Everyone from Max Hardcore to Carmen Luvana is in the Internext compound (also known as the beachfront Westin Diplomat Hotel) this weekend, where the activities include all-day poker marathons, poolside contests involving scantily clad women, more parties than you'd care to attend and, oh yeah, business.
If you weren't too busy ogling half-naked women, you could practically smell the deals going down, although they probably weren't going down as fast as the booze. The show started off with Party Like a Porn Star at the Solid Gold Gentlemen's Club where AVN's own Tripp Daniels got the best lap dance of his life. GFY's Warmup Party packed the Diplomat's Grand Ballroom, and that's where most of the convention goers finished the night.
There were seminars too. Day one of Internext featured four—Inside Search Engine Marketing, Put It On My Bill, Check Please, and Mainstream Moves.
The first few seminars were essentially the old standbys, focusing on SEO and various billing issues, which there seem to be very few of these days.
One of the first themes of the show to emerge came up in the first seminar when Adutopia.com president Mike Braccio told the throng, "I love to talk to mainstream folks because they're so far behind us."
AEBN's mobile gang, Xobile, would have to agree, since they were heavily promoting their carrier-independent mobile technology and their Leapscan technology, which allows users to scan the bar code off the back of a DVD box and watch the trailer play on their mobile devices. The software can also alert the user when a new movie by a specific performer becomes available and ask them if they want to purchase the DVD.
"When you look at stuff like this, there's no question where the future's headed," Xobile president Harvey Kaplan said while showing a full-length smut flick on his Pocket PC.
Meanwhile, AEBN's Xobile product is reportedly experiencing some major early success. Kaplan said they're currently experiencing 1:11 conversions and the mobile sector overall is growing at a clip of 45 percent.
"In two years we have accomplished what the Internet accomplished in six," Kaplan said.
There was, of course, some dot-xxx mania. What would a convention in 2005 be like without some?
Free Speech Coalition freedom fighter and communications director Tom Hymes and YNOT editor Connor Young were looking for a fight, calling out ICM Registry's Jason Hendeles, the man behind the proposed dot-xxx sponsored Top-Level Domain. Hendeles was nowhere to be found.
Young and Hymes will get their chance to go head-to-head with Hendeles on Sunday morning, during the Dot-XXX Mania seminar.
So with a possible alteration thwarted for the moment, it was off to Happy Hour and the SilverCash bikini contest.
