The latest ia2000 was held January 9-12 at The Venetian Hotel and Casino, in the so-called "Capital of Sin." The convention saw a host of new products for Web masters and surfers alike, including free hosting, free sites and dozens of new E-mail programs. Nearly 4,000 experienced and would-be Web masters attended the three-day convention, an increase of 30 percent from the Miami show just three months earlier.
Just about everywhere there was a sense of gambling and risk-taking, from the show floor to the casinos, from the slot machines to the black jack tables, and from the newbies to the experienced Web masters who rolled the dice on new ventures and new business.
"Any venture with the potential of a high return has an accompanying risk factor," said Dermot Forde, president of first-time exhibitor Media 21, Inc. "The fact that the rules are being created and changed as the Net matures makes it impossible to rely on standard business plans. This business is definitely not for the faint-hearted."
Not surprisingly then, gambling sites and online casinos held a prominent place among the many offerings at ia2000. "Since the beginning of time there has been sex and gambling - Las Vegas was built on it," said Gary Hamilton, CEO of software developer InterActive Solutions. "The Net is absorbing more and more of the gambling industry and with revenues over $2 billion in 1999, everyone wants a piece of the action. The casino software is fun to play and the surfer can play for free or real money."
Jodie Thind, who handles marketing for gaming developer GamblingSoftware.com (www.gamblingsoftware.com), sees online gambling as a logical extension of adult services on the Net. "We like the adult industry because there are a lot of savvy Web people," she said. "Let's face it, online technology has been driven by the adult industry. The adult community can only benefit from adopting Net gambling as a core piece of their business strategy."
But gambling wasn't the only game in town. Despite the mainstream press hinting that the adult Net biz may be peaking, few companies seemed to be on a budget when it to came to prominent booth placement and promotions.
Adult Check (www.adultcheck .com) and The Webmasters Lounge (www.webmasterslounge.com) co-sponsored a giveaway that featured a 2000 canary yellow BMW Z-3, which was won by attendee Charles Balke.
"This is unbelievable, I've never won anything in my life," said Balke.
SIC Cash (www.siccash.com) gave away MP3 players, DVD players, and Sega Dreamcast machines at their booth, while Xpays (www.xpays.com) offered free chiropractic adjustments and therapy. Edge Interactive Publishing (www.edgeip.com) let Web masters direct their own photo sessions with professional models and photographers; Babenet (www.babenet.com) offered up a free simulator ride that changed themes each day of the show; and Cybererotica (www.cybererotica.com) and AgeCheck (www.agecheck.com) co-hosted a 1000-square-foot bar right on the show floor.
AgeCheck also proved popular with their offer of a free Web site to Web masters who agreed to use AgeCheck as their AVS. "You get free graphic design, thirty licensed pictures, free adult video feeds and free hosting," said AgeCheck president Jack Guiragosian. "We're able to offer this opportunity partly because we've already paid for the infrastructure and also because we have an incredible track record for our Web masters to make money."
Hanco Entertainment, a newcomer to the adult Web, celebrated the launch of their premium service, Prime XTC (www.primextc.com) by completely enclosing their booth, which housed a functioning dance lounge and strip club. "I feel like our team was able to leave Las Vegas accomplishing a vision quest," said Hanco Entertainment Vice-President, Jim Henley. "Every member of our staff put their heart and soul into launching this project and we wanted to leave with a sense of pride in our efforts. I feel we exceeded our expectations... it went great for us as an exhibitor, and I feel fortunate to have been part of this tremendous opportunity."
Parties too are a staple of any adult convention, and ia2000 was no different.
Python Communications opened the convention with their "Golf Challenge 2000" which included free prizes, awards and refreshments. "The golf tournament was a nice, informal way to talk to people," said Vice President of Python Communications (www.pythonvideo.com), David van der Poel. "Sometimes, it's difficult to talk at the parties."
Hanco further promoted their launch of Prime XTC with the "X Bash," a rock concert/ late-night mixer headlined by David Lee Roth at The Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel, and Cavecreek/CCBill (www.ccbill.com), JMR Creations (www.naughty.com/solutions/), and Wasteland (www.wasteland.com) sponsored the "Party at the Mansion," a two-night, invitation-only event featuring live fetish shows at a secret suburban locale.
D-Money and PornCity.net (www.porncity.net) co-hosted their third annual Players Ball at the Venetian's Club C2K; Cybererotica, AgeCheck and Pornholio (www.holio.net) threw "Party 2K" at the MGM's Studio 54; and CEN (www.cencash .com) and Maximum Cash (www.maximumcash.com) closed out the convention with their third annual "GameWorks Extravaganza," held at the popular gaming venue of the same name.
