Naked ambition: Scott Coffman always wanted to find a fortune. He believes XXX marks the spot, where silicone peaks meet Silicon Valley.

• Author: Goldberg, Steve
• Position: Feature - Brief Article

It looked like a surefire formula for a financially successful Web site. "Sports and sex -- you'd think you couldn't really lose," Scott Coffman says. His allnudesports.com featured daily 15-minute sportscasts anchored by naked women, with a sprinkling of comedy skits based on the latest scandals in the sports world.

The sportscasts were delivered via streaming, the technology CNN and other media companies use to play video and sound over their Web sites. Its launch was greeted with much ballyhoo: Fox News and other national outlets did stories, and the site claimed more than 6 million visitors a month. Advertisers signed on - mostly other adult sites, online casinos and Viagra pushers. Some used banner ads. Others had the nude anchors make their pitch.

But in nine months, allnudesports.com was dead. Its set, hidden in a Charlotte office park, was dismantled. No more strippers as anchors, no more skits, no more nude wrestling. The naked grapplers had become a Friday staple in preparation for a spinoff -- allnudewrestling.com.

The founder and president of AEBN Inc., which launched allnudesports.com in September 2001, sings a familiar dot-coin dirge in explaining his site's failure. "The ad market is completely gone," Coffman says. Prices for banner ads declined from $8 to 50 cents per 1,000 clicks on the site.

Not that he had ever planned for the Web site to be a moneymaker. Its purpose was to channel customers to Coffman's other business -- AEBN -- and it did that. Those initials stand for Adult Entertainment Broadcast Network, and it doesn't mix replays with its foreplay. AEBN sells pay-per-minute porno online. Coffman came up with it after trying -- and failing -- to get rich by making and selling board games, comic books and sports memorabilia, among others things.

He predicts that AEBN, started in May 2000, will generate $10 million in sales this year -- up 400% from 2001. "The show wasn't a terrible strain, but AEBN's board of directors wanted profitability now," Coffman says. Pulling the plug on ailnudesports.com, combined with the increase in sales, allowed the company to turn a profit in May, he says.

What makes Coffman's sites different from other online porn purveyors is its ability to charge by the minute, thanks to proprietary software. It works like this: Web surfers purchase blocks of time, from 15 minutes for $3.95 to 300 minutes for $29.95. They can use their time to watch one video or dozens, with unused time being saved for later viewing. The reason for the setup is simple: "Guys tend to not want to watch the whole movie." About 2,000 people a day make purchases, he says, with the average being 100 minutes, at $11.95.

AEBN's offices are in the same small office park that used to house allnudesports. Across one street is a bakery thrift store; across another, a vegetable-oil refinery...