I wrote two weeks ago that Zivity founder Cyan Banister was not just an executive at her adult-focused photography startup, she was beginning to model for it as well. At the time, though, she was still partially clothed.
Now, she’s starting to go “full monty.” She appears topless in five photos included in a new set titled “When in Paris.” I’ve included one (censored) image above.
Shocking? Somewhat. But as I said before, at least she’s eating her own dog food by modeling for the site. She doesn’t just do this to promote the site, though. It’s also a form of self expression. In an email she says “I don’t take my clothes off just to promote Zivity. I also do it for the model community and for myself. I want to change how people view nudity and beauty in the same way major television shows opened our minds about other issues…I really enjoy being on Zivity and being nude and sexy in photographs is enjoyable! I look at my photos and I smile. That’s my body. I can do what I want with it. It is beautiful. Nobody can take that away from me.”
“I started Zivity because I believe in empowerment business models that enable people to be entrepreneurial,” she added.
Whatever the reasons, people like her pictures. She’s currently no. 8 on the list of top models. Banister is also doing other photo sets that are being added to Flickr. See the NOT SAFE FOR WORK images here and here as examples.
Zivity has a unique business model that pays models and photographers directly based on the number of user votes they receive. The more votes, the higher they go on the leaderboard and the more money they make. About 40% of gross revenue is given directly to the talent. They first launched at the TechCrunch40 Conference last Fall. The company raised $1 million in seed funding in August 2007.
Zivity is still in private beta and slowly adding the 20,000 or so people on the waiting list.
i love web 2.0
Just a new way of “prostitution”. You make pictures that are nude, I pay you money for it. Old stuff in new linen.
She seems to have the material for it. Power to her I say.
Uhh .. prostitution requires sex smart guy
Damnit mike, this image is STILL not safe for work. NSWF doesn’t mean overt porn, it means something you wouldn’t want your boss walking by to see. F*** put up a logo or something, or be prepared for pissed readers come 8am EST.
other – really? Is there an actual definition for the term? And is this really porn? I assumed that word had evolved to mean actual sex.
yup, I’m being honest, I continue to visit your site for some reason, earning you ad dollars, not like the people using feedreaders. For people like me and those who use feedreaders with images turned on, *this* counts as NSFW. I wasn’t being facetious. And how can you argue NSFW meaning “don’t let your boss/coworkers/janitor catch you seeing it”? THAT IS WHAT IT MEANS!
Also, I think you meant to say (or maybe didn’t, in which case you are just wrong) that “porn” has evolved to mean a lot MORE than “actual sex.”
meh, it’s fine.
lol, damn you.
Also, I wish to point out to fellow readers that at ~11:30pm, Mike was thinking about monkeys and naked women.
Ha Mike! That’ll teach you!
hah
Agencies actually provide a lot of value, but I love the fact that a start-up pushes the industry envelope
do you have to be nude to pose on this site? is there a Non-nude site mabe?
other: forget EST… that’s not what I wanted to see first thing in the morning GMT! I stand by my comment on a previous post on this subject. It’s depressing that we’re in 2008 and this sort of thing is still prevalent.
Zivity giggity.
Stella,
Only 50-60% of the photo sets on the site right now contain nudity. I think that ratio is likely to continue.
From the site:
“Zivity is OK with nudity. Bodies are real. Naked women are beautiful. But nobody here is going to make you take your clothes off. That would be uncool. Wear what you love. You can wear a ski outfit if it makes you feel sexy. See where you land on our “Comfort Chart” and be sure to tell your photographer…”
http://zivity.c...els/participate
I think I managed to buy my GF the same underwear, who knew!
This is hot stuff, folks would be foolish not to get in line.
I usually find “porn” tasteless and inexpressive. This is a shining example of how you can have class and express yourself in your full beauty. I fully support this sort of “porn” if you will…
Porn 2.0 if I may call it !! What scares me is that the success of this kind of a site making ways for the others to try a similar business model. Maybe Myspace is also thinking about adding another new module to keep its viewers coming bacl
Lets hope it doesn’t have any domino’s effect and we don’t go back to the early days of web again when sex, port were the most searched words !! We can do without these
Since when is taking your bra off ‘full monty’? You guys need to get out more. Visit a beach in Europe or something. Don’t women breastfeed over in the US? Americans are so scared of boobs it’s hilarious. No problem letting kids buy guns, but show some flesh and it gets hit with an R rating.
So the female co-founder is the only one who has to “eat her own dog food”? How beautifully backwards.
Give the lady her dues !
she leads the way in believing in the model of her business.
Good leaders show by example
and there she is on that path..
That’s unfair… if I posed in my underwear for my site, people would need barf bags!
The photographer on this site sucks and is a one trick pony. If you look at all of the Flickr photos published so far, every one of them is the same spotlight ‘deep in headlights’ look. Overly harsh lighting, you can see specular flash reflections in some shots.
Spend some funding on hiring better photographers.
What’s this? Are there no better businesses to report? what’s next, porno-crunch.com?
