OFFICIAL
79.0
pretty good |
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Content
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| Quality : |
16.0 / 20 |
| Quantity : |
14.0 / 15 |
| Entertain : |
12.5 / 15 |
| Updates : |
9.0 / 10 |
| Exclusive : |
3.5 / 05 |
| Download : |
1.0 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
56.0 / 70 |
| Navigation |
| Easy : |
8.0 / 10 |
| Features : |
3.5 / 05 |
| Design : |
2.5 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
14.0 / 20 |
| Other |
| Originality : |
5.0 / 05 |
| Hard Facts : |
3.5 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
8.5 / 10 |
Scoring Criteria New
New Update!
As of Aug 15th, 07, price of a site is no longer factored into the overall score/rank. |
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| Editor: Duke |
Initial Review: 07-19-05 |
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1. Keyword search tool.
2. Active forums, chat, & personals.
3. Large photo collection.
1. Non-exclusive pictures.
2. No videos.
"A busy and active BDSM community site with a large picture collection too." |
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Bondage.com is as much a community as it is a paysite. The photo gallery collection, while substantial, is only a portion of a site that might best be described as an online interaction center for bondage and BDSM fans. Their "About" page gets right to the point by describing the site as striving to "deliver an exciting, educational, and erotic experience to BDSM enthusiasts and the BDSM-curious alike." Other than saying they're located in San Francisco and started the site in 1996, there isn't much more info provided about the company. That's okay though since the features and site itself are self-explanatory and easy to use. Setting aside things like the store and video plug in feeds there are really three main things members are paying for: photos, community features, and BDSM information.
The photo collection totals over 75k BDSM, fetish, and general porn pics. It's a whole lot of non-exclusive pics that can be browsed rather easily by file set. For narrowing things down a picture search function is offered that allows for selection of criteria like orientation, people, attributes, and date added. Even further filtration can be done through an advanced search feature. Some of this stuff is interesting and some isn't, it truly is a mixed bag. The same goes for the picture quality which varies from set to set. I do like how they have sections highlighting the new pictures, user’s favorites, and most popular, I found those sections to be the most interesting.
The key to Bondage.com or any community site for that matter is the number of users. I mean who cares if they have talk features if there's nobody to interact with. It's in this area that Bondage.com shines. They highlight the site statistics showing their user numbers. During my review session I saw 600+ users online and 12k+ active users that day. In the chat rooms I found lots of users having conversations and the forums had thousands of posts including a many topics from the current day. The topics cover everything you might think of from BDSM to current events. The bottom line is Bondage.com has a ton of enthusiastic users and in my opinion that's the real strength of the site. Lots of personal ads of all kinds are online too although I can't judge the quality level during my review time. All I can say is if the other features are any guide then it's likely to be a decent place to find BDSM and other playmates.
The BDSM information on the site comes in the form of BDSM U articles, columns, and Q&A. It's all in article form so it's not the best organized info especially when it comes to definition and reference. Still, there's a lot to read and overall this material is an important asset to the site. For those interested a separate "Words" section called words houses the site's erotic stores of which there are over 1,100.
This site isn't for all BDSM fans. This isn't the right place for those who just want content collections of pictures and videos. Other sites do a better job of that. At its heart Bondage.com is a community and in that area it stands tall. Oh yeah and the one thing I really, really like about the site is the title, Bondage.com has got to be one of the easiest to remember domain names around. I guess that's a benefit of having gotten into the game back in '96.
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