well, just to clarify, i hope my comment isn't interpreted as a jab at the current operation's legitimacy.

just speaking to how it was started, i thought it to be relevant to the topic.

wow who would of guess a legitimate intelligent thread would be transformed into cry baby anti tube thread again.

who would have guest it would have been you to do it.

Surprise suprise surprise

Not so. The problem with that is those are all prepaid spots. And even those spots are probably being "monetized" for the traffic instead of actually selling a product.

What sells today is the same thing that sold yesterday...targeting an audience precisely and then delivering exactly what they want. The prepaid spots on the Brazzers network of tubes is all about traffic and monetizing it. Not actually selling anything.

And that's why we're seeing the bottom fall out of the business as a whole. In the end...nobody is selling anything. It's like when somebody buys a x-sell and then they monetize that x-sell 3 ways to Sunday and pass the buck on to the next person down the line. And it goes on and on. But in the end...nobodies really making anything or selling anything.

Yeah, it makes a shit load of money. But it's no different than the Pop Up Hell days of pay per click on pop ups. You just had a bunch of companies writing each other checks back and forth. But eventually it can't sustain itself.

Eventually you have to actually do real sales and make something worth buying.

it is as it shows that even back in the day people were stealing left and right to make a buck ;)))

well, a great thread about to go off track thanks to gg.

Nooooooooo don't take away the dream :1orglaugh

I just said that to illustrate just how far the cat got out of the bag.

I remember clicking a text link or banner and going to a solo girl's site which had a short tour that blocked out all the parts I wanted to see and it made me want to buy a membership to get inside and see the good stuff. That's a great sales tactic.

Now the solo girls have the " money " shot included in their tour and so much explicit promotional material out floating around it's kind of silly to pay for a membership anymore.

That's just the way they conducted their business as everyone pushed the envelope of good business sense to the point where it's at today. Not so good.

Robbie understands the value of exclusive material. It's too bad others didn't follow his lead.

yes however you would not want to touch most of them if you want to keep your visitors happy and buying ;)))

100% agree.

This rests squarely on the operators. They decide what goes on the tours. Someone somewhere wanted an edge, and so including money shots became standard as everyone was trying to out-do each other. But yeah, today.... there's nothing left to give away. The whole burrito is right on the front pages now. I don't see it going backwards.

Times change in every business. Sink or swim. No hustle? You starve :2 cents:

j. stephen hicks/ www.digitaldesire.com blocks the poon pics in their gals/tours. although i wonder how well this works since a quick trip elsewhere will show ya the girl's tonsils via vag shots.

but hat's off to them nonetheless.

True words, Shap.

Another thing that got out of hand, for the same reason, was updating the site.

Once a month to twice a month to once a week to three times a week to daily.

As you say the operators tried to one-up the competitors to the point members now EXPECT a daily production. It's just an unnecessary burden on the operator that still would have made sales if there was an industry standard of say once a week updates.

I couldn't agree more. I'm actually making good money today.

This is why there are no true "leaders" in the strictest sense of the word, because we will all cut each others throat, as well as our own, just to gain an edge over the competition. I don't mean fucking someone over... I mean, just gaining that business edge, which is totally understandable and expected.

There are "role models", but no "leaders". Any one of us will look at what a particular "leader" is doing, and instantly attempt to one-up them. As it should be. No one strives to be at the bottom of the food chain.

The major reason this industry is hurting now, in my opinion, more than it has ever in the past has little to do with Tubes, Credit Cards, or the Economy.....in a word, COMPETITION.

Ask most programs who their biggest competitor is and they will name some other program.........AND THEY ARE WRONG! Twisty's (for example) biggest competitor is Facebook. Yes, Facebook....and Twitter, and now even Chat Roulette. It is the sites that are taking surfing time away from our potential customers. Now, when someone wants to go online and be "entertained" they can check out their friends on FB, or they can find something cool to Tweet about, or they can whip out their cock, fire up the cam, and hit Chat Roulette for a while until then find something that interests them.

Until recently, this industry had a seemingly endless supply of potential customers with no entertainment options. Before, once you caught up on the news from CNN.COM and then caught up on your sports from ESPN.COM you were left with nothing but Porn....now there is a plethora of options for your entertainment time.

The companies who can either (1) figure out a way to entice those potential customers to come back to the porn side or (2) survive until these other options have run their course and hope there is not a "next generation" coming behind them, will enjoy the "good old days" once again in the future.

Of course, everything I have stated is just my opinion....I could be wrong.


--T

i second this

Too much free content = less sales... period!

Stop giving everything away for free, and maybe people will care to buy again.

