This article originally ran in the June 2017 issue of AVN magazine. Click here to see the digital magazine.
As the adult industry continues to move forward and rapid expansion replaces the malaise of recent years, one of the brands building momentum most aggressively is PornDoe. A series of new product lines are being featured on PornDoe.com and PornDoePremium in what appears to be a major milestone for high-quality tube platforms partnering with content creators in bold new ways.
One of the newest developments is a one-year licensing deal with VOD services provider HotMovies.com, announced last month. The deal adds a selection of new content from the most popular PornDoe Premium niches. HotMovies will highlight 20 new PornDoe Premium releases every month to its members. Members can view the scenes across multiple connected devices and share their experiences and opinions through social features, such as rating and reviewing.
AVN took a closer look and chatted with the PornDoe team to find out what direction their journey will take next.
What’s the history of PornDoe?
“The overall project, PornDoe.com and PornDoePremium.com, is based on three major factors: legality, localization and content value,” said PornDoe owner Gian Carlo. “Since the final half of 2007, the legal gray zone that tubes operated in has severely affected the value of content. Furthermore, in today’s market we all operate beyond our national borders, as traffic has almost become its own international language, making proper localization a necessity.
“When we say legality, we mean that the tube industry, despite tons of efforts, still represents an easy access point for pirated content to spread throughout the web,” Gian Carlo added. “As content producers, we saw this as a blight on the industry and figured that a fully legal platform, with multiple benefits rendered to content partners, could represent a more profitable change for everyone. PornDoe.com was developed with the knowledge that tubes are here to stay, but that they don’t need to offer FULL pirated content. They effectively became the norm, and therefore, should be used as a platform to showcase content to users. Most free content has now become almost boring to the high-end client, and therefore content value in a premium membership is once again becoming attractive to consumers. That shift is what gave rise to the PornDoe platform.”
How did PornDoe get the ball rolling with traffic?
According to Yannick Ferreri, PornDoe’s head of production, “PornDoePremium.com was developed with the intent to offer an enhanced user experience for almost any user, as well as a method to attract traffic to the PornDoe.com brand, benefiting all of our partners. With old-school tube sites grandfathered into SERPs, we needed to create new keywords by creating brands. So we decided to produce in German, French, Spanish, Italian and English to cast a larger net. Now we are continuing to gain traction in multiple European countries and South American markets as well.”
Since localization is now considered the best way to build a free platform, so partners can benefit on a truly global scale, Ferreri explained how PornDoe addresses that issue. “All of our navigation, down to the metadata, is translated by real people into German, French, Italian, Spanish and English. This broadens the scope of every partner’s user base. As people search for their respective slang words, they will find titles they would not have found in the past. Coupled with premium production in those countries and more, in this way we truly have become an international platform that offers almost any John Doe exactly what he or she may be looking for at PornDoe!”
What’s with the new niche sites?
Gian Carlo and Ferreri offered their thoughts on PornDoe’s move into such sites as xChimera and KinkyInLaws on PornDoePremium.com. Gian Carlo noted, “This has been asked a few times, and to clear up any confusion, everything that we have in PornDoePremium is exclusive. We have shot more than 2,500 scenes and continue to shoot another 110 each month, all with some serious trial and error. As mentioned earlier, the niche sites are intended to gain more and more traction in several key markets.”
Expanding on that enthusiasm, Ferreri said, “xChimera, specifically, is one of our proudest gems. It was a project that took almost a whole year to realize, but we finally felt it was ready for release. The idea behind it, along with our other premium content, is to package it all in a unique fashion. xChimera is, at its base, a glamcore niche site, but with nuances that give it a voyeur feel and a ‘girl next door’ touch.” (Pictured here are a few images from the xChimera.com library.)
Ferreri added, “We have over 31 brands now and plan to reach 50 as we are starting to move production into the U.S. We have also begun a Netflix-style approach, where we will start and stop content lines to keep users excited, without oversaturating any single concept.”
Let’s talk traffic. Is PornDoe growing?
