In These Troubled Times, Is It Still Worth Managing A Membership Site?
 

Adult memberships sites used to be so damn lucrative. Cam and Dating sites have flourished out of this business model. It had gone so well that people thought that adult is recession-proof. But with the onset of tube sites, rampant piracy, dwindling support from major financial institutions, government constant interference, the country's economic woes and the audience's preference for free content, it seems creating membership sites nowadays looks risky. What used to be just seems worn and obsolete.

Is it still worth the trouble making membership sites? Marketing gurus say that we only need to create more valuable content. But how more "valuable" can we make them when people apparently prefer quantity over quality? Can we really still make money with content?

And yet while all things remain doubtful, I still think the porn industry will never die. Our industry has always been innovative. We are the the first to try new things. Reinvention is our middle name. It is our adventurous spirit that will lead us to a new profitability. It's just a matter of time.

Do you share my optimism?

Yes.

Offer your members better quality.

See sig for innovation.

:thumbsup

what blackmonster said

do all you can do to protect your content - have something unique - interact with your members. Cookie cutter sites with feeds in my opinion just dont cut it anymore.

May be there is a profitable niche left.

No. There's no money in porn. Move on. But, see sig if you want to make some.

Adult industry is built on myths, highly endorsed by SOME of the people that makes real money (while they do something else) and repeated by the herds:

"content is king"
"looks don't matter"
"adult industry is innovative" --> this one cracks me up when it is, it always was and it will always probably be at least a couple years behind, although most usually 3 years on average

and so on.

so, once you get off these pre-concepts -like the most successful companies do while everybody look at them and raise the flag for those myths, yes, there's a lot of room to improve. But if you're still stuck on those myths... well, hope you have a Plan B for when you leave the industry :2 cents:

In a word YES :thumbsup

In These Troubled Times, Is It Still Worth Managing A Membership Site?
 

Yes it is still worth managing a membership site.

The porn industry will never die, however the landscape has changed greatly the last few years and the divide between who is capable of making money, and who is not, has deepened.

I look at it being off to the side somewhat from the outside being a service provider to adult for 12 years and consultant, where I am seeing growth comes from the same primary ideas for both adult and mainstream which are:

1. Higher Quality content is being demanded by the end users and larger content is moving online, thus end users have a broadcast quality expectation and revenue dollars are aligned to their experience.

2. There is explosive growth in web enabled mobile devices and in mobile content consumption especially where land line connections are limited. Reports show more smart phones will ship worldwide in 2011 than laptops and PCs combined with that market exploding to an 80% adoption rate by 2015.

3. Gartner states most companies are leveraging about 10% of the computing resources available them via their own infrastructure (owned and managed infrastructure is not optimized). Therefore there is huge movement to ?cloud? infrastructure so you pay for what you use and nothing more. Further lowering cap X costs and costs surrounding the management of infrastructure.

In short, yes there is still money in this but think about this for a second. The business model everyone is holding on till death has not changed for 15 years. :2 cents:

And the wheel hasn't changed in thousands of years. You don't need to re-invent the wheel. People will always pay for porn...IF it's not pirated by others and given away for free.
Nobody will pay for it then. But the underlying business model is still viable and can still be the most lucrative one IF piracy is brought under control.

I see nothing in the human psyche that says Sexuality has changed one iota since the dawn of time. A hot girl getting fucked good will still get men's cocks hard and wallets open until the end of time (unless you are able to go to a pirate site and see it for free of course)

all of this is 100% true, hence why the "content is king" myth proves to be untrue. However, what changes is the delivery, the technology, the themes, the context, the cultural aspects and so on.

For example, a guy fucking a somehow chubby (for nowadays standards) girl with natural body hair was the norm until mid 80s. Now we call it "niche". Another example: a few years ago many programs outdid the competition by having... HD content. It didn't matter if it was good or bad content as long as it was HD. Then the same with mobile. Maybe we'll see the same with 3D.

In short, content doesn't matter much, what matters is perception of added value. An off-adult example: Twitter. The lack of content by definition. If someone told you 20 years ago that people would be connected to a computer telling they ate a sandwich and a network of people would "retweet" that... what do you think you would have said about that? Probably a joke, or the people telling that was crazy, or a liar. Now it's the norm, the standard. The form, the added value, the cultural context over the absolute absence of content, meaning or depth.

Anyway, for those interested in the subject, just take a look to the pretty long but hopefully informative article I wrote some time ago

Good post. :)
You can always come up with new variations of the "wheel" and tweak things out to make things better and change it up to roll with the current trends of society and culture.

But no matter what...as long as big black cocks penetrate the tight assholes of big tit blondes...I'll be there with a camera to capture the moment. :1orglaugh

No the wheel has changed and thank god we don't have to ride on wooden wheels anymore however, what has changed most is the way you buy that wheel and how it performs.

You folks do know that the OP posted this exact same text several places?

It's basically a lame asked and answered question he posted to get sig views.

Not that your comments are invalid.

That's ok. I'm used to that. :1orglaugh

I completely agree. No need to reinvent the wheel but new ideas and tweaking the wheel will usually end with positive results. A site has to give something better,unique, and interactive to get a person to open up their wallet in this day in age.

If you put up some cookie cutter site with no unique value or content to it, it most likely won't be as profitable as planned.

tranny penis extender sites are making a killing still.

why u guys keep answering this stupid questions every year?

Because bots need friends too

Hey, I'm not a bot. And the question I asked wasn't stupid.

meh, not worth it.

I'm sorry my post may appear lame to you, but I asked because I needed to know. Incidentally, I also posted this to places that didn't allow sigs.