Evolution in Adult: A lesson in my history compared to our future in this industry.
 

They say you should learn from your mistakes. I feel the industry is being split by the way of the tube sites.

I'll hopefully open your eyes a little by comparing our industry to my old industry.

As I'm sure everyone here knows by now, I did Special Effects in 'Hollywood' for 10 years. How did I end up as an adult webmaster? Let me take you back to the 1920's.

In the 1920's Lon Chaney Sr, a character actor, created a few methods of applying make-up to himself to alter his appearance for films. His new found talent suddenly put him at the top of his game. Before long he would be dubbed "The man of a thousand faces" and he set the wheels in motion for an entire industry.

Jump ahead to the 1950's when horror and sci-fi hit it's first peak. Creature films were all the rage. They wanted bigger and scarier creatures but didn't know how to build them. Some makeup department guys combined their knowledge of makeup and their ability to create art and thus a 'special effects' division was born. In time, Special effects would be divided into 'physical effects' and 'makeup effects.'

The makeup effects guys, now known as "FX men" started to incorporate bigger effects and became better creature builders. Their shops went from small rooms needed to apply fake noses to full blown warehouses filled with industrial drill presses, milling machines, and had large walk-in ovens.

Jump ahead to the 1990's and FX men had reached celebrity status. Names like Stan Winston and Rick Baker were being used as marketing tools in movies. Some directed movies, and were given stars on the hollywood walk of fame.


And within 10 years, the whole thing will collapse.


Computers were introduced to special effects in the 1970's. Serious CGI came 10 years later in 1982 in the movie Tron. At first, CGI was crude and not very practical. 9 years later Terminator 2 uses CGI to create a liquid metal man.

Instead of incorporating CGI into the shops like it had incorporated everything else for the past 70 years, it rejected it. Egos were too big to learn how CGI worked. Instead of embracing the art form, they would say "Computers are taking our jobs."

Some incorporated computers, but most did not. I watched shop after shop, shut down. Most of my FX friends moved back to their hometowns. Some sold used cars, some went to work for their parents local hardware stores. Lensman, spammed me an ad for GFY, and now, I work in the adult industry.

What took 70 years to build was all but gone in less that 10 years.

Take this into consideration when thinking of tube sites. For years, webmasters complained that TGP's were giving everything away for free. At first, no one offered content to promote their programs. They offered TEXT LINKS only. Then a picture or two that had to be downloaded to your own server. DO NOT HOT LINK. For years webmasters complained that TGPS's were giving everything away for free. Now programs offer full blown hosted video galleries.

Will tube sites destroy everything you've built up? Or will you incorporate and evolve?

Good post.

"Or will you incorporate and evolve?" Evolve to what a free vehicle to promote dating sites. Dating sites that for the most part are so bogus their time is also going to come?


http://www.imagefilez.com/out.php/i206242_afffake2.jpghttp://www.imagefilez.com/out.php/i206241_afffake1.jpg

Nice input Redshoe, it is definitely worth of considering!

I smoke crack rocks...


* good post.

Maybe I'm wrong but I would think that the makeup effects people are still eating well...There's just some things that can't be done with a computer.

Sorry, but to me your comparison makes no sense whatsoever. A tube site is not some technological leap into the future - it is just flash embedded video, that currently streams quickly, and uses less bandwidth. No one has reinvented the wheel here.

To use this new video delivery option for good is a reasonable business idea. Maybe offer your member area videos in this manner (along wth download options), so if someone doesn't care to download the movie they don't have to. They get to jerk off faster, and you save some bandwidth. Again, not some new form of fucking rocket science.

Your hollywood story simply illustrates some people learned computer generated special effects techniques, and some did not, so many retired. At the moment I think you can train a monkey to flash embed a video on a website, so there is no amazing evolution in technology here at all.

The problem is what many are doing with this new video delivery system, and how it is greatly hurting the adult business.

More people "evolving" into this realm of offering free, lengthy, easy to watch, no credit card needed, tube site bullshit, simply speeds up the demise of the pay-for-porn online business plan.

Al of these "evolve or die" posts are just bizarre...