“The rate at which PornDoe.com is gaining traction is very favorable,” Gian Carlo said confidently. “Nearly all the well-known producers have approached us and countless eager teams have come to us as well. Our name is now becoming more than just another tube, and is instead being accepted as a flagship brand.”
Adding his perspective as PornDoe’s head of sales and affiliates, Ricky Ganiere said, “Our traffic growth in terms of quantity has been acceptable. We are open with all our partners about the fact that we are fighting an uphill battle, by not taking any shortcuts or making use of any full pirated scenes. That’s also why the traffic growth in terms of quality is astounding. Our ratios with our content partners and our premium sales are amazing compared to other tube traffic. Some of what has helped us gain this user base—and continue to do so—is what we call “New SEO,” because we are effectively creating an ecosystem to attract high-end users who sample content in order to better decide what they will purchase on a premium front. And we are going to unveil a game-changing strategy soon that will ultimately put us at the cusp of innovation in regards to the tube industry. I suggest you keep an eye out for it.”
With PornDoePremium.com, how do you maximize profits without minimizing retention?
“PornDoe.com and PornDoePremium.com are part of one ecosystem. They complement each other and in no way do they compete,” Gian Carlo responded adamantly. “The point behind the legal tube is to attract quality users. The premium site is designed to gain traction and to create return visits. As premium users will undoubtedly continue to move away from free content, they will eventually purchase a subscription. We saw the opportunity to create this union between the free and premium side, and in our original design the premium content goal was to break even on production. This will in turn pay back in advertising and partner revenue share. As we evolved, we noticed that we need to keep a premium user in the free areas as well, to keep his tastes evolving. Our hope is that, eventually, a user will run a course of several memberships all stemming from his time on PornDoe.com—a place with an enhanced user experience and no piracy of any content.
What’s ahead in the next 12 months?
Production head Ferreri promised, “We always have four to five new brands in the works. Currently we are working on a very cool foot fetish niche site that will fit into our Dark membership. It’s like BadTimeStories.com in that it is very story-based, with costumes and eerie editing. Great stuff! We also have a high-end orgy series that will really hit the ground running, and an educational series, on which we’ve been working for over a year, but we want to tweak it all perfectly before releasing. Additionally, we are speaking with some of the top U.S. producers about creating a site that we feel can truly bend the web. All very exciting things and all coming very soon.”
Ganiere added, “On the tube side, we are redesigning some of the navigation and making things even cleaner and smoother. Additionally, our new tracking will help us target users for partner offers, in order to help our content sources get the maximum benefit possible from their sample scenes. Tons of exciting moves coming our way, some in the back end to help our teams work even more efficiently, some on the front end for the users. The progress never stops at PornDoe.com.”
So, how can everyone make money with PornDoe right now?
“That’s the most important question you could ask,” Ferreri replied. “We are open to working with almost anyone, and we see our ability to customize relationships as one of our core strengths. We have people from all facets of the industry working with us already—traffic, affiliates, production—and we are always looking for more. That’s why we invite all content producers to sign up on PornDoe.com and get their own channels going. Affiliates are also welcome as we gradually begin to open up with trusted partners while expanding our brand awareness even more.”
Gian Carlo summed it all up simply: “We like to do things in a calculated manner because we have noticed that rushing is definitely not the way to scale efficiently, but we also understand the value of partnering with great people and growing the size of the entire pie rather than quibbling over the size of each slice. We value each of our partners tremendously and understand that the market will always shift with time. The uphill legal battle we face against piracy is only going to get easier with a united front. If content producers converge and help to set standards for what we are all willing to accept on free sites, we can truly bring about positive changes for our entire industry. It is bad enough that we faced certain stigmas relating to the content itself, which is ridiculous, but to sully our industry further with any acceptance of slack piracy legislation is only feeding the image that the uninformed have painted for far too long. We at PornDoe.com hope to change that and we are working diligently each day to do so with the help of many industry leading companies who are stepping forward to partner with us right now!”
