downloadable vs streaming paysite please comment
 

Jon Clark got me thinking on this issue, hope sponsers with experience on this will comment...

all paysites i visit offer downloads. The big players offer lots of different downloads. The tubes offer downloads for a fee.

I am concerned a flash paysite will create unhappy customers & increase the odds of hacking & DDOS when the thieves can't easily steal away.

so i'm leaning on the side of downloadable content...what would you recommend to a newb with niche content not easily found on the torrents (right now)?

Thanks.

I would suggest offering both streaming and download. The torrent uploaders will get your content no matter how you try to stop them.

Always keep the usability of your customers in mind first. Taking away download option that most want will just cause anger and resentment.

Jon Clark is an idiot.

That said, go for downloadable content. Seriously. If a surfer is on a somewhat slow connection, high-quality streaming content will be virtually unwatchable. And low-quality streaming content, well, sucks.

water mark the downloaded stuff.

Thats a good reason. I don't want buyers emailing me saying their connection is slow, they cant watch the video & want their money back. what a disaster that would be.

:2 cents:

You are wrong on both accounts...

Anyone with any money to buy porn is on a broadband connection... http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/257/report_display.asp


Streaming is how surfers want there content delivered.. They have shown it with there adaption of the tube format.. People upgrade to broadband just to watch tube sites and browse myspace for crise sakes..

Review sites love downloadable content, so if you offer streaming only, you will notice that in their reviews (-> and in their traffic).

your site looks amazing

Download
 

There are folks who tell you that streaming will protect your content. Here is a link from Maximum PC (a mainstream PC magazine) that gives step-by-step on how to rip movies from streams and save it to your drive:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/how...rt_flash_video

Keep in mind, that's from mainstream. The hardcore porn surfers, who are looking to rip us off, have known this stuff long before this article was posted. Remember, a lock only keeps out an honest man...it just slows a thief down a bit.

Also, there are mainstream software companies that are making a name for themselves by doing away with their DRM (digital rights management) that inconveniences their legitimate customers. They are making it easier for paying customers to enjoy their content, and focusing on that aspect, and ignoring the piracy aspect....and it's working.

it is about time, now people need everything stored, but they never look at it, they just think they paid for it they have to own it. but if people will start streaming members sites, it will be standart in few years, same as public tube sites, people are not going there to click download button, but to watch, wank, leave and come back ... :2 cents:

Agreed.

You fucking idiot...

It has never occurred to you that even broadband may be somewhat slow at times? You're not aware of the fact that to deliver the kind of quality many people expect when paying for access will be slow and occasionally require buffering even on fast connections? You don't realize that alienating even 10-20% of your customers will seriously hurt your business? You don't know that download sites like Rapidshare and Megaupload became popular around the same time as tube sites, and that a very large part of the popularity in question comes from BEING FREE? You don't see the fact that many tubes offer paid memberships which allow downloads as an indication that many people actually do want downloads?

It's no wonder that you're such a fucking failure. You're utterly clueless :2 cents:

On topic:
Ideally, a paid site will offer low quality streaming, high quality streaming, low quality downloadable and high quality downloadable. Different customers have different needs, and fulfilling the most common needs will help increase customer satisfaction, thereby increasing retention rates.

sounds like good advice..

This is very simple to understand.. When you offer downloads in your member areas, 100% of the people can and will download ALL of the content.

When you offer streams, 99% will never download it. And the 1% that do, could never possibly record your entire member areas & upload it to torrents, tubes, ect. Even globally, the 1% that would steal the stream, will never be able to steal everyones.

You people are acting like every member will simply start downloading the streams, or steal them. That simply isn't the case, just like every member that downloads a video, doesn't pirate it. Only a small % do.. and most don't even know what they are doing is illegal, they think they own the content, because you 'gave' it to them.

Download = Adult Industry that is dieing, complaining of problems, ect. Some do offer streams, but most offer downloads.

Streaming = Tubes and Mainstream which are all booming and growing. Some do offer downloads, but very far from all

Do you see a trend?

You're forgetting about a minor difference:

Most downloadable content = paid.

Most streaming content = free.

