The Boston Globe
May 4th, 1998

SCREEN GRABS
Web's red-light district shines in technology, profits

There's no mystery to the popularity of adult-themed Web sites: ''Sex sells'' has been a truism since the beginning of time. Hidden behind the obvious influences of on-line sex are the subtler implications for the Web and for the way it supplies information to all users. The red-light district of cyberspace contains some of the most technologically advanced sites on the Web, nerd playpens stocked with the latest multimedia toys: live cameras, myriad Java apps, streaming audio and video, and a multitude of design refinements engineered to expedite the transfer of large chunks of data from their Point A to your Point B. Adult Web sites have always been early adopters of software and programming innovations because they need to be. Since graphics files, especially video, are notoriously slow to download, it's crucial for adult sites to manage the speed at which they can be shipped across the Web. For example, sex sites began to offer video-conferencing soon after CU-SeeMe software was widely available. The dual appeal of novelty and immediacy that made video-conferencing work in the corporate world also worked in the realm of on-line sex. People (mostly men, but increasingly more women) began to accept the technology and to turn the free-for-all mentality of the Net into what it is today, a motley mix of information that is often free but increasingly for sale.

Web-based business is less iffy than it was two or three years ago, but many Web sites are notorious money losers propped up by corporate sugar daddies until they can generate enough attention to charge advertisers for space, or to charge subscribers for access. Sex sites often do one or the other successfully; few sex-site entrepreneurs have been more successful than Danni Ashe. She's a model and former exotic dancer who parlayed a Net surfing sidelight into a multimillion-dollar Web site, Danni's Hard Drive, which was lauded by US News & World Report as a site that ''may provide the rest of the Web's merchant community with a few important pointers on how to make money.'' Ashe said she applies the same basic marketing principles she learned while expanding her career as a club stripper in Seattle to a touring ''feature'' dancer. ''I can't tell you how many Web sites that I've been to where there is something that you want, but you can't figure out how to buy it,'' Ashe said. ''I spend hours and hours just looking at our site and thinking, `What's the next logical progression?' and `How can we make it easier to get there?''' Ashe, 30, studied basic HTML programming to get her site off the ground in 1995 and now employs full-time developers to design and maintain the site. They are directed to keep the balance between speed and high-wow-factor goodies. There's no benefit to cutting-edge technology if it kills your customer's computer. ''We try to stay away from anything that will blow up on an earlier version of a browser because there are a lot of people who don't have the absolute fastest chip. If you're interested in marketing your products, it's a smart thing to do,'' Ashe said by telephone from her office in Marina Del Rey, Calif. ''I've published a Web site that I think is fun. It's from my sensibilities. It's the level of entertainment that I'm comfortable with and my Web site is representative of that.'' It's also among the few adult sites that are owned and operated by a woman and employ a predominantly female staff, a direct departure from stereotypical images of webmasters as bearded, chair-potato geeks with the social skills of peat moss. ''I've definitely gotten a lot of attention in the press, but there have been instances where I've been invited to speak on a panel, but the invitation has been revoked, '' Ashe said. ''There's still a lot of Puritanism out there.''

And much of it is found within the interactive software industry, which is reluctant to rekindle the nationwide wrath it endured in mid-1995 after a Time magazine story cited research suggesting that most graphics pulled from Web sites and newsgroups were obscene. The study, published by Carnegie-Mellon University instructor Martin Rimm, fueled congressional inquiries into the supposedly inescapable tide of cyberporn that would corrode the nation's moral fabric and trigger Armageddon. While Congress railed, dozens of academics and Net experts immediately, convincingly, discredited it as a sloppy attempt at research. It was too late to prevent the furor from permanently scarring the Internet's reputation and, by association, the stature of the entire emerging on-line industry. So Ashe understands the reluctance of her colleagues to acknowledge the gains of the adult-entertainment segment, in the same way Hollywood has never openly acknowledged the contributions of its cousins in the adult video biz. Two decades ago, the availability of adult videos spurred sales of videocassette recorders, which in turn increased sales and rentals of mainstream videos. The rising porn tide lifted all boats.

Webcam diva Ana Voog returns to her musical roots tomorrow with the on-line release of her latest CD, ''anavoog.com.'' It's a dance electronica disc named after her popular Web site, whose main feature is the updated-every-other-minute eye into her world, called the Ana Cam. Voog embodies and embraces the title of performance artist, with the cam as the chronicler of her longest-running performance, her life.

By Michael Saunders, Globe Staff