The main problem why it looks like the adult industry is behind the game compared to mainstream now is that Web 2.0 is VERY hard to adapt in the adult world. So either we have to find a way to make XXX 2.0 work (which I'm trying actually...) or find our own new innovations and stop looking at mainstream which I think is slowing us down a bit.
The main things in Web 2.0 and why they do not work well in Adult:
1) Tagging
Tagging is extremely important since it gives the user a way to interact on the web 2.0 sites and helps searching them a lot. Good tags are created by the SURFERS and not the site owner usually by basically tagging stuff they like with keywords they associate with it.
In Adult: You have the simple problem that a horny adult surfer has no time or brain to enter tags in, so there is no real tagging going on as there is in big mainstream sites. You have to rely on your own tagging 100% which makes it more difficult and untargeted but still OK I guess.
2) Syndication/Automation
The mainstream sites have easy ways to distribute content to help them grow bigger through traffic coming from everywhere. The big sites all have APIs to let 3rd parties use their systems through their backends on their own sites, this helps them grow too of course since the geek community LOVES that kind of stuff.
In Adult: We are using Syndication to build more and easier TGP like sites, now its blogs but seriously, its the same thing just with less galleries because the pages just take up too much room. Its very hard to trust everyone in the industry and we are a lot smaller and thus misuse of the services is more obvious than in the mainstream so I think there are very few who would consider making something like APIs or big syndicatable content because it would get stolen and misused. And of course, our biggest lack is that we do not have such a huge geek community, and even if we did geeks want shit for free and we simply are not a simple ad-driven biz we need to make sales inside our own biz which the mainstream places do not need (not that any of the big web 2.0 sites are making any money).
3) Advertising/Money
The Web 2.0 sites all make money by advertisments on the pages which go outside of their market-segment because they simply right now have NO WAY to actually make money. None of the big startups have a CLUE how they can retain their size but still be profitable. The Web 2.0 game is all about SELLING yourself to Google or some huge media company. They all work because they get MILLIONS AND MILLIONS in VC.
In Adult: Obviously VC is the hardest thing to get for the adult internet.
4) User Contribution
The biggest thing in Web 2.0 is that the BIG 2.0 sites are all big because they have millions of users contributing to their content and thats what makes them big and popular. They simply provide a platform to exchange.
In Adult: User Contributed content simply only works in one niche and thats AMATEURS. Its a big and profitable one, but there are bigger ones and its just a share of the adult market.
Lars, a question like this coming from you is also something that makes people think first before posting ... Everyone knows that you could more or less copy any idea out there in a month or two with the amount of workforce you have access to. Thats honestly one reason why I was wondering if I should even post here.. but I did
I hope it wasn't a mistake <G>