That would be incorrect. Tons and tons of streaming content is paid for. The largest adult sites on the Internet are all streaming/drm protected. You can't stack the 10 of the largest paysites together to compete with one of the big VOD sites.

Netflix, and overall mainstream VoD is a huge business too. Even megavideo, and some of the big mainstream and adult tube sites, have membership versions, of streaming videos.

Downloadable free porn was once huge, now it's being replaced with streaming free porn. It's not a change because it's free, it's a change because it's far better.

The main current problem with content theft isn't that the exact content appears on tubes for free. It's that similar content appears on tubes for free.

Most surfers are looking for specific niches, not specific scenes.

That's why the benefits of having your content removed from tubes are only limited - you win some customers who are looking for specific models or scenes, but for the others you are still competing with free porn in the same niche.

I'm sorry, Tubes along with free porn, are not any type of problem, and never have been a problem for our business. Actually, without free porn and piracy, we wouldn't be talking today and 99% of the adult porn companies would have never been.

Legal or not, Tube are clearly making money, some have been buying rights to DVD's, burning them, and putting them online. They aren't doing this, chopping videos, paying for bw and servers, having employees, and them not produce any sales.

The fact is, they do produce sales, they are worth more than the TGP's/MGP's ever were. The problem with tubes is we can't all mass market on them. You can't take part in the mass traffic stream, day in and day out.

It's not free porn that's the problem, the problem is the mass majority, including myself, haven't figured out ways to tap into these and many other, new traffic streams effectively.

The largest porn sites on the internet are free.

Here's a little list with alexa ranks. X = porn tube, Y = filesharing
12. Rapidshare.com X
35. Youporn.com Y
49. Redtube.com Y
74. Yourfilehost.com X
82. Megaupload.com X
92. Mediafire.com X
105. Depositfiles.com X
118. 4shared.com X
133. Badongo.com X
137. Easy-share.com X
138. Pornhub.com Y
139. Megarotic.com XY

And yes, a large portion of what is shared on the filesharing sites is porn.

Google search results:
rapidshare porn: 16.1 million results
youporn porn: 7.13 million results
redtube porn: 2.54 million results
megaupload porn: 6.24 million results

Of course the largest porn sites are free. They ALWAYS have been. That backs up what I stated even more. They have 'free porn', most streaming but not all.. and they are the largest, continue to be the largest, and continue to grow.

They can some how, pay the bills, with all these 'free loading no paying' surfers... Humm..

Yet, the majority of us, continue to do the same thing, continue to think the same way. And we continue to fall.

Jon Clark,

Getting a broadband connection is not always about the cash, it also has to do with where you are located. If you are in a rural area you might not be able to get broadband no matter how much you are willing to pay for it.

On to the matter, I would say, offer both streaming and downloadable.

*hugs and kisses*

oh, btw my reference to the largest sites was sites that cost money. VOD are the largest paysites on the Internet, easily.

You had said removing content from tubes, to me that means paysite/vod content owners, and not the free sites we bitch about.

Actually, free porn is a major problem.

The problem isn't that they make money, the problem is that they lower margins across the industry. The more you give away for free, the smaller the number of people that are willing to pay.

Tubes count on economies of scale. And the bigger their market share, the smaller they can afford their margins to be. If you lower margins per visitor by 50% on average, but increase traffic by 1000%, it's an easy increase in overall profit.

The problem is that the amount of people in this world is limited. If tube sites lower average spending per person by 50% and take up a large share of the market, it's a win for them but a loss for the industry as a whole.

Id love to give MaximumPc a shot at ripping mine.

You mockingbird "You must let surfers download crowd" are helping your own demise. enjoy! :thumbsup

Yes all the tubes are filled with content, and all the torrents are filled with content from a wiley underground of thiefs out there joining every paysite they can find and uploaded all our stuff. Sheesh.. :uhoh


Hey I am leaving my keys in my car from now on cause.. well if not a thief will just break my window, and bust my column and take my car anyways. Fucking retarded stupid stupid stupid. :321GFY

While Im not a huge fan of Jon, in this case he is 100% correct. What you are saying if I can use an analogy is similar to this.

