May, The Advocate...Porn Panic

[hotdudesnude]

The Advocate May issue has a huge article (and cover pic/teaser) about porn panic, how the recession is hitting porn, and how free tube sites and other free porn outlets are cutting into porn company profits.

It's a really good article and features interviews with some people who are members and posters here at GWW, some of the article sounds like they took quotes right from this forum.

It's more doom and gloom from the media, but still a good article.

[nickbaer]

Sounds like free advertising for Tube sites. I think The Advocate was relevant once in the '70s.

[hotdudesnude]

Sounds like free advertising for Tube sites. I think The Advocate was relevant once in the '70s.

Don't you have links to Xtube on your sites in your signature????

Manifest Men, Chi Chi Larue, Michael Lucas, and others might like the free advertising they get from the article too.

[Titanmen]

All press is good press as long as they spell your name right! <G>

[Bill]

Presumably from the same fellow that was here asking about such things?

That was the advocate, am I right?

[Rich]

i will have to pick up a copy to read

[Lee]

Well i just read the article online and i have to say, while it was well written, it doesnt really say much of anything of substance, it seems again that it is filled with individuals taking jabs at their competitors, complaining how they are losing sales because of declines (which realistically they wouldnt have had anyway) and doesnt really take in to account the mom and pop adult webmaster/producer/company.

Its a shame really because Advocate had a really great opportunity to get in the midst of the gay porn industry yet they chose to go with individuals who used them as a way of taking pot shots at others and didnt really say anything of worth to anybody.

Why cant any of these places writing about the porn industry actually do something to get inside the industry and see what it is actually like, sitting in on a porn shoot is not what the industry is about, just because someone is getting 10 declined membership transactions a day, that doesnt mean that they have lost $10k in revenue, thats like me saying last year i lost $1 million in sales because 300,000 surfers hit my tours and didnt join.... Its a totally bogus number.

No mention of the hours upon hours upon hours of work a lot of site owners put in to their websites, no mention of the adult webmaster community, no mention of the real problems we're facing as an industry, like newbies flooding the net with free porn hoping to make sales when they dont actually know what they are doing, this for example is more of a threat to the online adult industry than tube sites and piracy could ever be, there must be thousands of newbies building hundreds of free sites every day that never make any sales but put millions upon millions of free pics on the web.

A shame, this could have been a really good news story.

Regards,

Lee

[Advocate]

Dear Lee-
Stopped by to actually post a thank you to many of the folks who helped me with this article, including you. Thought I would respond to a couple of your points.

"No mention of the hours upon hours upon hours of work a lot of site owners put in to their websites"
- This doesn't seem particularly relevant to the story -- I didn't find it necessary to explain that people who own porn sites work long hours.

"no mention of the real problems we're facing as an industry"...
- every single person I spoke with said that piracy, the recession, and saturation were the 3 most important problems facing the industry (including you).

"...like newbies flooding the net with free porn hoping to make sales when they dont actually know what they are doing... there must be thousands of newbies building hundreds of free sites every day that never make any sales but put millions upon millions of free pics on the web."

See the section of the article "A Saturated Market"

A Saturated Market
Over the last decade, the gay porn market has been inundated with massive amounts of new product. Self-proclaimed producers from all walks flocked to adult entertainment, operating under the correct assumption that sex sells and the sort-of-correct assumption that there’s an endless supply of customers. “What most failed to consider is that there is also an endless supply of content,” says veteran porn analyst Tom Hymes.

“I got into the industry at a really amazing time,” says porn commentator and online talk-show host Jason Sechrest. “It was 1998, Jenna Jameson was just becoming a household name, and the adult entertainment industry was on the cover of Time and Newsweek. We started telling CNN that we were a multimillion-dollar industry! We may as well have just taken a gun and put it to our head. Everyone with a camcorder picked it up and said, ‘Hey! I’m going to do that!’ ”


I certainly do appreciate all of the time folks spent to help me with this report -- including you, Lee. Just wanted to offer up a response.

All the best,
Brian Smith
The Advocate

[Lee]

- every single person I spoke with said that piracy, the recession, and saturation were the 3 most important problems facing the industry (including you).

The problem is, most of the people you spoke actually arent involved deeply in the online aspect of the industry other than being either a large DVD studio or working for a non-hands on business claiming to be a part of the industry.. Tom Hymes for example, i doubt he has ever built a free site or a TGP gallery in his life.

Jason Sechrest.. How exactly does what he does fit in to the adult industry, he's basically a media whore.... Think Paris Hilton with less intelligence... Doesnt actually 'do' anything but is 'known'.

As i say, the article was very well written i just found that it left our major aspects and insight that you could have gotten from numerous others, including some of the mom and pop site owners and promoters, the demographic in the industry that is actually larger than paysite owners, content producers and media whores.

Regards,

Lee