Lack of updates, no innovation, no sales force, no new tools.

programs always made money promoting internally through their own traffic. dropping affiliates is just a way to stop the saturation of their content :2 cents:

All of the above?

May very well be :1orglaugh

All of the above apply. Not all reasons were mentioned, though :2 cents:

Had to pick all, but I think it is a natural evolution of the business model. Some programs will die, others will stop working with affiliates since they are able to generate enough sales on their own. Those who keep their affiliate programs will probably have to change to revshare to be able to run a risk free operation.

simply because todays porn is ... BORING! serious, its just plain fucking ... no plot, no fun ... i still remember the very first porn movie i have ever seen ... it was a german production that made me laugh big time - why? it was a funny story about an au pair girl and everyone got to fuck but not to jizz because there always was something disturbing the acting pair ... like this: a young blond (that au pair girl) hitchhiked and the driver of the VW bus drove straight into the woods, starting to rip her outta her clothes and when they were fucking, she kept yelling "dont, dont ... dont rape me" - and when he stopped for a sec and asked if she took the "pill" she replied "of coz, man!" so he started cramming her again until a cop knocked on the window just when he was about to come ... "drivers license, id card plz" ... the whole movie was FUN to watch - other than todays ol' in and out crap ...

I will be more explicit, even though I won't tell all the story since it won't apply in some cases and it may get kinda tedious.

1- Those of you who think most programs are "dying"... well, I've a bridge I can sell you for cheap, mint condition. Just send $10,000 to my paypal account [email protected] I won't go further on this, just take your own conclusions.

2- Those that are really dying... well, there are several reasons. I think the most important ones (more or less in this order) are:

• lack of innovation
• lack of professional help
• trend following
• poor money management
• global economics
  

The first one doesn't even need explanation. It's a given and it's directly related to second and third item. The main problem is that most adult businesses were and still are ran by enthusiastic people with certain specific skills, including being in the right place at the right time. With the addition of more actors, some of them with more skills, some of them getting professionals within their crews, competition gets harder, and even those companies with higher budgets will suffer against smart-ran businesses. In any case, higher budgets will mean higher losses (at least in proportion). See if you recognize any of these business models, which belongs to who and which one will make more money in the long term:

BUSINESS MODEL 1
CEO: original porn fan with contacts and experience
Marketing Manager: a Bro with contacts (hopefully). Usually, no marketing qualifications whatsoever.
Brand Manager: a self taught designer that goes always for the safe path. Usually very qualified and high quality work, but never out of the herd.
Development: What??????
Sales Person/s: one or two skilled and professional persons relying on the power of the brand that holds them. Tremendously poor communication skills and times (unless it's on public boards)

BUSINESS MODEL 2
CEO: highly educated newcomer or porn fan willing to take risks and innovate. Experience and contacts aren't an influential factor.
Marketing Manager: Experienced marketing professional (formally educated or by experience) with development background
Brand Manager: Experienced self-taught out-of-the-box designer or formally educated designer with at least 3-4 years experience
Development: Designers and coders working together. Existing development budget
Sales Persons: many hungry people working by results

Both of those models exists TO THE A and we all know that. Furthermore, these models are almost stereotypes (think on any adult company and you'll see most of them will fall in one or the other category, with a 3rd category we'd call "in between"). Now think about the companies closing, or even those not closing but with poorer results every single day. See in what business model they will fall.

Now, I don't want to go with the "I told you so" story, but I need it to explain things a little: I didn't predict this state of business or what would happen to affiliate model more than 1 year ago because I have a crystal ball. I did because I've information (like many people here) which when used within business development models (plus some common sense or call it intuition) gave me the results you're seeing now.

Take a look at the following :

Key Dimensions ------ 1) Low Marketing Influence Characteristics ---------------- 2) Marketing Driven Businesses Characteristics


Top-management objectives 1) Focused on current stock price, earnings per share, cost reduction, market share, sales volume.
2) Focused on long-term growth in revenue, profitability, EPS and cash flow.

Orientation and functional background of CEO 1) Little or no marketing experience; focused on financial community.
2) Deep understanding of marketing; compelling vision of customer value. Advocate for the customer


Top-management priorities 1) Cost reduction and labor productivity.
2) Customers, resellers and key accounts. Market information and tracking data are key management tools.