Game companies should continue to produce games compatible with low resolution, underpowered cpus, and low amounts of ram. Otherwise you are alienating a bunch of people who won't be able to play the game, so we should aim our quality and standards to the lowest common denominator. Makes perfect sense afterall right? Aim your marketing and standards at people who can't afford a 55.00 a month broadband bill, or a 400.00 emachine from walmart. BRILLIANT!

Its probably why DTV and comcast fight back and forth to see who can provide more HD channels, you know to go after that non hd 99.00 sylvania tv from 97 users. Pip pip and Tut tut and all that. :thumbsup


Adult 10 years ago INNOVATORS!!
Adult now... 56k users might not like it.


Jesus Christ.

Exactly! This has been one of my main complaint points against tubes as well. If you want to see bouncing boobs for example, this niche is covered on almost all tube sites now, so unless the surfer is interested in a very specific model, the niche is still going to be available for free for those who do not want to pay. Same with almost every single niche - teens, throat gagging, pregnant, trannys - you name it - it is free on a fucking stupid ass tube site!

And the point that the tubes are offering "premium" memberships that now allow for "downloads" as an upgrade means something as well. Think about it.

and surfers are figuring out that most reviews sites are full of shit so thats not a long term issue at all, when a review sites lists sites based on payouts and design (not loading speed simply graphic design etc.) you know surfers wont be coming back again to them for more reviews.

Once again, I agree with Libertine 100%

TUBE SITES ARE KILLING THE INDUSTRY - ADAPT AND DIE!

You somehow missed my main point: what the main sites have in common is not that they are streaming, but that they are free. Growth mainly comes from delivering lots of free stuff in any easy-to-get form - which should be clear from the rise of the filesharing sites.

Streaming, downloadable, telepathically transmitted - give lots of content away for free, and you will get lots of traffic.

As for paying the bill, that's just a low-margins-but-high-marketshare combo.

And for the record, I don't continue to think the same way. I've said it countless times before: more advanced tubes are where this industry is going. A few big players with an enormous market share and low margins, who offer standard quality streams for free, downloadable content for a premium, and support it all with ads for things other than filmed porn (eg cams, dating, etc).

And those low margins are exactly why I've mainly switched to other industries...

Flash only is the way to go!

Jesus Christ indeed.

The most profitable game in the history of mankind is WoW. A game that has low requirements exactly to be available to as many people as possible. So that's a great analogy you used there, champ.

But games are nothing like websites. Websites can offer both downloadable and streaming content, to satisfy two different sets of surfers at once. Aside from that, unlike with games, downloadable content actually offers a higher quality than streaming content does.

The advantage of streaming is immediate availability, not higher quality. It's great for surfers with a good connection who are looking for a quick fap. The ones with a less-than-great connection and the ones who want high quality instead of speed will not be pleased with sites that only have streaming video available. Which hurts retention rates.

I'm going to try my best to keep my answer short :)

Starting with an example: A hosted gallery or gallery, the actual ratio of traffic to the gallery vs. sales it produced, was.. about as bad as it gets. Yeah, some galleries did rock, but the majority sucked balls. Ratios like 1:50k, 100k. I'm not talking clicks, that's about filtering, but rather raw traffic to the gallery vs. sales the gallery would produce over the years.

The point is, the amount of free loading surfers looking/downloading at free porn, and not actually buying was off the chart bad. It's not any better or worse today, but several things have changed.

With search engines, we used to be all over them, now we aren't. The SE's changed, popularity took over. All of us here, being less popular the the sites you listed :/

But even the worst galleries, and before the search engines, and how our Industry works in general... It created massive traffic flow.

Tubes, btw.. It's not the Free Porn.. could it be, it's clean? Unlike tgp/mgp networks? Or that you don't get cross billed 20 ways, upsold, or maybe you get to actually see what you are getting, so no tricks? I see tubes in a totally different light, it's not the free.. It's far better!

And that's why THEY WILL BUY! Tubes aren't running on thin profits.. They are kicking our ass because they can market to the people and we can't. That's our real problem is, on a global scale we can't direct market to the mass majority anymore, and the way tubes/piracy works, most traffic flow has stopped. It doesn't go from viewing a video to clicking a link, to more porn, to your site. It just stops at the Tube/torrent/forum, ect. They guy is done, or looks for more. No marketing is done to the global population, like tgp's did.

