Its That Time Of Year Again... Where Are We Headed As An Industry?

I usually post one of these threads towards the end of the year asking where everyone thought the adult industry is heading in the year to come so, here is this years thread :)

What do you see the state of the adult industry being in terms of new technology, site advances and trends in 2009?

In last years thread, a couple of the things mentioned actually happened, especially when it came to consolidation on the straight side of the industry and declining DVD sales with an increase in VOD sales.

You can see last years thread here:

http://forums.gaywidewebmasters.com/...ad.php?t=26371

So, where do you see the adult industry heading in 2009 and what predicitions do you have in respect of site or technology growth for the industry overall in the year to come?

Regards,

Lee

I see increasing motivation to trend toward globalization of ones business appeal, and more judicious analysis and consideration by successful entrepreneurs extending over all aspects of their enterprises...this will continue throughout 2009...

For many years we promoted building international relationships and networks - Lee chief among them - and some successful forward thinkers took that advice - the rest are scrambling now to maintain revenues and properly chagrined when I approach them about their EU revenue and consequent attraction [or lack of] to EU affiliates. Fortunately, it's never too late and the EU will soon have many more individuals online than the USA...

Now is probably the time to increase marketing expenditures on proven resources and outlets, not cut back as is always the first reaction - just be more clever in the choice of vehicles, outlay, and distribution...

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Originally Posted by WebBilling.com

I see increasing motivation to trend toward globalization of ones business appeal, and more judicious analysis and consideration by successful entrepreneurs extending over all aspects of their enterprises...this will continue throughout 2009...

For many years we promoted building international relationships and networks - Lee chief among them - and some successful forward thinkers took that advice - the rest are scrambling now to maintain revenues and properly chagrined when I approach them about their EU revenue and consequent attraction [or lack of] to EU affiliates. Fortunately, it's never too late and the EU will soon have many more individuals online than the USA...

Now is probably the time to increase marketing expenditures on proven resources and outlets, not cut back as is always the first reaction - just be more clever in the choice of vehicles, outlay, and distribution...

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Good luck finding many people who will understand a word of what you just said ;) LOL

Sometimes, using 'small' words is a good thing.

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Lee

Good luck finding many people who will understand a word of what you just said ;) LOL

Sometimes, using 'small' words is a good thing.

Regards,

Lee

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I’m an old newbie Lee, thanks for the tip :D

Professional Hazard, let me see :scissors:

I’m seeing people start to pay more attention to biz opportunities outside North America. They are taking a look at their own operations and looking for ways to market around the world. I think this will become a big trend and continue all the way through 2009.

For many years we talked about crossing the pond and working with European webmasters – some of us remember Lee especially made efforts to promote this collaboration - some successful companies looked ahead and took that advice - the rest are only trying to catch up now because they are not making as much money - but when I try to talk to them about Europe now they are finally ready to listen! We’re lucky it's never too late and the EU online population will soon be larger than that of the USA...That’s a lot of Euros…

Now is probably the time to spend MORE on advertising and traffic, not less as you are likely to be thinking right now…

Its all good Joe, just fucking with you man :)

Actually on the subject of European marketing, we're gearing up to re-launch our international resource early next year as, like you, we have noticed a lot more companies genuinely showing interest in international markets.

Unfortunately, back in 2000 when i first launched European Webmasters i was about 6-8 years to early LOL

Regards,

Lee

Yep, I loved the concept of that site and you were way ahead of the curve - will be good to see it's metamorphosis [there I go again]...that site had unlimited potential, the world just wasn't ready yet...

Looks like participation in international expansion is surely on the 2009 to-do list - next poster willing to share their direction...

I think that next year sales will continue to decline.

I started offering a trial membership a couple months ago, since then a few programs have followed, I think many more programs will offer trials in '09.

Many programs will go out of business or be sold cheaper then they're going for now.

If you don't shoot your own content, then exclusive content will be more expensive to acquire. If you shoot your own content, then content will be cheaper to acquire.

