Okay, this forum has been kind of quiet lately. Let's get some discussion going. Where do you see gay websites going in the future? Photos and video? Interactive? Megasites or specific niches only?
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Okay, this forum has been kind of quiet lately. Let's get some discussion going. Where do you see gay websites going in the future? Photos and video? Interactive? Megasites or specific niches only?
I think that specific niche sites will rule in the future. A lot of sites today seem to recycle the same pictures and vidoes over and over again. I can see people getting bored of that. Cookie cutter sites do bring in a lot of traffic, but as specific niche sites and sites that feature 100% orignal content will in the end come out on top. Of course I could be completly wrong. Just my opinion. It really don't matter how much content you have, there are mega sites out there that are mega crap. People may join them but they don't stay long. The trick is to get people in and keep them paying month after month. Specific niche sites seem to be in a better postion to do this.
I myself run a gay personals and chat website that is free and completly supported by parternship programs. I can tell you that 90% of my income comes from these smaller niche sites, as compaired to the short term membership to mega sites. People, or at least my members at least, prefer the non-cookie cutter type.
I do feel that the sites down the road that are going to stay around will have tons of videos, and kind of be intractive, but it will have to be a nich site
does anyone know of any chat feeds with just asian guys? which i had the money to do one.
Well one thing I notice now is how sites seem to be easier to promote if they have a developed brand. This could be a megasite, or a small website with a narrow focus.
Most sites have trouble differentiating themselves from the rest of the pack, as well as giving themselves some value. For example, some companies sell clear bottles of aspirin. Bayer Pharmacies however has convinced a lot of people to spend more money on bottles with their name on it.
If I were going to start a new gay adult website, I would spend some time thinking about that. This would be key to marketing.
Steve
I like the idea of small high quality niche sites. There are so many undeveloped niches out there. I prefer to call these "boutique sites". Some great examples of boutique sites are bearbound.com, hotoldermale.com, workingmenmovies.com and butchbear.com. These sites don't have massive archives or huge daily updates. But they do have something that many other sites don't have... they are loved by their creators. Surfers that join sites like these will stay as members for many months because that can't find this stuff anywhere else.
I think if some of these boutique sites joined together and offered co-memberships to other like-minded sites, they could charge more for monthly memberships and improve their already great rebill ratios.
On the other side of the coin are the newer mega-sites like justusboys. Sites like this create a sense of community and offer many different forms of entertainment other than just porn. I imagine that we will see MANY new mega-sites like JUB in the next 6 months. I bet a few of you reading this are working on something similar. ;)
Dying are the cookie-cutter crap sites that offer nothing new, different or exclusive. How many plug-ins can you cram into a site anyway? Sure there are plenty of newbie surfers that don't know better and the cookie-cutter sites will attract them like flys. But as better porn options become more visible and numerous, the cookie-cutter sites will get fewer members and they will rebill for shorter periods.
I like the marketing potential of a name like JustUsBoys.com --- as opposed to just labeling the site with some constricting nouns. BadPuppy is another good example, that springs to mind.
Would Falcon Studios be as successful if they were called "CaliforniaHunks" ? Would Amazon be as successful if they were called AllBooks? It would have been interesting if they had chosen that label back in the 1990s, really hampering their unforseen evolution into selling apparel and kitchenware year later.
Anyone remember CDnow.com? Amazon bought them.... and looking back you can see how their cdnow's brand really limited them to being just a music shop, whilst Amazon's potential was far greater.
Even if you have all the best movies and photosets, I think a key ingredient is instilling a sense of place, or community or some unique label to the endeavor. This would be on any site, small or large.
Steve
...Porn-Producers ( Studio's/Webmasters/Etc ) Will Be Hunted Down Like Witches And Burned Alive At The Stake , Religion Will Sweep Across The Land Giving People Hope And Promising Better Days Ahead , The Fall Of Man Will Give Rise To Machines As They Eventually Become The Dominant Species Of The Planet!...:)
But! , Before All That Happens!:)...I See "Membership-Sites" Featuring "Members" (Can't Get Any More Real Than That!:) Leading The "Porn-Pack" Especially If They Allow Users To "Interact" With Each Other Similiar To Chat/Message/Dating Boards
I See "Pornography" Reinventing Itself ( Take A Look At A "1980" Porno And A Recent One And See The Difference! ) And Probably Into Something More "Digitized" And "Computer-Streamlined"
Sincerely ~ "Real" Is When You Can't Tell The Difference Anymore!
i see blogs replacing tgps
I think gay moblog and chatting room is the future of gaywebsites. Just send a photo through mobile phone or email to websites, to chatting room and so on. Basically it should be free.
http://www.gay-websites.net/
What an interesting thread, and I totally missed it.
Home delivery is where I think we're headed. See a guy on a site on the Internet, look at his pictures, watch his movies, order him live.
Dzinerbear
WOW D-bear! I was hoping for an insightful 6 paragraph response from you. How disappointing. ;)
I think the best way to gage this is to look at straight sites.