Growth strategy 1) Growth achieved through mergers and acquisitions.
2) Growth achieved through serious commitment to research and development, product innovation.

Role of brands 1) Strong brands used as cash cows to fund acquisitions, growth strategy.
2) Substantial investment to build and maintain brand equity.

Focus of new product development 1) Product-focused and technology-focused
2) Customer analysis is hard-wired into product development.


This was written in 2004. Don't you think it applies perfectly to our industry as it is now? Both business models exists today, both are successful and they may even co-exist in a same company or holding group. However, IMHO the first model can exist only if the human resources are 100% professionals. It took longer in adult because of the characteristics of our industry, but now (again, IN MY HUMBLE OPINION) it's impossible to deny it

sorry for the long post, just my :2 cents: and yadda yadda yadda

this.

I was going to add this in a different post to avoid mixing with the previous one.

and finally, most answers are in front of the companies/individuals noses (I'm talking about programs), these answers are slapping them and making noises to call their attention and quite honestly, I think some of these companies already saw those answers. However, until someone else puts those answers in action, these companies won't do anything because they're extremely afraid of innovation and consider it a bad word. Hell, I'd take their existing boring cookie cutter sites as they are and improve conversions by doing a couple of minor (yet never seen before) changes, let alone if they change their business models for a smarter one

processing

i am somehow amazed i am not the only one thinking like that :winkwink: i might as well sell mopar parts - err, whereas mopar is prolly more appealing to customers :2 cents:

Believe me, I know for a fact many people here thinks that, there were several threads on the subject

man has the point....

add to 1. follwing: xsales, hidden sales...

Seriously, that gets discussed around here too; I'm an old A-body collector and it might be nice to do the race / show circuit for a while, hauling my Dart in a trailer behind the motorhome...

Set up a table at Carlisle and sell Hyper-Pak manifolds with custom nitrous injectors :winkwink:

Dont be sorry about the long post although im sure 90% of people in here woth bother reading through it :1orglaugh

You nailed everything pretty good imho, but this is not true only for the time and situation this business is in now, More so now YES
But back in the day this would apply as well and ensure that you banked 2mill instead of 150k....

Personally i have seen a LOT of companies die off during the resession as they were hording money and afraid to invest or take chances at all....
Their product went stale and so did they, the end.

How is it going btw Harvey? Good i hopw, been a while

Less card banging... You forgot one. :2 cents:

there is no debate.. freeporn tubes & forums slaughtered the industry. simple as that.
all this bullshit about customers not having jobs is crap.. i was at the movie theatre this week and that shit was so packed. ( Consumers are just more web savvy now and know where to find porn for free)

Webmasters are lazy??? I dont think so ( NOT ALL OF THEM ).. They just lack motivation because its tough as nails competing with all the free porn.. Some of you need to chill and stop calling others lazy because you are making more money now.. .Your day is coming.

Innovation my ass.. what else is there to innovate. I go to some of these new pornsites and my dick is as hard as a fucking rock (super hot girls, nice designs & promise to thousands of more porn ).. Too bad only the big boys will rake in the big cash because their new stuff gets saturated too quick for affiliates to make much, once it hits all the pirate sites..

Stop blaming this shit on card-banging either... Millions of customers didnt get their cards banged..


The biggest bastard of them all is google.. thanks to them for ranking all these shit sites above those of honest working webmasters. Problem is; at the end of the day, its their site and they can list whoever they want.

Anyways, not complainin... just sayin & addin to the gfy community.

wow, you're really clueless. So clueless you say "innovation my ass" and then blame it all to.... innovation :Oh crap

So big tube sites aren't there by innovation? myfreecams taking the cams market by storm? what about when gonzo sites shown up? and dating? what about reality sites? what about "reality" design? what about the ex-girlfriend stuff? and the cougar boom? Just mentioning a few ones to show you how far away of reality you are.

by the way, you mention the "big boys", yet the programs closing are mainly.... the "big boys".

well, anyway, thank you for your input, you are the living example of everything I mentioned above :thumbsup

main reason is because of all the retards in the biz who dont know how to make money or run a business.

The industry is stale & it has been for quite a long time. At one time, the online adult industry was known for it's innovation. Now it's WAY behind the times. Tube sites & free porn aren't the problem. It's lack of creative content, innovative presentations & new ways to earn revenue.