New production will continue to slow and tube site traffic will increase. One might even see desperate programs allowing themselves to be advertised on tube sites, causing a great uproar with most of the adult webmaster communities.

More spam and more domains for sale as people trim their inventory of domain names to cut back on costs and utilize previous customer databases to get every penny they can.

One the upside, if we're lucky, things can trend towards our favor after summer '09 and sales could start picking up. At this point I see a 20% chance of that happening.

I see more "bartering" sort off " If i let you use this content, then let me use some of your content" especially with photo sets.

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Originally Posted by Squirt

I think that next year sales will continue to decline.

I started offering a trial membership a couple months ago, since then a few programs have followed, I think many more programs will offer trials in '09.

Many programs will go out of business or be sold cheaper then they're going for now.

If you don't shoot your own content, then exclusive content will be more expensive to acquire. If you shoot your own content, then content will be cheaper to acquire.

New production will continue to slow and tube site traffic will increase. One might even see desperate programs allowing themselves to be advertised on tube sites, causing a great uproar with most of the adult webmaster communities.

More spam and more domains for sale as people trim their inventory of domain names to cut back on costs and utilize previous customer databases to get every penny they can.

One the upside, if we're lucky, things can trend towards our favor after summer '09 and sales could start picking up. At this point I see a 20% chance of that happening.

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I think you are right on the money in your predictions. Clearly with less consumer money available to be spent choices will have to be made by surfers.

I do think that it will be a great time for niche sites. Surfers have very little choices if they have a certain interest in a fetish. The days of mega sites that cover every niche are over.

Give surfers exactly what they want and they will still spend the money for memberships.

We are adding the EU Debit system for PornTeam.co.uk this coming year! looking forward to selling more DVDs to the EU!

Sales are certainly harder to come by. I think you'll see some companies just give up, I think you'll see many fade into the background and I think you'll see the ones who really want to work hard and find their audience will do just fine.

I'm not seeing any huge sales for anyone in the coming year. Porn is cheap, yes, but it's also getting easier to steal. It's getting easier to find it for free.

Just go to Gay Tube and Xtube and you can see all the amateur porn you want.

I still say that as soon as iTunes allows porn, the Apple TV will become the #1 gift and DVDs are over.

I think that you'll see lots of companies finding new ways to sell older content (it's not an accident that we just launched a site that repackages much of our content for people who want to see some but not all of it).

I think we may all profit from the sad affairs that the country is heading.

People out of work will be on the computer, looking for work, and playing.

When they get bored, or stressed, the best way to let off that steam or kill that boredom is gonna be to shoot a load, and hopefully they will have that credit card ready when they do.:bananacock:

I see a lot of changes coming this year. Some good and some less than appealing. We, as an industry, have seen the foreshadowing of things to come in this last quarter of 2008.

The U.S. is going to continue to struggle financially and many of the smaller studios/companies that jumped on the porn wagon because they believed the myth that porn was recession proof and a quick easy buck, will disappear.

The smarter, not necessarily the larger, companies will market and advertise "outside the box". They will continue to not only offer unique, quality products but will "package" and sell them in new and consumer friendly manners.

NATS and MPA3 have made shaving and such unethical practices difficult if not impossible. Look for new scams/practices to appear as some companies "fight to maintain the lifestyle they've grown accustomed to".

The cost of advertising HAS to get back down to earth. The fees charged by some online and print publications for advertising in their space is astronomical. No one has that type of marketing budget anymore....not even Playboy!

The industry will continue to change as more and more cookie cutter sites fade out, leaving the quality sites to reap the rewards for their efforts.

More and more content producers/providers will become vigilant in searching out and stopping illegal tube content. Tube sites are here for a while, just like TGP sites a couple of years ago. We will learn to use them to our advantage the same as the TGP sites and many sites already have.

These are a few of my predictions.....but they are just my point of view. Many might argue differently and the fact of the matter is, we won't know the REAL outcome until this time next year!