Now, add on the loss of mass Webmasters across the Industry, like 75% less. We have far less global penetration than we did. We don't have emails and spam, we don't have paysites sharing exits like they once did, and we don't have traffic flow from the largest sources of free porn traffic on the Internet.

We don't have 10,000's of more keyword domains online, trading traffic to tgps, that trade to others, that filter to paysites, that traded to other sites, that would dump to inhouse free sites, and the chain would cycle over and over and over.. marketing people, by the hundreds of millions because no mater where they turned on the Internet, they got porn!

Look at it today.. We aren't all over social networks, we aren't in chatrooms anymore, it's penis pills and people trying to steal your info in emails, the Internet changed..

We lost our global traffic penetration and now what we do have left is bottle necked into a small network of sites that don't filter it out.

Glad I kept that short.... just think what long would have been like :)

Yesterday i went to the supermarket. a middle aged woman at the entrance wanted to give a newspaper away to me. I said no thanks. She asked me if i read the paper. I said i read it on the web. She tried to pitch a Sunday only edition to me. No dice.

It does scare me how the value of content is starting to approach zero. Nobody pays for something they can "easily" get for free. This is why i entertain the idea of a flash or VOD style pay area. Make it as hard as possible to get my content for free.

But the issues with customer service, connection speed, & web availability put me overwelmingly on the side of downloads. The torrents are gonna rip your shit either way. Why make customers mad to prevent something you can't prevent?

So you are saying someone that cannot view a youtube video is the market you think we should go after?

Seems like a plan. :thumbsup

You're an idiot ... i live in a larger big city in a 1. world country ... i've a 3 mbit line here (hd streaming impossible), if i go 2km west i've got max. 1mbit (= even youtube quality takes time), if i go 2 km east i've got 50mbit (= streaming no prob) - you see the point? I would pay 10x of what i pay to get a 10mbit line, but it's simply not possible .....

Get over that "the torrents are going to rip your shit either way" crap. NOT true. Look into CDN I recommend Cavecreek.com hit up BrianL on here. There ARE ways that can keep nearly 100% of your video content IN your members area, and not affect your members viewing experience. We stream 720p HD video with 0 buffer, you can skip anywhere in the video you want, and it plays instantly. I've had people in countries all over the world try watching with no issues.

Goto www.hulu.com if you are in the U.S. goto www.Vimeo.com too. Even Youtube has HD videos now. The trend is towards higher quality INSTANT video, not downloading and watching 9 or 10 minutes with dick in hand. The longer adult sticks to the retarded download model the worse things will get.

If you go 2km west? So you are on some wifi city wide free connection? Ok first off you DON"T have a 3mbit line if that is all you can do with it. www.SpeedTest.net post your test results and we'll see. My parents rural dsl internet connection up in PA can watch streaming HD vids. Think they pay 28.00 or something.

Streaming flash movies, you tube movies, and drm streaming movies, all play on faster dialups. Yes, some HD movies won't. But some player and drm technology can detect the Internet speed, and on the fly provide a stream at a lower bit rate, that is much better quality that making your own crap clips that a person has to uniquely download.

The adult industry rides the trends of others, and we define them as we go along. We don't create them, we don't create standards, we are part of them. Right now the majority of the Adult Industry has been standing still for at least 8 years. (a new site is not doing something new)

We are part of the Internet.. we have to market to the global internet, we have to follow the trends so we can define them. What's bigger than the tube, piracy trends?

The social trends, like face book. If we as an entire Industry piggyback off the Social trend, we will define it along with finally allowing us to market to the global population again.

But you know what that marketing is going to based around? Free Porn, or free in general. But at least you will finally be able to market to the people again. But it isn't going to be the same marketing as before either... that changed too.

No, i'm not speaking of wifi, it's a normal cable. What i meant was, if i would move 2km west and get cable there. Friends of mine are living across the city that's why i know the max. internet speed. SpeedTest.net says i've got 2810 kbs down, 371 kbs up.