I think that the straight market is years ahead of the gay market, so just by submerge yourself in that market (yeah yeah…it's only pussy porn...you wont die ;) ) you'll get a good feel for what's going to happen in the gay market.
I too think that high quality exclusive content sites are going to be all the rage.
Just my two cents...
What a great question! An associate of mine and myself, we always talk about this at length.
Here's my opion:
The short version--
I think it's going towards niche and high quality. Personally, videos can be good (something's still lacking in the gayporn I've seen, however) but there are times when a hot photos are waaay better!
The long version--
It has been my experience that some gay porn is lacking (correct me if I'm worng here). There are times when I find that there's no enthusiasm and urgency between the guys--that good-old fashioned raunchiness--just 'mechanical sex' I like to call it... There are times when I find straight porn 'hotter' than gay porn just because there's more of that sexual urgency between the pair in the video. It's the straight guy who's so hot for the girl that I enjoy seeing. Because he's engaged 100%, so is she. And, that makes it hot.
Where are they gay porn videos portraying this kind energy between the pair? I think Bel Ami videos are hot -- now there's enthusasim between those guys. If anybody can show me other hot stuff, I'd be intereseted to see...
Perhaps this is why gayporn photos fit the bill for me here... At least then, I can allow fantasy into the picture to fill in the gaps...
There are some gayporn sites for which I can't help but become engaged in the content. And, it's noteworthy to say that they're almost always niche sites. Menatplay.net is a site I've just come across. This site is totally niche and there's definitely quality there. I find the concept hot. The videos got me interested in signing up and looking at the site further but once I joined, I found the photos more appealing.
Photos or Videos? I'd say photos (or, straight porn) for now, until I can find videos that totally engage me!
Brian
Like a few of you I have been around for a while. Like many of you I wonder about where the future is going. For a long time this web site / company of ours was almost alone on the web. I remember having my new computer in 1994 (a 486 w/ 8 megs of ram and a 550 meg hard drive and a new, hot 14.4 modem) sitting back and being totally amazed that in 1 month I got 60,000 visitors. We also use to get very excited when email arrived. God it was fun. I had a total of 5 models and my nudes were cut out with a cut and paste tool. LOL. I went to a short class and they taught me in 2 hours how to write HTML with note pad.
I think those days were really fun and not hampered by all the tech that you have to go through today. Frankly I really do not like all the tech needed to keep my web site going. I have not really changed it a lot over the years but I have added videos but not much more than that. I too know I am going to have to do more, but what that will be I just don't know.
I sure hope you guys know more than I do so I can read and learn from you because I don't have the slightest idea where sites are going.
I don't even know some of the lingo you guys keep coming up with.
Guess I just stay in my niche and don't get around much. Maybe I should start that and maybe I should be joining up with some of you as well. Seems most of you are way more quallified than I am in the webmaster field.
www.kristian.com
Continuously Online Serving The Gay Community Since Sept 1995.
The adult industry is changing...1970's the adult theaters were the thing, then in the 80's to early 90's VHS and adult video stores became hot...plus the whole thing of "Amateur Videos" sprung up (no pun intended). Then DVD's came out and zoning laws have changed.
Being a video production company we find that many adult stores are being "pushed" out of the community or just closing down. Many of the stores can't afford to stay open because the price of DVD's are to expensive to purchase or the rents are too high. Although Falcon, Chi-Chi and the big studios do great, many stores just don't purchase there product anymore. When VHS was popular, the store owner would buy 2-3 VHS tapes and make several copies, with DVD technology the store owners can't copy the DVD's anymore. The bottom line is with the expense of DVD's and zoning laws many stores are just closing down and/or many stores are not purchasing the items as much.
This is happening! This is why we opened our membership site because now people can see adult content in the privacy of there own homes without traveling to a store and this too is hurting the Adult video stores accross the United States. The advantage of having a pay-site is that many people that would not step into an adult store can now view there sexual likes online, its also opening the market to a wider age group...long gone is the "old dirty man" jackin off to porn...its now 18 & up viewing adult material on the web. (Jackin off to porn)
Things are changing too with membership sites....many people are tired of viewing "cookie cutter" sites...its borring...many of the reality stuff is getting played and many gay guys are hip to the fact that a "str8" guy is turning gay and its his first time having sex... :eek: ...the schtick is getting old.
Who knows what the future holds for this industry...will DVD's die out soon and be replaced with online theaters and membership sites...??? Perhaps we can go to the doctor and have a chip implanted into our brains that when we sleep at night we only dream of sex and sexaul encounters. :light:
Great ideas, everyone. And allboysvideo, I like the way you think. I think there will be some kind of virtual sex programming coming down the pike. Maybe something where one can view images and video with a viewer while feeling physical stimuli from some kind of virtual reality suite or gear. Sounds pretty interesting.
following the thought that we can gauge the gay market by watching the straight market... Single Guy sites might become pretty popular... we'll see pretty soon, anyways. ;)