Sharky - The State of the Adult Affiliate Program
 

Sharkylicious. :thumbsup

Sharky is good people.

Yes. I always liked Sharky. He is a nice guy.
:thumbsup

Is he still jobless?

Dunno. Have not heard anything since that one thread.

Thanks for the post. I enjoyed doing the Interview... Jason is a very knowledgable guy for sure!

As for the other question... I've signed on a few consulting clients and am working with them at the moment. I'm still entertaining offers with others, and have a couple meetings scheduled for the AVN Show later this week;-)

I wish you the best of luck. :)

Thanks Tony!

Good luck man! Good things headed your way i'm sure!

Great info Sharky. Listening to it now and these are some of my observations.

Firstly great information. :thumbsup

1. You're spot on about meeting the customers needs. For so long the whole of the adult industry has worked in an environment of the customer having little choice. He now has an abundance of choice. From Free to paid, he's spoiled with choice and those who don't meet his needs will fail. This market is totally over exposed.

2. Regarding My Free Cams, how in your opinion would it work with paysites offering this type of service inside their sites for members only. Free online chat, real and nasty show with the girl getting off and relying on "gifts" to pay the girl?

The girls who meet customers needs with a GFE type show will get the most gifts.

All leads to a better quality "User Experience"

3. IMO I've never seen a LOT of money in niche. It might be all that's left, but the number of people who are into many niches is not enough to fund the adult industry as we know it. We have to appeal to the mainstream to get the big bucks.

And those who don't know a niche are not going to profit well from it.

4. Yes affiliate models will change if the industry does not return to the big profits of the past. Supporting and promoting to affiliates costs money, if the money isn't there. Then cuts are inevitable.

5. And the most important. Tubes are here to stay, legal or not they're not going anywhere.

Thanks again Sharky.

I'm pretty sure those days are long gone forever. But, the easy money days are part of the reason for a number of the recent program closures. When these programs started, making money was easy right out of the gate. They didn't have to be business savvy and lean & mean to get a foothold and survive the first year or two like most other kinds of business. That easy money led to bad habits, excesses and deficiencies never being properly corrected, or even worse, short cuts like pre-checked cross sales being used to prop up dwindling profits.

Live and learn... or maybe not...

The big money of the 80s and 90s are gone. Long gone. There are no people on the Net who made the money the likes of Larry Flynt, Paul Raymond, etc made.

I meant the big money of the early 2000s and I think if we took on some of what Sharky says it could happen. The business needs to be customer driven. He's in charge and he puts money on the table.

No one else does. We invest to get a return. He spends.

Looking forward to listening, always good info from him!

Anything prior to the late 90's is pre-www and not really pertinent to this topic, and yes I was around then. I'm officially an old fart, I have an AARP card in my wallet to prove it.

I would include the early 2000's as part of the easy money days. Many of the programs that have closed over the last 6 months got started in the early 2000's.

Sure, there could be some programs hit upon the magic combination and make some huge money, but I think they will be the exception. There's still plenty of money to be made in this biz, simply by being smart, working hard, and putting out a quality product.

The affiliate model will continue to evolve just like it has been for more than a decade already. That's just smart business.

when do you get there?

Awesome Podcast Sharky is the man and really knows his stuff

why interview some unemployed dude?

That is some good stuff :thumbsup

Because he has some great things to say.

State of the adult industry?

J/k

Why do we answer rhetorical questions?

Thanks for the response Paul. To answer your question...

I do think the MyFreeCams model would work as a paysite, however it would need to be modified for obvious reasons. Tube sites have Membership levels now too. Simply put, users pay for "premium" or "priority" access to the models, discounted tip tokens, etc.

There is definitely money in Niche. Maybe not the HUGE money we've seen in other sectors, but Niche is still converting sales where general paysites might not be.

Thanks Matt. Will I see you at the AVN Show?


Thanks buddy! I hope all is well with you!

I am driving in tomorrow. Call me, we need to have a few drinks for sure!

Thanks Andy!

Thanks;-)

lol, It does say a lot about the State of the Industry. Fact is there isn't as much money to go around these days. Higher paid positions are tougher to come by.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil!!! :1orglaugh

good stuff, Sharky!

It is indeed sire.
:pimp

I did not mean My Free Cams as a stand alone paysite. Though it could work charging guys a monthly fee to access non stop live shows. With gifts to top up the costs if needed.

I meant it could go inside paysites to beef the members area. For instance as a feed inside FTV, Twistys, Sapphic Erotica, etc. Big sites could be looking at doing it independently if they wish, smaller sites sharing one feed.

There is money in micro niche, just not BIG money for the industry. There's money in Big Tits, MILF, Teens, Lesbian, Gay, Shemales, etc. All niches. Once you get into micro niches the money reduces. Over the years I've been asked to shoot lots of micro niches and the money they could pay reflected the value of the bmarket. In mags, videos and web.

Among other things....
:winkwink:

There's no BIG money in leg or foot fetish either. You will tell us how you make big money but I'm talking about the industry ad a whole.

What Sharky barely touched on was the saturation of Internet porn sites and people in it. For the money the industry produces.

The magazine business was a license to print money for those in it, because there were few in it. If you could not get your mag onto a top shelf you were screwed. This kept up the earnings of all involved. Most mags sold 100,000 copies each month. If your mag did not sell, the distributors and shops did not want it.

The video/DVD business suffered because of the number of companies selling films and the number of titles each one produced. 15 years ago if you sold 10,000 copies you were in the top league. Real quality porn is tough to maintain if the producer is only getting $5 a copy wholesale.

On the Internet anyone who can throw up a site and point a camera could become a site owner or producer. Anyone who could submit a banner, gallery, etc. could become a webmaster. The result was too many people trying to make a living in a market that could not sustain them. So quality suffered in most cases. Turning more customers off buying, making producers squeeze production costs and the spiral continues.