Edit, btw. 39 EUR per month here for the internet connection (flat rate) & telephone (flat to landline numbers)
Edit, 50mbit would cost 49 EUR incl. telephone, if it's available .......

A single gallery usually contained about 16 pictures and 4 minutes of porn. A scene on a typical tube site is 20+ minutes of uninterrupted video.

So you can't really compare the two. While the number of hits might be the same, the amount of content supplied and bandwidth used up is not.

It is worse, actually. I can get free access for virtually any site I want (yay for working in porn), yet when I actually want to look at some porn I go to a tube site.

Guys I know used to try to coax me into giving them passes for porn sites when I said I worked in porn, but these days that virtually never happens anymore. Instead, they send me links to rapidshare files and tube videos.

The big tube sites offer more content than most paysites do. Of course that's "better" than tgp/mgp networks... it's essentially the content of a huge members area, but for free.

They will buy what? Certainly not memberships to porn sites, in most cases.

Why do you think it is that dating and cam sponsors feature so prominently on most tubes?

They are kicking your asses because by offering what used to cost money for free, they manage to gain a very large portion of the market. Even if a single surfer is worth less to them, numbers make up for that.

What you're saying here is exactly what I'm saying: the tubes are taking market share.

Consolidation and centralization. Rather than a scattered network, porn traffic is becoming focused in a few spaces. A large part of that are the barriers to entry of tubes.

But look at it historically:
free sites -> picture galleries -> video galleries -> tube sites

It's been a constant trend of more free content with less advertising, and a constant trend of exchanging margins for market share.

Even with those things, we'd still be seeing declining margins. The easier it is to get something free, the harder it becomes to sell functionally similar things - especially when you can't offer a large amount of added functionality.

:2 cents:

Actually Escortbiz was very wise with his thread about the disk space, he got me thinking.

How many movies do I have on my PC? As many as I can store - no brainer.

So you are saying that you prefer masturbating with mayonnaise instead of lubricant?

Seems totally normal :thumbsup

(see what I did there? just like you, I responded to a post while pretending it said something entirely different than it did)

Now, an actual response to your asinine remark: what I am saying is that it pays to cover several parts of the market at once. Especially when the added costs are relatively small, and offering several options at once ensures customer satisfaction.

It partly depends on your content. If you've a site of content that's no different from 20 other sites then offer download. If you have content that is so great the surfers will sign up whether it's streamed or downloaded.

The main thing most suffer from is their content is not exclusive, it's just a another scene that's replicated on a dozen or even a hundred other sites. So why should a member stay in a site that offer the same content as all the others in it's format, niche and style when he can only stream it?

He has to watch it at the time he can get to a computer, he can't save his favourite scenes to watch later and the quality is dictated by his connection and your connection and servers.

And all this to view content that is on 12 or 120 other sites. OK different girl and different sofa, but the myth that is exclusive has been totally discredited.

Of course if your content is that good you will not need to bother streaming it, they will be signing up in droves. :winkwink:

Over the last year I have seen lots of techie or traffic or legal solutions to the drop in our market. Most of them pie in the sky and some even worse. The problem is simple, the product we offer the surfer is not good enough to tempt him back to buying porn from us. If we can fix that we can turn the tide. No other solution will work.

I'm offering live shows and from the first week I think it's doing well. Yes it needs more design work and possible more daily shows, but I've been busy recently and will be away more in the coming weeks. If you run a site think long and hard about how you get more people to willingly sign up and stay rather than a techie solution.

use memberchannels.com flash and streaming content with no buffer time

no one wants to wait around to download..they want action instant action.

compete with the tubes...give them better then tube quality and just as much content

:1orglaugh

Agreed 100% :thumbsup

This is the real problem. In the 2 years, might be more, Tubes have been around how have we changed the product we sell? We have not, we still offer sites with 50 to 500 videos sometimes all repeats of a format and charge $30 recurring and expect the surfers to keep paying when the major Tubes offer 5000 and more from different studios, different styles and different formats. I can log in when I please, stay as long as I like, download what I really like and it's all free.

If they charged me I would pay because they're BETTER than what most of us offer. And until we get that into our plans we are screwed.