My First XBiz World Ariticle! Check it Out! (WARNING: Interesting Biz Thread lol)

[Gentle_Ben]

Hey all! This is my first article in XBizWorld so I thought I'd share. It is a 'longer' read lol, but hope you like it

If the World Was a Tiny Village?

In his latest book, New York Times writer Thomas L. Friedman explains: ?The world is flat.? Globalization has essentially shrunk our world to the size of a peanut. What does this mean for the online adult business? It means barriers of entry are falling. Anyone with a laptop and a dream can make it big.

The same forces that bring this accelerated competition, though, also bring us a wealth of new opportunity. Broadband penetration is climbing and potential customers now span the globe. The smart, forward-thinking company will move toward a strategy to convert every potential surfer, whether he or she is located in Bangor, Maine, or Bangalore, India. By artificially shrinking our world down to more manageable numbers, we can better shed light on some very important issues.

If the world?s population of 6.3 Billion people was represented by just 100 people, it would look something like this:

- 50 would be male, 50 would be female
- 61 would be from Asia, 12 from Europe, 8 from North America, 5 from South America, 13 from Africa, and 1 from Oceania
- 47 would live in an urban area, 18 would struggle to survive on $1 per day, 53 would struggle to survive on $2 per day, and only 6 people would own 59% of the community?s wealth.

Of these 100 people only 17 have Internet access:

- 6 of them live in Asia, 5 in Europe, only 3 in North America, 2 in Latin America, and 1 in the ?rest of the world?
- Of the 17 people with Internet access, 5 speak English, 2 speak Chinese, 1 speaks Japanese, 3 speak Spanish, and 6 speak one of the many other languages used around the globe.
- Only 9 people have credit cards.

What do these stats tell us, practically speaking? They speak volumes. If you are serious about growing your business you need to be thinking about billing, and more specifically, non-credit card solutions.

Here?s the math: about 18 people (out of our representative 100-person village), or 1,173,109,925 people world-wide, have Internet access, and only about 600,000,000 people have credit cards. That still leaves up to about 600 Million people who have Internet access but no credit cards.

THE LANGUAGE BARRIER

Another issue to take into account is how multilingual your site and billing is. If you have English-only sites then you are missing a ton of potential business. You wouldn?t agree to pay for a site if all the text was in Japanese. In fact, you probably wouldn?t be able to if you wanted.

Of the world?s Internet users, only 20 percent are from North America. So if roughly one-fifth of your possible customers speak English, you need to diversify your communications.

OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA

The last issue to consider in relation to these statistics is the relative buying power of people from different countries. The adult industry has long been based on memberships, typically ranging anywhere from $20- 40 USD per month. Now, again, this makes sense for the typical American citizen, making approximately $40,000 a year, possibly with a supplemental income from a wife or partner. For much of the world though, this membership pricing structure simply does not fly.

If you want to make more money you must realize that sometimes it?s better to get something instead of nothing. People often ignore the old adage ?a bird in hand is better than two in the bush,? and end up losing out on extra revenue.

With Micropayment options on your site, you expand your possible client base to people who either already have a site membership and aren?t planning on buying another, to people who cannot afford to pay for a full membership but can afford to pay something for adult content, and people who simply want to pay for the content or time that they actually use.

At NoCreditCard (NCC) the approach is to help clients with their portfolio of billing, and to take a completely holistic approach. Alternative billing methods will never take over as the main processing medium in the adult industry. However, they way to really squeeze alternative billing methods for all their worth is to make sure that they complement your existing billing.

If you?re not converting Spanish credit card traffic well (which you probably aren?t), think of shooting it to a telco-based solution like Phone2Enter or CoolAccess, bringing the end user to amazing content in his own language and with a payment solution that will actually work.

?Since we began working with NoCreditCard.com, we have seen a substantial increase in our overall revenue,? said Rico, Owner of PanchoDog, WeConvert, and SheDevilDollars. ?By not using NCC, we were basically losing out on markets and income that not only are now part of our constant attention, but are also a decent part of our revenue. Given the current foreign-market growth, it makes absolute sense to find alternative billing methods that cater to these markets, period.?