Not a good comparison, the biggest tubes are filled with stolen content given away for free. They are giving away shit that cost them nothing. There is nothing to adapt to. A regular tube goer is not going to go to a legal sponsored tube site with 2 mins video clips when he can go to red tube and get 20 min clips.
The problem is the "leaders" of our industry for the most part are short sighted.They see traffic and dont think about the ramifications.
Again mark my words what's going to happen:Tubes giving away mountains of free porn will be everywhere. Now you can say there is tons of free porn now. There is but non internet savy people dont understand newsgroups or BT's or TGP's for that matter but tubes are click and its all there. Countries will start banning porn on the net because its so easy for children to access.
Then people will have the balls to say why are they fucking with us.

I can see an outcome like that.

Once again, I completely agree with Tony.

yet hollywood is still here and still employs quite a few people.

Fact: If everyone int he industry limited the amount of content that is available for free we all would see improved sales.

That is an absolute truth.

Unfortunatly there is very little unity in this view. However I know that some sponsor programs are doing a great job at containing what they release for "Free", and in being diligent about it what is released they reap some pretty good profits for the effort.

No offense but yesterday you weren't even sure what the problem with tube sites was so you probably need to do a little more research before you tell us we need to adapt. The comparison between tube sites and tgp's is a poor one. Very few tgp's give away the type of content that is available of some of these tube sites. redtube.com via its model of stolen full length movies has no managed to achieve ten times the traffic of thehun.com in about 1/25th of the time.

Nice input. I personally don't see what everyone is bitching about with the damn tube sites. I mean, people who didn't pay for porn before, still won't pay for porn today (and probably frequent the tubes). The ones who have, will probably continue to (finding short teaser clips on the tubes). A lot of the surfers still want full access to the collection, not 2-3 minute clips here and there. So chances are you will find some new members who had never before heard of your site. If you can adapt, you will do just fine. :2 cents:

stoned, it's the theft man, it's the theft of content. Without massive volumes of free product there is no way they would generate traffic.

Thank you, its not innovative giving away shit thats not yours.

During the "Disruptors" seminar in Vegas they addressed tube sites. It was said that they felt that by encoding lower grade videos in flash and putting them on the tube site it was a way to get people to pay for better quality videos that would come by joining a site or purchasing VOD minutes.

It is my experience though that the tube sites don't seem to convert too many sales for paysites, and like p2p traffic really only convert the dating sites.

I think that people who are watching the tube sites are doing it for the free porn and that they would not consider a paid upgrade when they can so easily watch the tube sites for free, I don?t think the quality is a very important feature to them.

All of that said... I do not believe that they are going away. I do not believe that the owners of the tube sites are worried about the paysite model being disrupted since there are so many other things that they could sell to this traffic.

I also think that no matter how much people want to blow up the tube sites and their hosts that we won?t find much resolve in that either. Red Shoe is correct in the sense that as a business owner we will have to overcome whatever evolution the tube sites bring to our biz, and those of us who do not will suffer greater than those who are willing to adapt and overcome.

I do not think his point was that the tube sites are some great example of new technology, only that when new ideas in general come into an industry they are bound to shake up the status quo and that is what tube sites are doing for us right now.

The dilemma is while it only took one program to say I will give all of my affiliates the sun, the moon and the stars in promo materials, it is going to take a whole industry to stop that snowball.

So is the problem really the tube sites? Or are they just taking advantage of what we have given to them already? Now the question is ... how do we adapt since we cannot back track.

If you know what the next best thing is please email [email protected]

I see your point Tony. I think you said it best, "The problem is the "leaders" of our industry for the most part are short sighted." The people of my industry were as well. They didn't see the big picture.

And as BFT3K said they didn't "retire" they literally lost it all. They shut down. They went broke. They lost their jobs and quit. Some remained. But in 1990 FX was so big, anyone could have walked in off the street and got a job.

And by evolve, I mean change. Adapt. If everyone is giving it away for free. we must evolve and use it to our advantage. I'm not claiming to know how to, I'm just saying, ignoring it will kill us. I've seen it happen.

If you were a program owner 6 years ago, and an affiliate said, "I want you to build a gallery for me and host it for me so I can post it on a TGP" you'd have told that affiliate to go fuck himself. If you didn't evolve, you'd have shut your operation down.