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Originally Posted by cbl_chaz

The U.S. is going to continue to struggle financially and many of the smaller studios/companies that jumped on the porn wagon because they believed the myth that porn was recession proof and a quick easy buck, will disappear.

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Porn IS recession proof, unfortunately, it isnt stupidity proof and i think the decline in sales we are starting to slowly see doesnt have anything significant to do with the economy at all but rather to do with the fact webmasters are actually starting to flood the market place with more 'free' porn than ever before thanks to tube sites.

To back this up, i would offer the real experiences we had whilst we owned the club, some of the most worse off people in Daytona would visit us, these are people who's home were in foreclosure or going in to foreclosure, bought all their posessions at Walmart and quite frankly, couldnt afford to pay their bills but, whenever they wanted to go out, they would scrape together their last $20 and spend it on alcohol at the club... Same with porn, if someone is horny, they will always find membership monies for our sites.

Unfortunately i agree with you that those who dont change with the times are going to suffer the most, this doesnt necessarily mean starting up more tube sites but changing the methodologies behind their business practices when it comes to monetizing the surfer.

I really do think we are going to see a heavy transition towards revshare and per click payouts over the next 12-24 months which will enable more of those companies who do change to allow webmasters to be paid what their traffic is actually worth, not what the affiliate to their programs beleives it is worth.

In '09 as a company we are going to be launching several new products, most of them web 2.0 based with affiliate programs attached to them which will allow those webmasters who do want to change with the times to do so easily by offering more than just traditional porn site 'memberships'.

Blogging, tube sites and social networking is here to stay, as a company we're embracing these new trends and have already started to roll-out some of our new product lines, the first public one being Tube Tender, we also have 4 other properties we are working on behind the scenes.

I also think on the non-adult side of things, we're going to see more porn companies embrace the mainstream segment of the online industry, as of yet, there really hasnt been a concerted effort to bridge the divide between companies working in adult and mainstream and i think '09 will be the year many more companies embrace the non-adult world even if for no other reason than profit margins are significantly higher in mainstream than they are in adult.

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Lee

Porn IS recession proof, unfortunately, it isnt stupidity proof and i think the decline in sales we are starting to slowly see doesnt have anything significant to do with the economy at all but rather to do with the fact webmasters are actually starting to flood the market place with more 'free' porn than ever before thanks to tube sites.



Lee

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Evil Chris from teen revenue and Xnations wrote a nice call-to-action piece directly addressing this issue - published in the December Xbiz World It starts on Page 14 and concludes on Page 96.

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Originally Posted by WebBilling.com

Evil Chris from teen revenue and Xnations wrote a nice call-to-action piece directly addressing this issue - published in the December Xbiz World It starts on Page 14 and concludes on Page 96.

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Good read, unfortunately though, the people who NEED to read that never will and if they do, they will argue that the facts he stated about less being more are wrong because they dont know any different than giving away the horse, the cart AND the farm.

I recently said on GWW that 3 minute preview clips were not needed and was ridiculed by many across a wide range of boards.

Unfortunately, newbies who entered the industry in the last 4-5 years dont realize that what 'we' used to do was 'work' for our sponsor payouts, not just put some links up to FHGs, hosted free sites, rss feeds and wait for the money to roll in, they dont realize that if they actually worked for the money their affiliate programs paid them they would be making 3 or 4 times what they are now... They equate flooding the web with more free content, longer clips, HD pics, etc, to more free sales.

Regards,

Lee

I read that article as well and agree with him fully. We can't sell the farm if you give everything in the barn away for free!
There are ways to use the Tube sites to our advantage, but a fine line between teasing and over sharing must be walked in order to make it a profitable venture. We aren't going to get RID of the tube sites so why not utilize them, with moderated restraint, to our advantage?

I'd rather see a unilateral effort to farm IP addresses of torrent users via protected clips that have been downloaded.

This way we can block their IP's from our paysites across the board by sharing, and updating, that database. We can then use access to our sites as leverage for them to stop frequenting torrent sites.