@needlegun
I guess this gives you two options
A) get yourself into shape
B) buy some stock in ACME barf bags “R” Us
This is NOT anywhere near porn, I don’t even find this remotely suggestive… magazines at the checkout counter show more explicit stuff. It’s an interesting business model, looking forward to seeing how it evolves / degrades as it is going along a very thin line. We all come and exit this world in the same way, there is nothing to feel ashamed about if you are proud of what you have been able to build with hard work and sharing it with the world.
Jon
http://woodmarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
Sad, sad, very sad – all that content should just be cut and pasted on a blog – posing as an innovative startup with a common business model already used on endless porn sites is very wrong. This site is identical to any domain farmer’s porn clusters that link with innocent tags ‘nude art’ or ‘expression’ on the front page/home page (that gets indexed by Google, etc. and can be overlooked by federal sex offender prosecutors).
The General’s Commission on Pornography, reiterates federal prosecution is important in the area of child pornography offenses, which as of late spurs from adult sites, many of which look and act like the site featured here. Less importantly, the photo above is worth nothing even if it’s from the founder and has 13 eyeballs on it, and will only depreciate further now as there is endless supply of it indexed already. The founder in the pic above would be safer trying to research nudity on the internet first before posing as a legit business with some clothed women – the CEO’s Club which was recently shut down at 1 Market Street, SF, is an prime but unfortunate example of how the rich, arrogant, and ignorant don’t slow down enough to learn the consequences of their daily quick fetish fix, even more so if at a public site or place.
Is this similar to Iwant2bapornstart or whatever its called ? its a site that allows anybody to post semi-nube/nude/porn pics/vids of themselves and users can purchase a subscription to view the full content of the site or pay just for a contributors vids/pics. They even allow you to download/save to your computer.
but im impressed with this founders attemtp for media coverage , its working girl – keep it up.
————
http://www.xencasino.con
That other lady in the stream looks like a future Joan Rivers.
Richard
I’d bet she’s the only one anyone could remotely WANT to see naked…
It’s a good idea, and she’s doing the right thing anyway. People need to lighten the hell up when it comes to self-expression and the beauty of the human body.
People in the USA in particular. We think nothing of starting a war (at least, not until it doesn’t go so well for us), but nudity?!
OMG! Someone needs put a stop that that ASAP! Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl — ACK!
“No problem letting kids buy guns, but show some flesh and it gets hit with an R rating.”
wtf? you are an idiot.
Love the concept, the site design, and obviously Cyan too
when we released our new feature “Dare a Friend” at bragster.com last week, as co-founders we also had no choice but to lead by example… fortunately it was all about downing pints
see: http://www.brag...r.com/dare/7791
Hi
This article is out of context, based on the perceived objectives of the site.
Moreover, you are likely to discourage traffic.
As said by other readers, to browse this @ work could put many of us in trouble.
Last, but not least, this:
a) only promotes treating women as objects, rather than persons,
b) downgrades love to sex to a sport contact, and happiness to casual pleasure
If you want porn, the list of sites is endless.
Aspiring and established models and photographers, who don’t want to be associated with porn, should try http://www.solomodels.com. It has been around for several years, is Web 2.0, has high quality work, and the site is kept clean of porn and predators. It even has an IPhone interface among numerous other useful features.
Its official…..I like zivity
For the record, I am OK with seeing this first thing in the morning. The black bar is a nice touch. All you need now is the word ‘CENSORED’ in flashing white letters.
She looks great.
@vanessa
“For the record, I am OK with seeing this first thing in the morning. The black bar is a nice touch. All you need now is the word ‘CENSORED’ in flashing white letters.”
it’s web 2.0…that black bar is prime advertising space. “CENSORED” is a waste.
I’m sure Michael will pay a pretty penny to get “TECHCRUNCH” across her children…and when I say children I mean her boobs!
She looks great….and I would never work for a boss who cared what I was looking at. Oh, and I work at a church, so technically my Boss made her.
“Zivity has a unique business model that pays models and photographers directly based on the number of user votes they receive. ”
Not sure what’s so unique about that. Isn’t that the typical web 2.0 payment model? Pay based on popularity, visits, votes, etc.
all for promoting your site, but agree a NSFW image on the title of the post would help. digg does that for some.
Michael… covering this one and adultfriendfinder’s sale, maybe you should open up an adultcrunch site?
This is Web2.0.. Everything is an object.
“She looks great….and I would never work for a boss who cared what I was looking at.”
Thanks, but in like 90% of workplaces, your boss does care what you look at.
Once again, Cyan lives up to her word. And the photos are stunning.
you gotta love a founder than can pimp herself for traffic
And the user who has voted most for Cyan, by far, is user ‘techcrunch’
Micheal has always had fixation with Porn and related subjects. He never misses to report even a tiny feature change on the well known Porn sites.
I don´t care about what is called “porn” or “nudity” or “art”, but I think that this “entrepreneural view of the models” is just crap.