Shapette said that the company trademarked Twistys when it realized the branding potential of the name. She concluded, “We were touching the edge of something good when domains were being registered that spoofed Twistys or incorporated Twistys in the url within a year of starting up.”
Shapette and her partner, Shap, founded Twistys.com in early 2001. The site features more than 1,400 models, 600,000-plus images and 14,000 videos.
The Twistys name comes from a restaurant Shapette’s grandfather owned in the 1960s. Shapette remembers the restaurant as having a fun atmosphere with hot female waitresses, thus the Twistys name was born on the Internet.
Shapette said trademarking Twistys gives the company legal protection over its unique name in the adult market.
“Protecting our name with a trademark is key in moving forward from this point,” Shapette said. “We trademarked Twistys when we realized the brand potential of the name. Once we had the marketing down pat, I knew the Twistys name could quickly become synonymous with ‘babes.’ I knew we had to do something to protect our marketing efforts.”
Shapette said the company would “pursue any one or company who registers Twistys in their url in order to keep [the] trademark active.”
Twistys trademark numbers are T97605 & T128805, registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
TwistysCash, Twistys affiliate program, offers webmaster affiliates a 60/40 revshare split or $45 per signup commission. Affiliates can use more than 800 hosted galleries and 100,000-plus photo sets for promotion.
TwistysCash web properties include Twistys.com glamour site, BlueFantasies.com, SexApe.com, BigBreastLovers.com and thumb gallery post, Thumbzilla.com.