

    whatever…………………………..

  53. Bob

    December 31st, 2007 at 7:50 am

    I will wait until the pictures of her, two midgets and a donkey are posted. Most websites I visit have topless photos of women. Oh wait scrap that last sentence. What I meant to say was, go digg.com

  54. heather r.

    December 31st, 2007 at 10:42 am

    i agree with richard. why limit submission to female models? there need to be more scantily-clad male geeks in the world. more scantily-clad male anything, really.

    but aside from the gender restriction, zivity’s call for models is way too broad. suicide girls works because it’s clearly targeted at the indie/rockabilly/we-like-chicks-with-tats crowd. i don’t see a vision like that associated with zivity thus far.

    one of their submission disclaimers is that “Sweethearts” (bleggh) may be rejected “depending on what we’ve got.” nice and pc, but also a surefire way to waste a whole lot of time wading through submissions that don’t conform to your undisclosed parameters.

    how about instead of being uber vague and “open” you just tell us what you want, zivity? i highly doubt that you’re just waiting to see what you get. and if you are, well, that’s not a very good model (har).

  55. Pearl

    December 31st, 2007 at 11:09 am

    I commend Cyan for her vision and courage.

  56. andrew

    December 31st, 2007 at 12:57 pm

    Cyan rocks. I hope Zivity succeeds at changing the adult industry for the better.

  57. Barbie

    January 2nd, 2008 at 2:29 pm

    Web 2.0 and adult industry… its about time. Add widgets to the mix and you have a recipe for success. Imagine if you used a widget platform, like Clearspring http://www.clearspring.com/ and as a model had a widget of zivity profile. Then users would be able to grab that widget, and using Clearspring’s Launchpad service, they could “virally” spread the widget to other social networking sites. This would earn money for the model, and advertising for Zvity. Very cool!

  58. Sarah

    January 5th, 2008 at 12:27 pm

    Nudity (and/or sexuality) IS the product, for one point.

    And to those who say she’s not gorgeous, well, you are free to have an opinion. But remember that not everyone agrees with you either. Insulting someone just makes you look shallow.

    I think she’s gorgeous and kudos for being brave and confident enough to post pictures.

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