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Content
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| Quality : |
16.5 / 20 |
| Quantity : |
14.5 / 15 |
| Entertain : |
12.5 / 15 |
| Updates : |
8.5 / 10 |
| Exclusive : |
4.0 / 05 |
| Download : |
3.0 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
59.0 / 70 |
| Navigation |
| Easy : |
7.5 / 10 |
| Features : |
3.0 / 05 |
| Design : |
3.5 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
14.0 / 20 |
| Other |
| Originality : |
4.0 / 05 |
| Hard Facts : |
3.5 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
7.5 / 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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1. Great price.
2. Some exclusive content.
3. Several sets added weekly.
1. Needs more browse features.
2. Somewhat confusing navigation.
"Bongum is a good place to sample of all the different flavors of fetishes." |
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Bongum.com is a German fetish site that specializes in bondage and latexwear. It's hard to explain why but "German" and "fetish" always seem to go well together. Anyhow, though the site is German it has been loosely translated to English for our benefit. The tour looks good. It seems to have been professionally designed and promises that "bondage fantasies are a reality here." My first impression was certainly a positive one and that continued as I entered the member's area to find a clean looking welcome page. However, things got a little trickier from here.
The pictures are categorized which does make finding specific fetish photos a little easier. Unfortunently, the navigation is still a little confusing, mostly because I didn't understand why certain categories were separate from each other. For instance, what is the difference between "The Models" and "Latex Girls" when both are wearing latex? And why are Sonia, Vivian and Sandy categories unto themselves and not included in "The Models"? This isn't terribly important but the overall organization of the site could certainly be improved.
I also had some difficulty determining which galleries were exclusive and which were not. Some where obvious. You can be pretty certain the galleries of the models wearing "Bongum" t-shirts are exclusive. However, also in the "exclusive" section were sets shot by fetish photographer Ashley Fontenot. I doubt that she shot these pictures specifically for Bongum (and not her own site) but I can't really be sure. Anyhow, I'd guess approximately a third of the roughly 18,000 pictures are exclusive, with the rest purchased from various sources. As such, quality varies quite a bit. Most of the pictures, though, are a little more on the amateur side of things, both in terms of style and quality. A lot of the pictures are just a bit fuzzy. Based on the tour I was expecting higher quality pics so this was a bit of a disappointment. Fetish fans will find a lot to see here. There are both exclusive and non-exclusive galleries of shiny latex, rope bondage, rubber gloves, goth fantasies, nurses, legs and feet and domination. It's really a smorgasbord of kinky alternative erotica. Though it's very naughty, it's not very hardcore. There are several girl-girl sets and a few guy-girl galleries but the majority feature a single model. This collection will appeal to those who enjoy multiple fetishes, though none are explored too deeply.
There are also 65 videos available. The videos range in length from three to eighteen minutes. They come in a variety of formats, though each video is only offered in one format. Sometimes the videos are offered in smaller clips that can be pieced together and other times you can other download the entire movie clip. Sometimes the clips stream, other times you have to download them. Some sort of consistancy is badly needed here. It's good to have options but they really need to figure out a standard movie setup that members can depend on. The quality is fair enough, though nothing remarkable at 300k. The videos vary from amateur to pornstar and cover similar fetish themes.
Bongum.com has a few bonus features including a forum (not very active) and stories and games. The main content is certainly the picture archive, which is updated weekly. I was a little disappointed with certain aspects, like the somewhat confusing navigation and inconsistant video setup, but overall my gripes were about the functional aspects of the site and not so much the content. The photos and videos are sure to please fetish fans. The price here gives the site a big boost in terms of value, costing only $17.95 for the first month and recurring at $15. This site isn't the be all end all fetish site nor do they claim to be. For some inexpensive fetish fun Bongum.com is a fine place to visit.
| 1st Follow-Up Review |
Review: 12-27-04 |
Things are definitely looking better at Bongum.com. It looks like the entire site has been reorganized. It took me a few minutes to find my way around but things are much cleaner than they were before. It also looks like they're updating more frequently which has allowed their number of galleries to swell from around 600 to well over 1000. This is a good sized collection, even if it's not all exclusive.
My main complaint about the videos in my initial review was the lack of consistancy. It looks like big improvements have been made in this department. First off, since our last visit the video collection has nearly doubled from 64 to 114 movies. The newest videos are all wmvs that can be both streamed and downloaded. Additionally, many of these latex videos are offered in both a high (350k) and low (50k) quality version. Quality is still fair but I'm very pleased by the greater organization in the video section.
I'm really pleased with the changes at Bongum. I'm adjusting quite a few of my scores to reflect these quantity and navigational upgrades. Overall it's definitely a good fetish sampler site.
Score increased from 69.4 to 72.8.
| 2nd Follow-Up Review |
Review: 01-27-06 |
Once again it looks like Bongum has been working hard to upgrade both their site and content. Updates have been happening consistently so the video collection now contains over 160 movies. I had a harder time figuring out how many photos they have because the navigation is still a bit cumbersome but it's clear from their update page that the number of photos is up quite a bit, as well. One new feature that I noticed right away is that they now separate their exclusive content from their non-exclusive material. That's a great addition and makes it easier to give them credit for the actually impressive amount of original content that they do have. More changes are promised for 2006 including upgrading their older photo sets to the new larger size that is now standard on their site. I look forward to visiting Bongum in another year and bumping their score up even more.
Score increased from 72.8 to 75.5.
| 3rd Follow-Up Review |
Review: 10-02-07 |
In the year and a half since our last look at Bongum, the site has grown to include over 250 videos as well as boosted the count of their large photo archive. Several videos and galleries are added each week, so it's no surprise that this already good-sized site is continuing to grow at a nice pace. They've moved all of their videos to a separate site, Bongum Video, but members of Bongum still get access to them. With this move it would have been nice to have a few more browse features, as navigation is still somewhat of a weakness here. They have, however, addressed the inconsistent video options and the movies are now 1100k wmvs. Photo quality is also up with all new images at 1200x900. The price remains at $20, recurring at $15, which is very good for a site with this much original fetish content. It's great to see Bongum continue to upgrade and entertain their fans.
Score increased from 75.5 to 80.5.
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