IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Spread4U.com
This week we are excited to have Barry from Black Dog Unlimited as our “In The Spotlight” guest. Graduating from the University of Toronto in 1993 with a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science, Barry and his wife Hazel started Black Dog Unlimited in 1999 to sell Spread4U live feeds.IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Spread4U.com
This week we are excited to have Barry from Black Dog Unlimited as our “In The Spotlight” guest. Graduating from the University of Toronto in 1993 with a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science, Barry and his wife Hazel started Black Dog Unlimited in 1999 to sell Spread4U live feeds. Hazel handles all the day-to-day details while Barry keeps the site running and looks out for new business opportunities. Check out what Barry has to say!
YNOT: Hey Barry! Great to have you with us this week, and it was a pleasure meeting you and Hazel up in Montreal earlier this year at the Cybernet Expo. So what’s new over at Black Dog Unlimited? What’s your main goal over there?
Barry: Until now it has simply been to provide the best live up-sell content on the Internet – no BS. Of course that is still our goal but right now we are concentrating our efforts on innovation. We are not the biggest player in our field but we are growing rapidly, and we know that to get ahead we have to give the Webmaster something he can’t get anywhere else.
YNOT: What are you giving the Webmaster that he can’t get anywhere else?
Barry: Starting soon we will be the only live content provider to offer Webmasters 24-hour always-live always-nude video chatrooms for free. No strings attached. We were also the first provider to offer simultaneous phone connections in our private chatrooms for free. But aside from our superior content, we’ve always strived to offer superior customer service to both our affiliate Webmasters and their members. We’ve also patented our software.
YNOT: Cool!
So, can you take us for a little ride down memory lane? After you graduated from college what were you doing before you got involved in the adult industry?
Barry: OK, but it’s NOT an interesting story.
YNOT: That’s alright. It doesn’t have to be. In fact I’m sure there are plenty of Webmasters out there that will be able to totally relate…
Barry: Well… I was a computer programmer for about six years and getting pretty tired of it and I knew I wanted to do something on my own. My office was pretty laid back but it was still too corporate for me. I didn’t fit in there, so I managed to fake it for six years. I don’t regret the experience I got but I hope I never have to work in another corporate office again!
I remember that I saw a story on Dateline about the couple that runs Wetlands (an amateur housewife site) and how much money they were making. I asked Hazel what she thought of starting an adult website, thinking she would slap my face but she actually liked the idea. At first we thought we would start a regular membership site but after researching the industry I realized that live content was the future (it was still 1999) and private video-chat in particular was underrepresented in the market. And so Spread4U (http://www.spread4u.com) was born.
YNOT: How tough was it for you to get off the ground with your new business?
Barry: I have to admit that when we started Spread4U we were real beginners. We were preparing for nearly a year but looking back I wish we had done even more research. Even more importantly I wish we had made more contacts with others in the industry earlier on. At least our entire first year was purely a learning experience. But all that has changed now. Of course we are still learning and always will but that first year was the worst.
YNOT: Well that is certainly not uncommon.
Got any good stories you can share with us? Perhaps with one of your models?
Barry: I have one model who has been with us forever. She loves sex and attention, so money is only half the reason she’s on our site. One of her special talents that her regulars love is her ability to squirt huge when she orgasms. Now squirting has never been a turn-on for me, but I don’t judge. The thing about this model is that every time I talk to her on the phone, she has a new squirting story for me. Since she’s been working for me I must have had 100 phone calls with her, and I’ve heard about 100 squirting stories. She really is unable to let me go without first telling me how she got a great squirt off last night in her chatroom and how much her regulars loved it. I guess it’s her way of letting me know that she’s doing a good job.
YNOT: Wow! Well, if you want, give her my phone number and I can give you the updates if you don’t want to deal with it anymore. I can let you know if she is doing a good job!
On a more serious note here, are there any changes you would like to see made in the adult Internet industry? Any areas of much needed improvement and some suggestions on how to fix them?
YNOT: Sounds like you might have a less than positive outlook of our industry?
Barry: The immediate future looks rather bleak – at least for some companies – due to the new Visa regulations. It seems that the credit card companies are determined to beat us all into submission, whether we were doing anything wrong or not. But the industry as a whole is not going anywhere, so once the dust settles many new opportunities will undoubtedly open up.
YNOT: Where do you see yourself in the long run?
Barry: At first I thought that I could use my adult business as a springboard to start a “legitimate” business. Soon after that I decided that there was no reason to leave the industry as long as I was making money. Now all I want to do is earn my million and retire on a beach somewhere. I can describe my plan in one word: Spread4U.
YNOT: Very nice! Any closing comments you’d like to share to anyone just now getting involved in the adult Internet?
Barry: Do your homework before you enter the business and do something ORIGINAL.
YNOT: Thank you so much for your time this week Barry! It was a pleasure.
Be sure to check out http://www.spread4u.com and hit up Barry at barry@blackdogunlimited.com if you have any questions!
Do you know a Webmaster with a great story to tell? Someone innovative, unique or perhaps even entertaining? Tell us about this person for future consideration to be “In The Spotlight” here at YNOTNews!