As for Ben, you're right, I have a lot to learn about tube sites. And I'm not telling anyone to do anything. I'm just comparing what I know to what I see happening.

And I hear and see the same complaints that I heard before FX shut down. "These computers are fucking things up", and "CGI is shit" are all things I heard before FX shops started scaling back on crews.

Again, I'm not saying I know the answer. Maybe the answer it unity thru us, and running our own tube sites that exploit redtube. Maybe it's pulling together and attacking him legally. Who knows? Maybe it's a major shift into some new business model, acquiring redtubes traffic and converting it back into membership traffic that we so love. Maybe we need more.. I mean A lobbyist.

If anything, I was just hoping to open a discussion where some decent ideas may come to light.

Agreed. The only reason I start tube-related posts, and continue to contribute to these threads is for that reason as well... Hoping discussion will lead to positive ideas and solutions.

Think again

wow some one on GFY with some common sense

The REAL problem is that people who DID pay for porn before no longer have to pay for porn today. Tube sites are not weeding out the freeloaders... they are creating and training a new generation of sufers TO BECOME freeloaders.

I read a while ago, it was one of my mainstream video industry mags. They spoke about since youtube came out and people have embraced it. Video quality has become less important than it once was and since audio makes up 60% of the video experience if thats decent.People are very forgiving with the over all picture quality.

If people get tubes for free, and they are accustomed to not having to pay... then why advertise?

If freeloaders don't convert, why bother advertising?

Talk to content people and they'll say "content is king"
Talk to traffic people and they'll say, "traffic is king"

So which is it?

Ben said redtube is doing 10 times the traffic hun does, and yet the only advertisement I see is dating sites and the biggest ad going to AFF. I would love to find out how much redtube makes off AFF.

Are they breaking the bank, or is that just wasted ad space? I mean.. these surfers are all just freeloaders, right? Or are they?

One of the issues not addressed there, is that the inter net is totally different from building monsters for a movie.

What will happen with the internet, is that porn will come down to only a few, and all the rest will be gone.

It is already happening more than you know.

Notice that Adult.com and Playboy are not one.

No it's not. Both use HTML to create a completed product. :winkwink:

No, but seriously. It's not the same, and I no one said it was. It was just a comparison in business. Tube sites coming in can been compared to any other business where an invader moves in and tries to take over.

Unfortunately the outcome is usually grim, if no action is taken.

TGP = Decline

TGP + Tube = Bigger decline

(TGP + Tube) x Web2 = Problem


Interactivity between surfers through social networks is exploding and the average age of those using these networks increasing.
Word travels fast these days, it?s one of the reasons why sites giving away free stuff grow very quickly.

So many are trying to sweep these problems under the carpet with the "we?ve seen it before" statement. Good luck with that.

There?s only one kind of adult business that?s sure to benefit in the future and anyone with foresight will already be investing.

Very true. I guess I am not on that end of the stick. Rather than everyone starting new threads on gfy feeding the tube sites even more traffic, why don't we create some sort of alliance. Some hub of sorts where webmasters / content producers can go and report stolen content, and have a team in place to deploy requests to take the content down. When the tubes do not comply, deploy the legal team to try and put an end to them. I realize it is not that simple, but why has nobody taken the leap to get something like this started? I am 99% sure all program owners and content producers will be more than willing to donate time and money to organize something of this nature.

The answer would be are the ads cpc or cpa?

tube sites are teaching people that they don't have to pay for porn. no one dares to speak about underage kids watching porn but here we go. consider yourself a 14 year old boy, you're horny as fuck all the time, and your parents don't really restrict your internet use. your buddy at school tells you about this awesome site redtube. you go find a 25 minute clip and beat your dick to total satisfaction. for the next 4 years you crank off to these tube sites which offer huge amounts of free porn fast. jump forward to your 18th birthday, you get your first credit card shortly after, you realize that you can now spend $30-$40 a month to pay for porn, but that's $30-40 better spent on beer, you quickly remember that for the past 4 years you have had no problem finding loads of great porn for free with a few simple clicks at your beloved redtube and the dozens and dozens of others you've found since. you are never going to pay for porn for the rest of your life.

if the tube site model doesn't manage to implode on itself in the next couple years, it is going to wreak major havoc in the 4-5 year range as the new crop of freshly legal porn consumers knows there is no need to purchase a pass to a paysite...

