14 DAY TRIAL // I mean it, that's the way to go about your business if you're the founder and executive of an adult photography startup, you're sexy and strongly believe in what you're doing. Sadly enough, I wasn't able to get access to the ranks of the site's testers that are still tweaking it, so I can't present screenshots taken myself.
The one you see in the left was captured by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.com, who mentions that in an e-mail, Cyan Banister, the model I mentioned above, says that she's not posing without her clothes on just to promote the site, but that to her that's also a form of self-expression: "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."
As a business model, Zivty is pretty original in its approach: the models and photographers are paid depending on how many votes their respective pictures receive, which is the modern interpretation of "the more, the merrier" as I see it. Out of the total revenue being made this way, 40 percent is directed at the people doing the work, which is pretty much. Michael Arrington notes that the company managed to raise 1 million dollars in seed funding in August 2007.
There are many on the waiting list (about 20,000 they say) as access to the pictures hosted on the site is not so easily granted. A shame, really, I was really looking forward to seeing what it is all about.