Would George Bush approve?
Zapata, a Texas-based fish-processing company founded by the former president, agreed to buy Bianca's Smut Shack, one of the most venerable erotica sites on the Web.
The purchase, the terms of which were not disclosed, is part of Zapata's (ZAP) plan to enter the Internet directory and community business, taking on portal players like Yahoo and Excite. The Smut Shack will become one of the features of ZAP, Zapata's Internet venture.
"We're looking for sites that are unique and have a nice feel," said Avie Glazer, Zapata’s CEO, "and there aren't a lot of sites of this ilk out there."
The buyout is a financial godsend for BiancaTroll Production, which produces the Shack along with Bianca.com, an alternative online community and chat center for adults.
"We've been on a shoestring budget for five years," said co-founder Dave Thau.
Bianca.com's audience is loyal and big. The site's 10 communities, or shacks, attract an average daily audience of 80,000 unique visitors that view more than 1.6 million pages, according to the company.
The Bianca sites will join the 21 other Web properties Zapata has invested in or acquired since early July. Zap's Net holdings include search engine Starting Point, music retailer Mass Music, and finance site Daily Stocks. Zapata previously acquired ezines Word and Charged.
ZAP's strategy is different than other portals. Whereas the directories of Yahoo (YHOO) and Excite (XCIT) serve as jumping boards into other sites, ZAP wants to keep its visitors around longer with offerings found nowhere else on the Web.
"Other portals are like flipping through dictionaries," said Glazer. "We want ours to take advantage of capabilities a computer can offer. We want visitors to start and end their Web experience at Zap."
Founded in 1954 by President Bush, Zapata started out as an energy producer. A few years back, it switched its main business to squishing fish and making sausage casings -- lucrative businesses, but nothing remotely as sexy as the Web.
Earlier this month, Zapata said it would split itself into two: Zap, and its traditional fish-processing business.
So far, Zapata hasn't gained the respect of either Wall Street honchos or the digerati. People who follow the Internet business literally laughed when Zapata offered to buy No. 2 search engine Excite for US$1.7 billion in April.
But Glazer, whose family owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team, remains unfazed. "This is the beginning of something grand," he said. "At the end of the day, I think people are gonna be shocked by what we've created."
