ROCHESTER, N.Y. — If the owners of BaDoink.com have anything to say about it, their online “Technology. Lifestyle. Sex” magazine will take the place of Playboy for a new generation of men.
A Forbes article profiled Todd Glider, CEO of CM Productions LLC and BaDoink editor John Lane who said there’s a void in the marketplace that they’re ready to fill.
As porn becomes more and more accepted by mainstream, the site is positioning itself to fill the gap left by Playboy — that was “late to get online” —by providing quality articles that act as a gateway to hardcore material for those wanting to take the next step.
Lane said Playboy has lost it. “Now the best they can do is get some has-been actress to get her kit off. It’s got to the point where a star like Rhianna hasn’t even bothered to strip off for Playboy, which says everything you need to know about its cachet. We want to take the concept of Playboy from the 20th century and apply to the 21st.”
“I want people in the coming generation to save all their favorite BaDoink interviews on an iPad, just like their father or grandfather kept old Playboy issues under the bed,” Lane told Forbes.
CM Productions is banking on the strategy to bring in $40 million worth of revenue in 2014, open new markets, and perhaps appeal to more women that the company said accounts for one in 10 of its subscribers.
Pointing to the meteoric rise of Belle Knox's adult career as a sign of the newfound mainstream acceptance of porn, Glider told Forbes porn is no longer taboo.
And if BaDoink’s growth is any indication (it said it’s tripled revenue and staff in recent years), and the inclusion of timely articles like “Surviving the Cyber Apocalypse” and “10 of the Worst Standup Comedians,” peppered with plenty of BaDoink T-shirted porn hotties, the former affiliate “tech business” may just have hit on the right formula for men more who are more used to signing on than subscribing to traditional magazines.
“To continue that growth we wanted to do something new, working with the same demographic but in a less pornographic manner. We can be much more than smut,” Glider said.
Although dressing up hardcore porn and teasing it behind a more respectable firewall is not a completely new concept (Penthouse and Hustler also run quality journalism and men’s interest articles), Glider told XBIZ that he loves those publications but to get to the good editorial, folks have to first register and pay.
And with the inclusion of technology in this digitally obsessed world, BaDoink may simply have timed it right with a new slant and name that doesn’t ring of old school porn.