Not true. VERY not true. It comes down to perceived quality. I've converted many p2p surfers and keep converting them. They get tired of ads and low quality movies.

As far as tube sites go, I really hope that your average surfer will not learn how to use torrents. Then it'll be over.

Tube sites are nothing in comparison, low quality flash movies will convert on quality paysites.

Another valid point.

You are of course assuming tube sites will be around for 4 more years. Online it seems like things evolve 10 times as fast.

if you don't think that within a few years, that the quality of the videos being streamed won't be able to match the full quality of the original video, you really haven't been paying much attention to the advancements being mad ein digital technology. bandwidth is only going to get cheaper and cheaper, transfer rates will get faster and faster. within a few years, i can see full dvd quality movies streaming without much fuss. how are you going to combat that?

if you plan on adapting to the rise of tube sites, you better be looking at finding another medium to promote than video :2 cents:

You actually think that the people who have actually paid for porn online won't go to these tube sites, see all the shit they want for free and say fuck paying for porn? More and more people will go to these tube sites and view all the stolen content that they want. Sure, there will be a small who will still pay for porn, but the #'s will shrink drastically over time.

2 or 3 minute clips? Ya, maybe on "legal" tube sites, but not on the ones using stolen content.. 20+ minute vids. As it was mentioned, do you actually think that a legit tube site filled with sponsor hosted or self hosted teaser clips will get the amount of traffic a tube site with stolen full length videos? Not likely and chances are the amount will be a joke.

Yes, some will say "look at all the free porn out there and we still make $". Sure, but with all the mentions that these illegal tube sites get more people will be curious, go look and see that they can get the porn that they were originally going to pay for... For FREE! Why the hell would they pay after that?

It will not kill sales completely, but it will kill a huge %'s and many sponsors will vanish leaving a small few that make just enough sales to get by. Affiliates will be fucked. Of course, I could be completely wrong since I have done no research on this in any way.

Adapt? So we should all start tube sites? The only real way to compete with them is by also using stolen content and I sure as fuck won't be playing that game. Other than that you will just be a glorified MGP filled with short and shitty clips and almost no traffic.

As I said thought, I could be very wrong, but I doubt it.

like i said "if the tube site modle doesn't manage to implode on itself", which is a definite possibility for the tubes offering fullsize video clips and so on.

Oh I agree. I just think it's really scary to just wait and HOPE it implodes due to high bandwidth with no means of income to offset that cost.

Im going to throw out the idea I had today. Ok we all know that there are products that can be up sold through members areas. The norm is Cams and dating, and toys. Things that members areas normally cant hold. Ok so...

There are companies that push those products that have extreme resources. Resources they could use to develop new methods of secure content delivery.

Lets say one of these companies developed a plugin that would protect your members area content plus allow them to include their upsell? Lets say that in exchange for putting that plugin in your members area you not only got your content safe guarded, but also got a percentage of each sale for the upsells?

Lets say that the company pushing the non compete product gave this product away for free other than the upsell? Who would not want to use it?

So you then have a product that costs the program pushing videos and images nothing, and infact could make them some money, plus not having to worry as much about a surfer coming in and for only a 1 month subscription ripping your whole site and giving it away.

Im just saying maybe just maybe someone using that idea would manage to get their product pushed out in every members area for the cost of developing such a product.

Lets say that they make it encrypted for each site its on, and make it easy to change up that encryption at any time, and being able to be changed by the program that owns the content....

Lets say they made this product deliver the content in a faster streaming method than those currently available?

Of course Im sure someone will come in here and bash any sort of ideas like this lol. The idea is free to whoever might like the idea and want to develop it further. The resources are out there. Might be an excellent way for anyone that has lost face recently to get it back.. :winkwink:

what is the problem with tube sites? stolen content I understand, but tube sites rock. Anyone who does any kind of video would be ignorant not to figure out how to make good with tube sites.

it seems like just more stolen content complaints, not really the site format, that is the problem. Unless I am missing something.

Excellent post and good story. Evolution is important. :)