The music industry blames illegal file sharing for it's demise, as well...and we all know (or should know) that's not the case. The same goes for this industry....

I don't see programs closing down or going bust, I only see them giving 1 days notice to remove links because they are no longer running an affiliate program. With falling margins, and a few who have done this with relatively little kickback, and now a lot of PPS programs have seen that they can still have their sites, still have a lot of the aff traffic, but not have to pay for it.

Being the same dumb idiot as usual, will have a couple things to discuss with you soon ;)

bad news is I guess I won't be able to sell you my bridge, but it doesn't matter, I've a few ones available for other people, hurry before they go!

That about sums it up.

Program owners need to join forces and start suing copyright violators. This shits a joke, you're the only industry that is completely ridiculed on the warez scene.

There needs to be some industry led lobby whose members are taken care of. Anyone who opts out will continue to get their shit pirated whilst members enjoy payouts from successful cases. There are laws to protect your works, I suggest that you start using them.

Fuck the meme "nobody pays for porn" is universally known.

The fact that I could pay $11 and download terabytes of HD content off usenet at my full download speed is despicable.

And for the not so tech savvy there's always the tubes.

Image? Noone brags about being member of site x because it's so cool and you can afford it.

Better quality? Partly, but let's face it, as long as a guy likes what he sees and can get off on it, a better quality or a longer movie isn't enough to make him pay.

Healthier? Uh, I think we can skip this.

Easier to handle? Every idiot can find tubes on google and navigate/search on them.

While I see you point, adding (imaginary) extra value, I don't see much room for innovation in porn that's big enough to make more visitors pay again. It's people fucking, even in 3D it stays people fucking.

It's easy to build an image for a food/drink, add some (imaginary) extra value people want, but porn is much more limited. You can go more extreme, more niche, both may sell well, but the majority of surfers is looking for "mainstream porn" and that's the guys who get way too much free content to bother joining.

Decreased sales are putting a stress on their operations. Many of the owners don't have the business sense to make it through. They get to a point where they can no longer make payroll and pay their affiliates and then that's when they shut down. Many of them also seem to think that they will be able to cut out the affiliates and pocket the 50% they used to pay out by opening up their own tubes. I don't believe many of them really believe this fully but they hope this is the case because after no longer being able to afford paying affiliates it's their only choice.

A lot of the people in this industry are followers. They will see other programs closing and they will consider doing the same things.

Bingo. But I think many of them are closing down their programs because they can no longer pay. The business owners are also kind of dumb. They think they will be able to still bring in the same revenues and make a quick buick or two by screwing affiliates. Then again the affiliates are also dumb because we're not posting information on who the owners are behind these companies so that they will not be able to get back in the industry under another name. As it is now they can just screw you and then open up a brand new program next year and you won't even know.

First paragraph is absolutely wrong IMHO

Second paragraph is wrong (or true) to some extent, depending on several factors. However, as "mainstream porn" is becoming duller every day, prospective customers are getting increasingly bored, thus, in that context what you say makes sense, why pay for dull boring content when dull boring content is available for free?

On top of that, I mentioned it many times, but one of the things that make it hard for programs is that many (most) programs owners have a variety of niches in their sites portfolio. However, due to this situation, most, if not all sites, are off niche. Let's take a very easy example: big boobs. Mainstream niche as it comes. The "solution" for this niche is sites featuring girls with big boobs. Easy, right? Well, it's WRONG. Boobs size makes for about 5% of the niche, I've tracked it via polls and research and around 95% of what big boobs lovers are looking for isn't in the content (well, it may appear but just as a 10 seconds thing in a video or 2-3 pics in a photo set). Same goes for anal, teens, mature, porn stars, shemales, almost all fetishes and so on. Truth is many people in business can't even recognize the difference between niche and fetish (let alone if we add deviation into the equation).

Think of this: in any kind of communication form, content is king. Hell, even in adult industry most people says "content is king". Now, do you know a company using a content specialist? There may be one or two, but personally I don't know of any. And what we're selling is fantasy, when the fantasy is out of the mix, what do we have to sell? Moving mannequins performing a sex act?

billers going broke doesn't help program owners

Many in 2002? How many is "many" in 2009? Better look again.

http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploa...07_01_jobs.png

Hey man.. FSC is saving us.

Sell
something
interesting

QUOTED FOR TRUTH, agree with everything you said on this post.

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lack of updates..