Shrinking Or Shifting? Is Revenue Down For Everyone Or Only Some?
 

If the Adult business were anything like "normal" business my instincts, such as they are, would assume that while some sites have seen their traffic and revenue go down others have seen their traffic and revenue go up.

But as we all know, the Adult game ain't real life, or real internet, or real anything but a confusing, ever-morphing landscape of characters, websites and money-handlers. WooHoo!

So while I see thread after thread of Programs closing, shooters begging for assignments, content providers offering insane discounts, etc etc, I wonder: is revenue down, overall, for everyone in the adult game or is revenue actually up for some companies?

What do you think? I say it's up for some, way down for others. Sides are being drawn, so to speak, the wheat is being seperated from the chaff, boys are turning into men and that pot of gold is actually medical marijuana...

Okay, lost it there at the end but you get the point: shit be shiftin'.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh im sorry

It's no longer a place for morons, addicts, and lazy fucks. You really have to work at it. The companies that were already doing that are doing fine. The companies and individuals who thought it was a party environment are gone or bitching.
Gone are the days of that moronic affiliate manager who has too much to drink, blowing smoke breath in your face and has that unfocused eye and is promising you that you will convert 1:40.

ds

:1orglaugh funny and the fucking truth.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I had my share of conventions where I was either drunk or obviously on something. I'm not perfect, but I wasn't talking business at those times. I was motorboating titties, or at least trying to. I was a lot younger too. I remember having to piss so bad in florida at avn I pulled out my 2 inch prick and pissed over the side of the dock leaning against a yacht. I have had my moments.
ds

yeah the fat has been trimmed. ive watched a bunch of shit fold up. :( when epass sunk it was like the porn titanic :helpme :1orglaugh

Shifting. Money is shifting/shifted into the hands of those selling advertising.

We all know who sells the advertising and how they do it.

Google is the same. I get over a dollar a unique click on adsense on one site setup. On my best site ever I never made more then 1 dollar per unique.

We have the ability to not support those that profit from advertising. It sustains from content. Provide ultra shitty quality content is one method that may help. I understand traffic is needed, and tubes now have it. But you need to focus on the, will this be sustainable in 3 years concept.

Yea I never trusted epass.
Ds

I believe their is still opportunity.
I know a lot of the deadwood is going, going...gone:2 cents:

Just because some are doing well doesn't mean it's not down overall. It's very, very down overall. But there are companies like MFC that have shown that a unique product done well can still make a lot of money in adult.

I'm so glad you are a part of this forum Mr. Peabody. There's no doubt you do your own fucking around on here, but you bring high value questions and personal testimony to the this place as well. :)

shhhh! :ugone2far

Let me take a shot at this from a different angle.

Back in the golden age, it seemed like money was just laying on the ground, waiting to be picked up. If you built a website, the customers would find it and spend money on your content.

Here are the challenges that have come about over the past several years.

1. Piracy: It has had a corrosive effect on sales and will continue to do so. However, most of our paying customers are in their 30's are older ( they have disposable income, which suggests a decent job, which suggests they are are a little older) and are happy to pay for quality unique content. About 20% of my customers are responsible for 75% of my sales.

2. Google: They have been making it very difficult and expensive to get search engine traffic. You cannot find my website unless you use the title in your search.

3. Tube sites: Even the legit tube sites are taking our traffic and offering for free what we hope to sell. This provides a heavy disincentive to be a content producer and a heavy incentive to just copy a tube site, steal everyone else's content, and get rich.

4. Competition from other producers/webmasters: Most of us have gotten smarter about how we do things and we work harder at it. This is normal and healthy in every expanding business environment and is good in the long run.

As far as solutions, Adult King is working hard to make it harder and less profitable for the pirates to steal our stuff and upload it. There are easy fixes that our billers could do to make it a lot harder for people to steal our videos and remain anonymous, but my biller (CC Bill) seems to have no interest at all in doing that.

I have no clue as to what to do about Google. They seem to have it in for us. Whenever I search for material from a model, I get pages of tube sites before I ever get to the website where she and her webmaster will make any money. I am getting very tired of even searching for stuff.

I am sure I have missed some things, but it is a start.

BAM! - We work 12-18 hours per day. 2 people. 6 days per week. LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.s. Mr Peabody popped my 3k post cherry. Shit better pay off! :)

So true! There are morons and lazy wm's that those who really do the hard work. The the lazy come and complain that there's no more money into porn and everybody thinks just that. If there is no money why are they still on gfy or other boards promoting porn??

Oh man, those were bad times for everybody..

i don't complain - nor would i have a reason. and i am for sure not begging

”The business is the same now as it was five or ten years ago because it keeps changing – just like it did then.” --Ed Seykota

Rev is going up, up and up

Sales are up for me slightly.

Last year was the best year for me and my company, and we are on track to do even better this year.

Werll ever since the penguin update and thumblogger shutting down my revenue has turned to shit. I've been moving steadily into mainstream business.

