INDUSTRY NEWS

After seven years of legal wrangling and 1.3 million dollars racked up in legal fees, Gary Kremen finally has his lucrative baby back. Sex.com, the sought-after domain name, was initially acquired back in May 1994.INDUSTRY NEWS

After seven years of legal wrangling and 1.3 million dollars racked up in legal fees, Gary Kremen finally has his lucrative baby back. Sex.com, the sought-after domain name, was initially acquired back in May 1994. At the time, domain name registration was free and Internet regulation was, well, pretty much unregulated.

A few days after the official registration, Kremen visited his site, only to notice that someone else had falsely transferred the registration. That someone is Steven Michael Cohen, whose whereabouts are unknown. The best Cohen could do with the potentially highly-profitable site was turn it into a disorganized, third-rate site that was accessible by kids.

Now that Kremen has his domain back, what does he plan on doing with it?

He has aligned himself with some of the more well-known and talented webmasters in the industry. Through these alliances, Sex.com is slated to be a mega portal and search engine directory.

Kremen has chosen a management team put together by Daron Babin to run Sex.com. Babin is better known in the adult webmaster community as SE Guru.

“Sex.com now has the ability to stand up and be a moving force within the webmaster community,” says Babin from his office in Houston. “We have the ability to be all things to all people.”

What exactly is going to be the mission of the new Sex.com?

According to Babin, Sex.com’s ultimate goal is to have long-range business partnerships with webmasters, both large and small, domestic and international. “Sex.com will be a portal/directory that will encompass a large number of communities, as well as a mega search entity,” says Babin.

Babin acknowledges that at first, it won’t be possible to take in the small, neophyte webmasters, and eventually, as a potential business model, Babin says that Sex.com may one day have a bid for placement model on the site’s listings.

As of April 1, Babin says, “The old, nasty, dilapidated Sex.com will be no more.”

“We will shift Sex.com entirely to a different model … we want to do business with as many webmasters as possible all over the world.”

As the new deal became apparent to the adult online community, Babin says, “Everybody and their brother’s uncle is coming out of the woodwork.”

Sex.com will remain in its current form, mainly advertising leading to pay sites, until the target date of April 1.

Babin states that this business model will eventually help even the smaller webmasters: “Let’s say a new webmaster has awesome conversion ratios that are unsaturated but really needs a boost in the right direction … we’re willing to do business with those kinds of people.”

Will Sex.com have stringent quality control? Considering the present sentiments of webmasters who believe that there is too much saturation in the industry, how does Sex.com plan on being something for everyone?

“With quality control,” says Babin, “comes good quality support for webmasters. We want it to be painless as possible for webmasters.”

One example of quality control mentioned by Babin is key word matches. “We’re going to make sure that content matches key words a webmaster is bidding on.” Also, Babin’s team (including six other people in the Houston office) will check for site loading times to make sure that browsers aren’t being “killed.”

“My team will make sure that what your (the webmaster) intentions are with us, match the intentions of the surfer within a particular category of key word area.”

Sex.com will certainly have tons of traffic, therefore says Babin, “We don’t have to do business with anybody that has had questionable business practices.”

With all the big boys barking at Kremen’s door, why did he choose SE Guru’s team over the likes of Cyber Erotica, RJB Telecom, and Wired Solutions?

“We feel honored and humbled that Gary chose us,” says Babin. “There is no ill will among the other companies and myself.” Babin thinks that ultimately, his team was chosen because it has a good marketing network with the ability to target traffic, and perhaps most importantly, he adds, “We listened to Gary; we didn’t boss him around.”

Kremen echoes Babin’s amicable feelings: “Ron Levy (Cyber Erotica) is a genius, but I think our plans are better suited for Daron’s team.”

Although Babin and his team of developers will be the hands-on force behind Sex.com, Kremen will ultimately have a final say in business plans. It’s a bit ironic that Kremen, who seven years ago acquired the suggestive Sex.com tag, only considers himself to be involved within the adult industry for less than six months. Kremen is also well known for starting the largest dating service, Match.com.

When asked how he got into adult internet, Kremen replies, “All I did was register the name Sex.com, then the next thing I know, it was stolen by a six-time convicted felon.”

Kremen demonstrates a self-depreciative sense of humor and he acknowledges that he is “not that bright.” The one shrewd thing that Kremen has done is to surround himself with intelligent and talented people. “The people I’m hiring are so much more knowledgeable than I am in the industry.”

One of the people that will be on Babin’s team is Greg Geelan, YNOT Network President, who will serve as a legal consultant for Sex.com. Additionally, Scott Rabinowitz (a.k.a. Traffic Dude) is in charge of advertising sales for the site.

Kremen also mentions that there is a reward for information leading to the apprehension of Steven Michael Cohen, who stole the domain Sex.com from him, according to the judge who tried the lawsuit. Webmasters can direct their inquiries relating to the reward to Susanne@law.com.

Ultimately, what Kremen and Babin hope to accomplish is to have a webmaster resource area within sex.com that will continue to educate webmasters in search engine placement. Says Babin, “The industry as a whole will get smarter and the sponsors will like it more. There won’t be as much shit traffic and more sales will be converted.”

And for webmasters, isn’t that the bottom line?

INDUSTRY NEWS

(more…)