In the end, how much you monetize your foreign traffic is completely up to you. You need to find an experienced and knowledgeable alternative solutions provider, start looking at your business model in a global context, and construct a billing strategy that takes into account the nuances of different countries, their cultural leanings and what will perform best in terms of payment and content.

Remember, today?s world is ?flat?. Now is the time to reach out and make the most of your products.

[Buddy]

Ben is smart and sexy.

[Lykos]

good article!

[BoardiesBitch]

interesting article.
That's the reason why we are already billing over 420,000,000 mobiles phones with http://www.dvd-explorer.com/?billing=2

[Gentle_Ben]

Originally Posted by Buddy

Ben is smart and sexy.

Buddddddy! How are we gonna hit up Baileen 22 now that you're alll the way over there! haha. hope your well man

[CynthiaB]

Of the world’s Internet users, only 20 percent are from North America.

That's very interesting to me, I would have guessed much higher. Great article.

[Princess Ellisa]

Ben that is a great article I had heard those stats before but I really like the way you worked them into your article and how well they illustrate why everyone should be hitting you up for a no credit card account

It was nice to see you in BCN I hope I get to come back really soon!

[Gentle_Ben]

Originally Posted by Princess Ellisa

Ben that is a great article I had heard those stats before but I really like the way you worked them into your article and how well they illustrate why everyone should be hitting you up for a no credit card account

It was nice to see you in BCN I hope I get to come back really soon!

Ellisa! It was AWESOME chilling with you and Tanker in BCN, hope you were happy with the little sight seeing you got to do. I'll be back in TO during xmas time, so I'll be sure to hit you guys up. And thanks for the nice words

OH! and you have to send me a copy of that video with the girl in front of the sagrada familia, soooo jokes!

[Jennyfer]

Great job, Ben! como está todo por España?

[KBoogie]

Nice information! Thanks!

[V_RocKs]

I like glue.

[Gentle_Ben]

Originally Posted by Jennyfer

Great job, Ben! como está todo por España?

Hola Jennyfer! Pues aqui todo genial, ya llevo tres anos en barcelona! no lo puedo creer, como pasa el tiempo eh? Espero que todo este perfecto alli, tengo muchas ganas de volver

[Gentle_Ben]

Originally Posted by Silvercash Kristin

Nice information! Thanks!

Thanks Kristin!

[EZRhino]

Good article but I have to say that although most sites are in English the monetary potential for adding languages is not completely there. If 5 speak English and countries like China cant access porno, what?s the point? I know plenty of people who have internet access for years now and have yet to spend a single dime on a transaction. Much less on porno. I am not against putting other popular languages on porno sites but if I am a struggling webmaster it would be a waste of money to translate my sites. As much as I would like to get those 2 Chinese customers who cant access my domain because its filtered by the Chinese government and the 1 Japanese customer (who might spend some Yen) and the 3 Spanish speakers who might join. But with high credit card fraud in central and south America, why would I want them? I think, for the time being, because I am a struggling webmaster, I will stick to English.
Let me add this one thing, I have always wondered, and if anyone knows this please post it. If there were 100 people on earth, how many websites would there be per person? Both pay sites and free sites.

[RyuLion]

great article Ben! Congrants..

[Ahoddie]

Way to go, Ben -- the article turned out great!

[Big_D]

outstanding article homeskillet!!!!!!!!!

but lose the blue, i almost went cross-eyed

[GT-Omar]

Congrats Ben! Great article.

What really peaked my interest of course was this section of the article.

Originally Posted by Gentle_Ben

THE LANGUAGE BARRIER
Another issue to take into account is how multilingual your site and billing is. If you have English-only sites then you are missing a ton of potential business. You wouldn?t agree to pay for a site if all the text was in Japanese. In fact, you probably wouldn?t be able to if you wanted.

Of the world?s Internet users, only 20 percent are from North America. So if roughly one-fifth of your possible customers speak English, you need to diversify your communications.

Being in the localization, and translation business myself I preach the fact that, if "your not targeting international communities in their dialect your really leaving money on the table". You being in the billing business know that these two aspects go hand in hand with each other.

You did a GREAT job in this article! and again congrats.

Anyone that needs any info regarding the localizations of your program, or sites feel free to hit me up and check us out Globally Translated[/QUOTE]