The Future of Gay Websites

[Tristin]

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.

[ponyboy]

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.

[desslock]

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

[Xstr8guy]

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.

[desslock]

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

[longboardjim]

...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!

[zentz]

i see blogs replacing tgps