It seems to have been an unwritten rule that each event at Internext Summer ’06 had to at least flirt with the idea of including someone bearing a variant of the name “Mark.” Marc Womack and Marc Lender participated on Friday, and Saturday’s panels saw the arrival of Marc B.
Marc B., owner of Hoes.com, showed up on the Playing in Traffic panel along with moderator Mike Hawk of SmashBucks, “XXXJay” Quinlan, Wildline!’s Johnny V., OnProbation.com’s Q’on, and Scott “Sleazy” Hjorleifson of SleazyDream. Marc B. said he “much, much prefers revshare [over pay-per-sign-up] programs, as long as the revshare program represents a true content program” and not just a traffic circle jerk that funnels members from many sites into one large members area that offers leased or purchased content surfers can find several other places on the Net. As for what’s hot currently, he said live, interactive sites are the super-converters right now. “That’s where you get the whales,” Marc B. noted. “You get the guys who spend $100,000 to $200,000 a year [at websites].”
All of the traffic experts agreed that the days of free traffic are over. “Traffic is a commodity,” noted Johnny V. “If you want it, you’ve got to pay for it. We’ve all determined what traffic is worth through historical data, and that’s what we charge.” Even thumbnail gallery posts—the traditional wellsprings of free adult traffic—charge a fee in addition to a share of revenues to secure a top spot on their websites now, according to Hjorleifson.
Panelists also agreed the adult industry needs to rethink the ways in which it promotes its wares. Webmasters who display explicit content on their website tours reduce everyone’s revenue, said Q’on, who noted, “It’s not going to kill us to make sure we don’t give away too much.”
Added Quinlan, “There’s so much free porn out there now, [selling adult content is] like trying to sell fire to the devil.”
Eliminating explicit content from tours and relying more on “the tease” not only would reduce webmasters’ exposure to obscenity charges and “harmful to minors” allegations, but also most likely bump revenues across the board, according to Johnny V., who says his research indicates offering free explicit content “doesn’t get you significantly more hits.”
One tactic that is likely to increase hits is publicity, according to the panelists in the Mass Appeal seminar. SugarDVD’s Jax Smith, Video Secrets’ Brad Estes, BSG PR’s Brian Gross, and performer Joanna Angel joined moderator Colin Rowntree of Wasteland.com to discuss promoting adult businesses in the mainstream. Surprisingly, Gross is not in favor of soccer moms embracing porn too closely. “We as an industry don’t ever want Wal-Mart to carry our product,” he said. “We want to be underground to keep the market alive.”
However, that doesn’t mean mainstream media aren’t incredibly interested in anything even remotely sleazy, particularly in the “sweeps” months of February, May, and November, when network ratings and advertising rates are set. Bear in mind, though, that “mainstream exposure is a double-edged sword,” warned Estes.
Gross added, “The first thing the media is going to want to do is take you down.”
Smith, whose company recently benefited from the widely reported “news” that Hollywood personality Tori Spelling utilizes SugarDVD’s services, said the rewards are worth the risks. “Sensationalism many times is what makes a news story,” he said. “Deal with it.”
The panelists in the Porn to Go seminar apparently still are dealing with American cellular carriers’ reluctance to trade in adult content. According to Pink Adventure’s Christoph Hermes, Network Telephone Services’ Anthony Stonefield, Waat Media’s Edvin Aghanian, and Brickhouse Mobile’s Clinton Fayling, U.S. cellular users are still some time away from being able to find racy content on their carriers’ portals, but there’s still money to be made in Europe and Asia.
There’s also plenty of money to be made by leveraging online content for brick-and-mortar or video-on-demand sale, according to the panelists who addressed the crowd assembled for the Leveraging Content seminar. Moderated by AVN Online Associate Publisher MJ McMahon, panelists James Siebert (HotMovies), Eric Matis (Adult.com division of Playboy), Frank Kay (Pleasure Productions), Mike Herman (AEBN), and Allison Vivas (Top Bucks) warned that the retail world is even more competitive than the virtual world. “The DVD market is very different from online,” said Matis. “There’s only so much shelf space,” so only the most spectacular online content is likely to find a retail spot.
However, according to a recent Top Bucks survey, the same percentage of respondents preferred to get their adult fixes equally from online and on DVD, Vivas revealed, and she thinks that bodes well for both markets. It also bodes well for VOD. “VOD currently makes up about 15 percent of [Top Bucks’] revenues,” Vivas said. “That’s significant, since it’s not cannibalizing any of our other revenues.”
