It's no secret that a lot of the earliest content on the Web was pornography, although Internet portals like Yahoo! Inc. preferred not to break out revenues in a way that would disclose the amount of business generated from virtual peep shows. Meanwhile, online porn companies were rarely profiled at mainstream Internet conferences.

Which is why it was unusual, and in a way refreshing, when one startup at this week's TechCrunch40 Conference said its business was to make money showing user-generated photos of sexy, beautiful models. Zivity lets people submit their own photos and offers them a way to make money if the images prove popular. Zivity, which bills itself as a hybrid of MySpace, Playboy and "American Idol," says it will return a full 40% of its revenues as royalties to  users who submit photos. The company has raised $1 million in Series A funding, according to Alarm:Clock. It's also $10,000 richer after winning the Howard Rice Award, which is sponsored by law firm Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin, at TechCruch40.

Zivity co-founder Cyan Banister promised to keep a demonstration of the site rated PG-13 during the conference on Tuesday, but the risqué assortment of photos that followed prompted one of the conference's organizers to remark, "That was way too much nudity. And I'm not easily offended." Even rapper MC Hammer, who served as one of the expert advisers reviewing presenting companies, commented, "If that was PG, I'd like to see what the R content looks like."

Still, Zivity might be too legit to quit. In a business where everyone is looking for the best ways to make money online, and where no one has yet to come up with a good Web 2.0 version of Playboy, a number of critics agreed that Zivity addressed an underserved market of legitimate, adult content. - Andrea Orr

See more on Zivity and other companies at TechCrunch40 at Ajax Blog
See press release from Zivity
See story from American Venture Magazine