GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - View Single Post - Adapt or Die

Shotsie · 09-19-2011, 03:51 AM

I don't know if you're a baseball fan but if you are you should go pick up the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis, or go see the movie when it comes out. It's a prime example of adaptation in the marketplace and I think there's a strong correlation between porn and Major League Baseball, or any business for that matter.

The book revolves largely around Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics, during the 2002 season. It describes some of the tactical philosphies used by the A's in playing the game and in acquiring and using players. Everything appears to have linkages to heavy-duty statistical analysis otherwise known as "sabermetrics".

The gist of Moneyball was that the A's, by application of statistical analysis, were able to identify how to best acquire talent that allowed the team to compete at a high level, despite the low level of payroll that the A's could afford. A variety of strategies were used. The team identified certain baseball skills as being undervalued in the marketplace. On-base percentage was famously a big deal. So was slugging percentage. Stealing bases was overvalued. Closers were overvalued, etc.

The essence of it all was to find a competitive business advantage for the A's in a marketplace of baseball players and baseball general managers that was, up to that time, inefficient at ferreting out truly useful talent. And the A's, by virtue of using this strategy, were cleaning the clocks of pre-enlightenment teams. Moneyball was about beating the competition by finding a competitive advantage on the cheap and working it.

Today, I think it is safe to say that every Major League Baseball team is aware of sabermetrics and the importance of it, whether they use statistics heavily or moderately. Adaptation in a competitive marketplace requires participants to constantly "up the ante" when a successful new strategy emerges. In the case of the A's, they succeeded in a way that was conspicuous and embarrassing to many other MLB teams. Other teams caught on pretty quickly to what the A's were doing at the time and why it was important.

Now that all teams are paying attention to the obvious benefits of statistical "sabermetric" analysis, the advantage of relying on statistical analysis has been eliminated, or reduced to nearly nothing. Now teams must use it just to keep up with everyone else. To gain an advantage over other teams, new strategies and new sources of competitive advantage must be identified and exploited.

It's a classic example of the Red Queen's hypothesis: "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." In other words, an entity must continually adapt in order to continue to out-compete other continually adapting entities. Executing well-established strategies at a high level is not enough. Innovation is required.

I think a small porn company can compete by identifying new tactics, whether it's producing quality niche content like Kink.com does or developing unique styles of shooting like Mike Adriano's POV+ or new concepts like Jaysin's films, quality content will always sell. John Stagliano knows this and that's why he hand picks the best directors for his company. Take the guys that run that Fucked Hard 18 site for example, they get the girls fresh off the bus from Ohio or wherever and they shoot them first, that's their edge over the competitor. Then you have the other tactics such as inundating potential customers with free porn in hopes that they'll buy a membership to your site filled with lackluster vanilla content, it probably worked great when they first started but i'll bet you their sales decline after awhile.

Tube sites were the sabermetrics of porn, and now that the cats out of the bag everyone is jumping on the bandwagon in hopes of gleaning what they can out of them and the company's associated with them. But there will always be money to be made for those who can think out of the box and develop new tactics.

09-19-2011, 03:51 AM
Shotsie Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: 12th & Tree Posts: 1,208	I don't know if you're a baseball fan but if you are you should go pick up the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis, or go see the movie when it comes out. It's a prime example of adaptation in the marketplace and I think there's a strong correlation between porn and Major League Baseball, or any business for that matter. The book revolves largely around Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics, during the 2002 season. It describes some of the tactical philosphies used by the A's in playing the game and in acquiring and using players. Everything appears to have linkages to heavy-duty statistical analysis otherwise known as "sabermetrics". The gist of Moneyball was that the A's, by application of statistical analysis, were able to identify how to best acquire talent that allowed the team to compete at a high level, despite the low level of payroll that the A's could afford. A variety of strategies were used. The team identified certain baseball skills as being undervalued in the marketplace. On-base percentage was famously a big deal. So was slugging percentage. Stealing bases was overvalued. Closers were overvalued, etc. The essence of it all was to find a competitive business advantage for the A's in a marketplace of baseball players and baseball general managers that was, up to that time, inefficient at ferreting out truly useful talent. And the A's, by virtue of using this strategy, were cleaning the clocks of pre-enlightenment teams. Moneyball was about beating the competition by finding a competitive advantage on the cheap and working it. Today, I think it is safe to say that every Major League Baseball team is aware of sabermetrics and the importance of it, whether they use statistics heavily or moderately. Adaptation in a competitive marketplace requires participants to constantly "up the ante" when a successful new strategy emerges. In the case of the A's, they succeeded in a way that was conspicuous and embarrassing to many other MLB teams. Other teams caught on pretty quickly to what the A's were doing at the time and why it was important. Now that all teams are paying attention to the obvious benefits of statistical "sabermetric" analysis, the advantage of relying on statistical analysis has been eliminated, or reduced to nearly nothing. Now teams must use it just to keep up with everyone else. To gain an advantage over other teams, new strategies and new sources of competitive advantage must be identified and exploited. It's a classic example of the Red Queen's hypothesis: "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." In other words, an entity must continually adapt in order to continue to out-compete other continually adapting entities. Executing well-established strategies at a high level is not enough. Innovation is required. I think a small porn company can compete by identifying new tactics, whether it's producing quality niche content like Kink.com does or developing unique styles of shooting like Mike Adriano's POV+ or new concepts like Jaysin's films, quality content will always sell. John Stagliano knows this and that's why he hand picks the best directors for his company. Take the guys that run that Fucked Hard 18 site for example, they get the girls fresh off the bus from Ohio or wherever and they shoot them first, that's their edge over the competitor. Then you have the other tactics such as inundating potential customers with free porn in hopes that they'll buy a membership to your site filled with lackluster vanilla content, it probably worked great when they first started but i'll bet you their sales decline after awhile. Tube sites were the sabermetrics of porn, and now that the cats out of the bag everyone is jumping on the bandwagon in hopes of gleaning what they can out of them and the company's associated with them. But there will always be money to be made for those who can think out of the box and develop new tactics.