Realistically Do You Think The Porn Biz Can Recover?

[Lee]

From where we are at right now in terms of conversion ratios dropping, traffic being harder to find and proliferation of free content being found everywhere?

Do you beleive there is actually a chance we could get back to where we were even 5 years ago or do you feel any attempt made to curb the amount of free porn and increase sales ratios to 1:500 or better consistently will inevitably fail?

What do you think, has the online adult industry killed itself over the last few years as more and more of the hobbyist webmasters have flooded the new with more and more sites, free porn and the likes?

Regards,

Lee

[HunkyLuke]

there is absolutely positively no chance we can get back to where we were 5 years ago, I don't think there is any argument there. But innovative programs adapt and learn to grow in new ways.

[Evil Ryan]

I'm really excited to see where to whole mobile thing goes. I feel like there'sa good future in the idea.

[Bill]

No chance.

This is the new normal.

We may see some improvements as people realize the tubes dont update and the movies are old, and the marketplace in other ways evolves.

But the adult industry is facing some rough years.

I see credit cards and payment systems as being the root of the problem. And potentially a solution - some new kind of payment system.

[Lee]

Bill,

To some extent im in agreement that billing is part of the issue however, i am also of the belief that we're going to have recurring billing around for a very long time, also, instead of micro payments, i think we're going to see more of a trend towards 'micro billing' in fact, as a company this is something we are already working towards on a couple of new projects, allowing the customer to purchase what they want, whether it be a single image, image set, movie scene or full DVD.

The past few months we've been substantially testing micro billing type programs and have actually seen an increase in revenue from this payment method from surfers, not because of anything we have done specifically but because the surfer is actually able to go in, choose what they want, then leave, much like when you or i head in to a grocery store with our list, we buy the items we need regularly, coffee, milk, bread, eggs, sugar, then from walking around the store, we may also pick up a bag of chips, bar of candy or bottle of soda.... It seems that micro billing brings this out of the surfer a lot more than micro payment solutions such as SMS/TXT messaging or even recurring billing.

More on this in a month or two though

Regards,

Lee

[Gin]

There is no chance to get back on 5 years unfortunately, but there is still enough money in porn to be made i believe.

[Bill]

Microbilling is an interesting idea, altho i think I would tend to call it limited billing.

I'm assuming you mean something like a billing system that charges a custumer, say, $5 to see a specific amount of material.

I think we have as an industry educated our customers to fear recurring billing and surprise billing. This is true not just for adult - its for all online biz.

One of the things I've wanted to see tried is what I think of as "fixed daily billing" - a customer pays $30 for 30 days, but they aren't limited to a month, they can spread their 30 days over say 3 months. When they log in, a "day" starts, but their next day doesnt start until after both 24 hours and their next login.

Now, I could be wrong, but I think we've started down a road in which people are way more suspicious, and credit is more expensive and less common.

And we have to figure out different ways to bill and exchange value for porn.

[Lee]

I'm assuming you mean something like a billing system that charges a custumer, say, $5 to see a specific amount of material.

Kind of, but not quite, the customer gets to choose exactly what they want to see and is billed based on that contents 'value'.

If they want more, they have to pay more.

Regards,

Lee

[Evil Ryan]

Of course there's money to be made in the business. Otherwise you guys wouldnt be posting on GWW

[Squirt]

I think the massive amounts of free content is one of the stupidest things any industry has done, and now we have tubes & torrents stealing content and promoting other porn entities via banner placement!

The music and movie industries have been brought to their knees. Will they ever get back to where they were 5 years ago?

Until we can reasonably protect what we create, via widely enforceable laws, anti piracy software, site blocking by ISP's, and Google not listing torrent/tube sties, then we will never be where we were 5 years ago.

When you Google a paysites name, or model on that site, and the second listing is a free torrent for that site/model then there is nowhere to go but down $0.02

[Rich]

i think maybe it can but it will need a lot of help from people not using a lot of free pics and movies but i do not think a lot of people will do that because more pictures and longer movies will make them more money if everyone else has used less and shorter ones!

[Fister]

Things will move forward and not go back to "the good old days". For what I have been doing, PPV is finally making noticeable sales this year, so microbilling may become more important.

Some will always be satisfied with the free content, but it's only a few in the business and many pirate hobbyists that are spoiling things with way too much free content. These are the tube sites that allow uploading of pirated movies by their users and the bloggers posting pirated content.

[markwolff]

No we will never get back to the kind of money we were making 5 years ago. I would describe it as being on the "Gravy train with biscuit wheels" That said, for the companies who have been around for a while most have learned to adapt and find ways to continue to grow and profit. Just not as much, or at the same rate they use to!

I would blame the downfall on a number of factors. We are in a glamor type business, just like any other media business ( magazines, movies, TV) i would put owning sports teams, nightclubs in there as well. It tends to draws in people with no practical business experience or even basic knowledge of the business. Many get into it for the "Prestige Factor". I think we are seeing these types slowly fade away. What we are left with will be the ones who are in it for the right reasons. Create a quality product, give there members what they want and make some money doing it!
That means keeping a close tab on all you expensive and exclusive content. Only giving away a small bit at a time, just enough to entice the surfer to want to see more and pay for it. It means not getting weak when the economy and sales take a bit of a dip. And your solution is to flood even more of your content into the market via 1000's of FHG and tubes hoping that will solve the problem. ( Smart and profitable producers never do this!)

Porn will always sell, and there is still great potential in this business, but it's maturing and only the companies and webmasters that have sound fundamentals and an ability to adapt and stay the course will be able to make a decent living at it.

[kubathemaster]

Yes I agree theres a down turn in the market for sure revenues on this business are dropping radically.

However in order to combat this we need to actually work together to bring our traffic into a larger shared portal or community with higher margins.

Let me know if your ready to work with me on this and Ill post a more elaborate feedback here in this regard.


Warm regards

Kuba

[hdkbill]

there is absolutely positively no chance we can get back to where we were 5 years ago, I don't think there is any argument there. But innovative programs adapt and learn to grow in new ways.

I agree with Luke. We will never get back to where we were 5 years ago is you compare apples to apples.

We can, however, find new ways to make money.....like more websites with fewer members or less membership cost. If you operated 5 years ago with one website and made XXX amount of dollars, it may take 10 or 50 websites today to make the same money.

We also need to better business men/women and control our expenses. At one point we had 11 employees. HUGE payroll. Today we do it with 5.

Yep, there is still money to be made in this industry, but only if WE do better making it happen.

Bill