Sales still exist, despite the industries best efforts to destroy itself from within, but as long as you are giving the milk away for free there is less and less reason for anyone to buy the cow.

This is a part time job for me, and I still do okay, but I sell exclusive content that is not all over the fucking place for free.

If you think tubes and piracy are not to blame for a good portion of lost sales, then I have a bridge for sale that you may be interested in...

Larry Flynt was a leader, a pioneer and a business warrior.

People of that character are slim these days.

Btw one point I'd like to add. I don't consider myself to be among the leaders and don't consider myself a very good businessman. I'm working on it. My problem is the money derailed my motivation to be a good businessman. I'm working to fix that but it's not easy.

That's exactly what I said in my first post :thumbsup

Same boat here. Working very hard on it.

Tony you are DEAD DEAD DEAD ON! I think we talked about this in your suite in Miami last august. Social Media started the industry decline not tubes. The 18 to 30 demographic can get WAAAAAY more out of social media than a porn site. Hell they may even REALLY score. On a personal level I spend so much time on social media I have no time left for porn and I know I'm not the only one.

I remember 5 years ago when I told someone I was in porn they'd flip out. They wanted access, passwords etc. I play in a few hockey leagues and most of the guys are 20 to 25 in age. I tell them I'm in porn and they turn down my offers for free memberships. They don't give a damn.

I say you're wrong :)

You've assumed porn is just a form of entertainment.

It's more of a way to satisfy a primal urge.

Go ask 100 people which one they would give up if they had to. Sex or Face-book.

There will always be a need for porn and it won't be replaced by anything.
The only thing that will change it it's content and method of delivery.

Btw another option (besides porn) is online gaming like WoW

i've seen some graphs in the past that show the correlation in the decline of traffic to adult sites and the increase in traffic to social network sites at the same time, does anyone have those handy?

Trust me you are wrong. My team and I have spent many hours researching our stats (as well as others). The downturn in tgp traffic (and other sources) started before tubes. It started when Myspace and Facebook blew up.

How old are you? Poll 20 to 25 year olds. It's not about sex because they don't have sex on our site. I can jerk off just as easily on facebook as I can to Twistys. The difference with facebook is there is potential real life interaction.

I love Stephen. We do a lot of business and he's a great guy. He's no pink is a personal choice rather than a business fueled decision. He has children and he feels kids should not be able to easily access explicit material. He knows he's not going to change the world but he's doing his part. I commend him for that. Not many people have the balls to do that in this biz (including myself).

If I am a single guy who does not do well with chicks, or I am a married guy who is not getting enough, or I am in a relationship but do not want to cheat - then I am looking for some exciting porn to jerk off to... I do not give a flying rat's ass what stupid shit you have to say on Twitter, not do I care who your lame ass Facebook friends are.... I am just looking for something to jack it to.

If I can't find it for free, then MAYBE I will pay for it. Nowadays, unless you are technologically retarded, or just fucking too lazy to spend 3 minutes searching, then I guess you pay for a membership or a download.

Strange demographic to base an entire livelihood on, but I guess we'll take it while it lasts. It won't last much longer however...

Really? WTF are you jerking off to on Facebook?

It would seem that the logical answer is to incorporate the two together and provide an all around solution. Yes?

Speaking strictly from my Twistys experience.

I believe most of our success today is based on our brand. The large mass of our members have stayed members (or re-joined) because they like the total package we offer. Showcasing a lot of our new content on the tour just re-enforces to them we've maintained our high level of quality and they usually look for something new to entice them back (times are tough and they have to justify joining again). So for us showcasing and giving a lot for free works because of that.

I think that was true, or more of the case 5+ years ago. The gravy train years were really the 90's from what I hear. I didn't start to 99, but I hear people all the time that say back in 96' 97' 98' etc if you throw out a couple pages in the SE you would get tons of sales. There was also less competition. The competition increased a lot in 99/00/01 etc. People had to start "working" to make money.

A lot of the dumb money people crashed in burned by the early 2000's. Everyone else who was left had to work harder and smarter to continue to make good money and stay ahead of their competition. Some people who had made dumb money early and couldn't cut the hard work resorted to shady shit like spyware, stealing content, and banging cards. Other people got on the cross sale craze to help try to make them more money. This all happened around the 2003 - 2008 time frame.


In the last couple years to current, what has really kicked everyone in the ass is the economy, but more so the credit crunch. I don't care what you sell if it takes visa there is a LOT less potential customers today then there was 2+ years ago. When the credit card companies started taking everyone's available balances away, and more and more people were losing their jobs and living on (and maxing out) their credit cards, we lost tons of potential customers.