Some adult sites were also featuring interesting new services, such as Pornication's non-sex related www.psychictraffic.com. The program features live-video tarot and live psychic chat. Pornication owner Lee Burnst also mentioned the purchase of a 5,000 square foot studio in Nevada, where the company would be producing live feeds and more content that is exclusive. "The ia2000 show is growing. We've never talked to so many people and answered more E-mails and phone calls than after this show," said Burnst.
"This was without a doubt our best show ever," said Scott Schalin, COO and Creative Director of iGallery (www.igallery.com). "It was not only the most professional, I feel that it was the best show ever for this industry. The show helped to launch our most recent URL acquisition, Pussy.com (www.pussy.com). We acquired it right before the show and launched it with our own new design. It's already become our best converting site, and its quickly becoming our flagship site along with Café flesh (www.cafeflesh.com) and teensex.com (www.teensex.com)."
Other companies used the show as an opportunity to announce their expansion into non-adult businesses.
Cybernet Ventures announced Adult Check Prime (www.acprime.com), a soon to be launched portal similar to Excite and Yahoo!, complete with a search engine, news, sports, stocks, and more, that can be customized by the end user.
Former musician and president of Cyber-Synergism, Mike Rick, announced Westsidetv.com (www.westsidetv.com). The site is a Net radio station and Web site devoted to hip-hop and R&B music featuring DJ Julio G, from "The Beat" on FM 92.3 LA. The site also features interviews and videos as well as a live radio broadcasting.
During the second day of the convention, former YNOT Networks president Rick Muenyong held a press conference announcing that he had sold his company to SexTracker's parent company, Flying Crocodile. Muenyong said one of the critical reasons why he sold YNOT was a desire to move away from the adult entertainment industry and more toward mainstream Internet pursuits. "I viewed my life in the adult business as a temporary thing," he said. "I really did not see a future for me in the adult business, only because it's not how I was growing up, it's not in my nature, but it's exciting and it's fun."
As usual, many attendees were newcomers, each looking to score their piece of the adult Internet pie.
"They (newbies) do read and they do know that this is the money, but they don't see the entire investment that goes into it, and I don't think they think through it all the way," said Schalin. "This business doesn't work for everybody. But we need the newbies because we want to sell them content. I wouldn't discourage them, but I think they need to be realistic about what their payback is going to be, even in a year like this where we're seeing a lot of former newbies who are now up and running and getting more serious and knowledgeable about the Internet. As our industry continues to grow, you'll always have newbies. Some will make it and some won't, and the amount that won't will balance with the new ones coming in."
Some exhibitors could only be called "newbies" in the very loosest sense: For the first time, a number of adult video companies chose to exhibit, with huge booths and giveaways to promote their growing involvement on the Net.
Wicked Pictures' online division, Wicked Interactive (www.wickedia.com), partnered with InterActive Solutions International to launch a new real-time adult casino, www.wickedcasino.com. "We can't look at ourselves just as a video company or just as an entertainment company anymore," said Joy King, VP of Public Relations for Wicked. "Consumers now have a variety of technologies and systems to view their entertainment with. We moved cautiously with selling our content æ we have plenty of it, that's our asset, but we don't want to sell it or give it away. Our content is exclusive and has never been released by anyone but us. If we gave away all our content to Web masters then there would be no valid reason for people to come to our site because they could get it anywhere. The big players in video are finally really making a commitment to the adult Net industry."
Some long-time exhibitors speculated that the video companies could prove to be a threat, but there were those who were quick to shoot that theory down.
"That's one thing that definitely stood out, the presence of the video companies," said Greg Clayman, president of Videosecrets (www.videosecrets.com), which set up the cameras for the live interviews that were Webcast from the AVN Online booth throughout the show. "The video companies own of a lot of content, and they're major players in the adult business. Their presence is welcomed... it is definitely a good thing. The more companies that are out there, the more everyone has to work harder to stay fresh and continue on the course. Competition breeds motivation."
Scott Schalin agreed. "Here are the companies with the most content ever and it's taken them so long to get on the Web," he pointed out. "You would think it would have been a slam-dunk for them. It seems that some companies have been on (the Net) very early, but you hadn't seen Vivid or Wicked until now. I guess that if you know one industry very well, trying to conquer a new one maybe scares some companies. Maybe they want to wait and watch how others do it so they can emulate successes and not emulate failures. I think that initially the (video companies) were hit with all these Net companies who were saying could we buy your content and we will license your content. And they thought that was good, but then they saw all these companies making a lot of money using their content and they said, 'Wait a minute, we should be doing this ourselves.'"
Schalin also believes there is more than enough traffic - and content - to go around. "There are so many companies that have made so much money producing Internet-only content. Sure, it's more competition, but we haven't seen any of our sales go down. We all get traffic from different resources... so it's good if they come in, because maybe they're getting traffic from some place we never have... When it comes right down to it, the more the merrier."
