Just a few days ago my friend, bigdave sent me a invite to Zivity. A new interesting website that I was first introduced to at the techcrunch40 conference in San Francisco last fall. Zivity was probably one of the most memorable of all the companies seeking funding on the TC40 stage. Having half naked women roam around while you explain what your company does will do that. They did not win, but while I forgot most of the 40 companies Zivity is one that stuck out in my mind.
So what is it? Well Zivity’s founder, Cyan Banister says “Zivity is a cross between Myspace, Playboy and American Idol”. I would have to agree so far… except I would add in digg somewhere in there. Basically photographers and models submit their photos where users can vote on them. Each user gets 1 vote when they get an account (for now) then they have to purchase more votes. You can also friend both model and photographer and “follow them” if you will. So how adult is the site? Well after hours of investigation I would say 80% of the photo sets on the site contained some nudity and about 30% of those showed complete nudity. Its very well done though with a lot of class. There are some very skilled photographers and really beautiful models on the site.
So it’s just another porn site? But “classier?” no… not quite…. Its actually a pretty awesome site with a lot of nice web 2.0 features. Also its the first “Adult” website to get VC funding so far raising 8 million dollars!
Its VERY hard to get an account (thats what she said) on Zivity but tonight on the shoemoney show live on webmasterradio.fm at 5pm CST, 3pm PST founder Cyan Banister will reveal a special code for Shoemoney listeners which will allow them into the beta (which is VERY limited ATM). I think Cyan will be a very interesting guest talking about how Zivity started and the opportunity for people to make money with it.
If you have any specific questions you would like me to ask her please post in the comments.
Ill tell you who I voted for on Zivity… cause I know people will ask. I voted for pearl:
and no… it wasn’t cause I met her at the Techcrunch Awards and she put me in this cool hat… ok it was… =)
So make sure you tune in tonight to the ShoeMoney show on webmasterradio.fm