Throw on top of that how tube sites / stolen content have hurt picture and video membership sites you can see the challenges today are a lot harder then even 2 -3 years ago.

There is still money to be made, it's just gets harder and harder to do it everyday. The people who made easy money way back, that then turned to shady stuff, banging cards, or living off of cross sales, their days are numbered unless they come up with another way to ride the wave a little longer.

So to reply to your post, the "dumb money" people have long been gone. What we are getting rid of now is the shady people, and everyone else who failed to work EVEN harder to keep it going / innovated to stay ahead of the competition.

It's an example. An example of one of our biggest demographics. So I don't think it's that strange.

I think Twistys is great. Don't know why I would ever need to pay for any of it though. I won't post the links, but I just spent 30 seconds doing a search for free Twistys porn, and guess what?....

I'm not it's an example.

Anyone can get on Twitter and spend 3 hours chatting and engaging with Porn Stars. One girl logs off/stops replying 20 others are there.

I can see how those social sites could capture huge traffic but how does that affect the acutal sales of adult sites.

My thinking is they waste all day at Facebook for fun and then hit Twistys for 20 minutes to satisfy that itch. Facebook gets all the time but Twistys serves a purpose as well.

It just means you need to figure out a way to get those 20-25 year old's into your site. Long gone are the days of the simple tours, 3 pages, and a join page. Does that mean you need a tube site? Nope. Means you need to do something to make your site more "sticky", something for them to come back to other than another blonde babe etc. No reason there can't be porn 2.0, just like there is web 2.0 like facebook, twitter etc. More people just need to be creative and think of the ideas. That solely is the reason people do not make money in this business, or why their business is suffering now, lack of creativity and changing with the times (and I don't mean the tube bandwagon). A name brand like a Twisty's just needs to be expanded on imho. Those people that open 100 different paysites in hopes each will make a signup, those are the ones that fail. Work on a brand and expand on it.

There is simple reason for that and its not because they are busy on facebook or myspace.

5 years ago you had to pay to see the good stuff, today all of those guys know how to find the good stuff for free on the tube sites. That is why they don't ask you for passwords, because they don't need passwords now to see all the porn they could ever want.

I will always say the major reason the industry is suffering is because companies refuse to innovate.

People got too complacent when it was easy, then when more competitors came in, those lucky early bird money makers in porn had no clue what to do next.

There is a reason programs like Program3 rock -- innovative content, nice sites, simple affiliate program backend, etc.

hah, speaking of all this, i was having dinner recently with an avn award winning director of xxx parody movies, the discussion turned to the downturn of revenues industry-wide & he asked the group why does freeones get a free pass!??

i didn't know what to say.

For me personally, what always made Twistys stand out was the amount of content, how often it updated and how damn pretty the girls were. And which you state above, it's very apparent from the tour.

Not many people can say they have the abundance of content that you do.

Exactly :thumbsup

How many sites are you a member of? If the answer is zero then you wouldn't know right? Just saying if you are not the average paying member you wouldn't know why someone would join a site.

We are trying to provide an experience that is worth the cost of admission. We engage with our members and are trying to expand on that. When you love a particular type of content you get to a point in life (and financially) where the hassle of looking and finding it everyday isn't worth it. If you find something you like you might as well pay for it and get it hassle free. Convenience has huge value to those that can afford it.

Ultimately I know I have to be able to provide a product that is not available for free and that is worthwhile (entertainment wise) for people to pay for. It's going to be an ongoing challenge.

A free pass on what?

I agree.

You know what's interesting about you Will? I know you get into a lot of heated discussions on the board but it's obvious you are no dummy. Far from it. I'd love to meet you one day and have a drink and a conversation with you. Something tells me face to face we'd probably get along and have a really interesting conversation.

Lol I know who you are talking about :thumbsup

What does that even mean? If I ran a site that sells widgets, I can easily say that most of my customers use Twitter and Facebook too. That doesn't mean they used Twitter and FB to find my widgets, nor does it mean there is any correlation whatsoever.

Tons of people online are now using Twitter and FB in some way. Tying that in to people looking for porn is just a blanket statement.

If I am looking for a new camera I do not search Twitter or FB.

It's like saying "I sell electric chicken heads, and after polling my customers I noticed most of them are using Twitter and/or FB." So, what does that prove?

I've noticed nearly 99% of MY customers are using a video monitor of some sort to view my content.

Bingo! Go after the people who use video monitors of some sort!

I think facebook may exhaust them. I'm not sure. For example WoW definitely exhausts them. Compare how many people play games like WoW today vs 7 Years ago. We used to be the only form of entertainment online. Now we are one of many. And we happen to be one that isn't innovating or improving the product very much anymore.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh too funny.