Excellent points and oh so true! For those who are saying 'work harder AND work smarter' my allegiances are with you guys (and gals) because working harder (AND smarter) is THE only way to succeed in life, let alone this crazy Adult business. :)


Thank you - your check is on it's way. :thumbsup


First, I was drunk at the time your 3k cherry was popped so please forgive, and second, since you're working so damn hard it WILL pay off for you guys, totally gaurunteed. :)

Its clearly shifted and growing. I do notice the serious guys making bank today are much less likely to be found on boards fucking around and etc. They may stop in for a read but have very few, if any posts. Also, gone are the days of sharing info, when a guy figures something out they try and keep it secret as possible.

can i borrow $1,000? :helpme

nope. :upsidedow

You think overall gross revenue from pretube times is higher for Internet porn now? I would assume that would be mobile traffic primarily making up of the difference?

Still seems like a bit of a stretch...

revenue way up BUT working much harder... less return. for instance used to cost me $200 to earn $1000, now it cost $550 to earn $650

I think the answer to the question of overall revenue is fairly obvious. It's down. Significantly. People aren't paying for porn as often as before.

Does that mean an individual or company can't still grow and grow to make more than ever before? Of course not. It's just the overall trend. And sure cam and dating revenues might be up too but the paysite and clip models are way down and these used to be a large chunk of the industry.

I think anyone who says otherwise is either bullshitting and trying to sell something or else they are trying to build up their own confidence in the industry. It's like pointing to a bum and claiming he is a billionaire. It's fairly obvious that the industry is down from it's heights. Just look around.

why not host it? id open up a service but people abuse the system

:1orglaugh :)

For the people claiming things are better than ever who have been around for at least ten years can you please share your $/visitor change from 2003 versus 2013? I think that will tell much of the story. If it's anything like what I have seen it's 1/10th to 1/30th of what it was a little over ten years ago. But that's great if you are doing better or if you have enough traffic to make up for that. :)

I don't get what you are so happy about.

10 years ago you could work 3-4 hours a week total and make 5x more money.

Dad?????

For micro niche sites like we create, there are still customers to be had. Not as much as before, but that also has to do with there being more producers to compete with, since barriers to entry have been lowered even more now.

Individual scene sales are up higher than ever, with monthly customers harder to come by.

Good comment earlier about older customers not knowing how to pirate such specialized content.

But to start a brand new mainstream regular porn site without some kind of special angle would be damn near impossible for a self-starter.

Micro niche is the way to go, if you know understand the fetish and do it well.

Our business is doing great, keeping on top of our shit and expanding to new markets. :thumbsup

Would you like to super size that drink or fries?
 

There are more consumers online than ever before therefore there is more money to be made than ever before; however, that will not change the ratio of people that can figure out how to make money vs those that will never get a clue.

The ways to monetize traffic will evolve in relation to the methods traffic is generated.

There will always be winner and losers, early adopters and late to the party, flame outs, left fielders, and fast bucks and bum lucks, slow and steady, smart plays and stupid moves, you name it, I have seen it all.

I was doing this when people didn't even know what a modem was and if they did then they knew it would take about 18 hours to download a single stolen centerfold scanned from Playboy. Seen so many supposedly big huge successful companies come and go it is not even funny.

Sales are down here slightly, but so is our marketing focus on WWW and our overheads are down a lot.

However we're making really nice profit whilst we are developing new products to hit the market this year :).

Although saying that our conversion rate is at it's best since starting out in 1999 and we've just hired someone to get the marketing back on track as well as myself personally going to be working on our affiliate program in the next month to get it back where it used to be!

Harder marketplace but we're pulling out everything we can to make conversions better and it's working :D

Kudos!

Looking at your site, your's is one of the few posts I probably will give any credence to being sincere. imo, your site is the past, present, and future of what will make money on the web. :winkwink:

Did I give away any secrets? :upsidedow

Nope. Doing what you do or what we do only seems obvious to those that do not realize sincerity is hard to fake. :2 cents:

If you ever want to trade some traffic, then hit me up. I would love to disprove the "no/less money in porn" theorem with you. :thumbsup

I started out selling "amateur"-style stuff because that's all i could get my hands on at the time. LOL I started with ZERO so had to be creative with whatever solo models I could convince to work with me. Now? Now I sell more beautiful porn than amateurs BUT I do admit that amateurs still sell.

You have to market to people interested in amateurs in a whole differant way and many large companies - mostly those that are left - focus on MASS MARKETING and selling over-saturated brands.

Counter-marketing still works.

Also true! I can name at least 100 blogs that do very well and the owners never show here on gfy...

This.

I started a babe site in November that gets more traffic daily(organic) than some of my competition who's been around for 3-4 years(if you're judging by Alexa..). That's just me working about 2 hours per day on it.

There's no more throwing up a gallery, having software auto-submit, then sitting back the rest of the week and watching the money flow in. You have to work. As Duke said, the guys I've noticed bitching the most are the ones I've never respected for their knowledge - though I don't mind doing shots with them. :winkwink:

nice.
your an affiliate or own a paysite?

Affiliate(again) for now. :thumbsup