Danni Ashe, the mind and body of Danni's Hard Drive, www.danni.com, has built a multi-million dollar multi-media empire in just 5 years. Ashe, one of the few female CEO's in either the tech or adult industries, is redrawing the Internet's boundaries and propelling the adult entertainment industry to the forefront of a new medium. US News & World Report recently proclaimed that "(Danni's Hard Drive) flies directly in the face of what everyone knows about Internet commerce - sites like Ashe's may provide the rest of the web with a few pointers on how to make money."

A sexy mix of Horatio Alger, Gypsy Rose Lee and Bill Gates, Danni Ashe is the poster-girl for sex and convergence, what she calls "cleavage convergence". Says Ashe, "Sex has traditionally driven most new forms of media straight into consumers' hands. With the privacy and explosive potential offered by the Web, it's no surprise that a site like mine is able to be cutting edge, entertaining, and successful."

Danni, previously a full-time nude model, had retired from dancing on the road and was looking for new challenges, which she found in the form of the Internet. Her first look got her hooked and before long, she was visiting the adult Usenet newsgroups every day, posting photos of herself and building a new, global fanbase. In early 1995, after a few months on Usenet, Danni taught herself HTML and founded Danni's Hard Drive with $8,000 worth of computer equipment and a vision for the future. It's hard to fathom now, but having your own website was considered radical just five years ago. Nonetheless, Danni felt compelled to become one of the net's very first female publishers.

After a crash course reading the HTML Manual of Style on a Bahamas beach, Danni returned home and built the Hard Drive, using every waking hour developing file structure and an easy to navigate design. A few weeks later, Danni's Hard Drive went live, immediately swamping her ISP's servers with hits from all over the world. Response was so overwhelming Danni was forced to become an expert in high bandwidth connections and high-speed servers just to keep the Hard Drive up and running. Instantly, she was a player in the wide-open world of new media.

Danni firmly believes that, "The Web is the great equalizer - It's the first truly level playing field to come along in decades" and views her success as an opportunity to help other women who've chosen similar career paths. Many of the adult models and actresses who appear on the site have been inspired by Danni to create websites, and now enjoy lucrative businesses of their own. Each model who appears on Danni's Hard Drive is given a model page with links to her individual site - the Net equivalent of a free ad in Times Square.

For Danni, this is no time to rest. "I'm obsessed by the Web and its potential. I hardly want to sleep, knowing that whatever I dream, I can do. The recognition for what's been accomplished so far is nice, but what I really relish is the power of unlimited creativity. I hope other people see me and think, 'I can do that', because they can. This is truly a Golden Age."

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