JT's Keynote at Xbiz EU
 

Just finished watching JT's keynote at Xbiz Eu. Good stuff. What did you guys think of it?

How were the euro shows? Definitely seemed to be packed based on the posts and photos i've seen.

We see this on xbiz, also noting the thread regarding 'theguardian' newspaper :( Bloody papers :(

Excellent work JT!

What did the Guardian newspaper say?

That's who I missed there U !!:1orglaugh:thumbsup

The bits I took out of it (in no particular order!)..

? It's ok to fail, just get up and try again. Don't give up.
? Understanding the DATA is crucial. Not understanding it is suicide.
? Cloud (and associated tools) can't come soon enough.
? Content dilution has been at ridiculous levels for years, and should of been stopped long ago.
? You can not expect things to change unless you are prepared to be part of the solution.
? Traffic is King, Content is Queen. Without the Queen the King dies, tough.
? Reality content is easily the best content to produce based on what users want.
? Giving someone your business card doesn't make them your friend. That bit was funny.
? Proper age verification is long overdue. Helps with overheads, needs to be tackled properly.
? D'ya like dags?

When it was opened for questions the silence was remarkable. I didn't understand that at all to be honest. :2 cents:

Opening paragraph:
"It would be hard to imagine a more tedious annual conference, with panel debates on ?e-billing, best practices, stability and throughput? and much discussion of web analytics data and Ofcom regulation. Besides being so monotonously technical that by mid-afternoon at least two delegates are allowing themselves to listen with their eyes shut, their heads drooping forward, the atmosphere in the butterscotch-beige, windowless conference hall in the basements of an ugly Edgware Road Hilton is steeped in gloom."

Jeeeeze, that paints dull picture - but I would bet the reality of the conference was not at all as described.

:winkwink:

Brilliant cliff notes. Well done!

I don't think that's a bad thing. The old descriptions of conferences were how crazy they were and how it was nothing but sex.

Thanks for the link, quite an insight into the person instead of an anonymous gfy nic.

I have to admit, I found myself taking notes without even realising it.

Great summary, thanks!!

I enjoyed doing the Keynote. Feel free to ask any questions (relating to the keynote) and I'll try and answer them on this thread.

Great keynote, and i'm absolutely not pissing in your pocket.

What would your advice be to affiliates? What should they concentrate on, worry about etc?

You say the focus is on reality, so in my mind cams comes to mind, what else?

"king of porn", xvideos etc - dejavu?

In JTs words (in the keynote), one of his biggest regrets is that he openened up the affiliate part on RUC instead of keeping it private.

Afilliates should worry about programs cutting them off completely ;)

Nice keynote btw :thumbsup

Hi JT :)
I totally understand you won't/can't answer some/all of these questions.. Not trying to pry, I'm just a curious guy!

1. Who's the gentleman that introduced you at the beginning?

2. How did you come together with Rich and Randi and the other original Youporn crew? Were you "hired"? Were you the mastermind? How did it originate?

3. You said, "With the tube sites, when they start out, your users upload content.. ..we just knew that that business model was not sustainable, because you can't keep taking content from the content producers without giving them anything back." - During that initial time period when you were using user uploads, was there a significant percentage that were truly user-generated? Or was it like less than 1%? what % of the uploads would you guess were copyright infringing? I'm curious, but also I ask because I'm working on a user-generated project.

4. When Youporn licensed the 5-years worth of content, how much did you guys spend on that licensing?

5. You talk about how the click-throughs/revenue actually increased because of the addition of the age verification landing page, why is that landing page not there now? Did Mindgeek take it down when they bought it, or had you guys already taken it down before that for another reason?

6. The pay-per-scene project, which you tested on German mobile with the click-thru of 60%, is that a separate project from cloud.xxx? Is so, can you speak more about that project and its potential upcoming use/value for content owners?
or is it indeed Cloud.xxx, which seems to be a heavy-duty tube submitter, no?
How does tube.xxx tie in, will that be what incorporates the mega-pass/pay-per-scene?

7. Why is your biggest regret not having your affiliate program invite-only? Was the open program more trouble than it was worth? What was wrong with it, other than those 1 or 2 heckler guys on here causing a fuss (that Lucas dude I think?)
Btw you guys just mailed me first reallyuseful affiliate check: $61.35 :thumbsup

8. Fakeagent/femaleagent/publicagent aren't real? WTF??

Exactly. If you aren't creating something yourself or pushing hundreds of sales each month, you should be adapting as fast as you can. The few sale per month affiliate model is done. :2 cents:

Really enjoyed the start of the keynote. So many successful people pretend life was a string of brilliant successes right from the start. The steps, decisions, failures and breaks are much more interesting and educational to hear about. Thanks for sharing some of yours JT.

Thought JT did a great job. And some good insight into what he sees coming as far as the age verification domino, and how that's a good thing.

I am curious about that part as well, what made you regret it?
If you could do it again, you would make it private. Why exactly?

I am looking forward to receiving more info on cloud.xxx :thumbsup

good job, nice to meet you and your cars :) :thumbsup

Nice summation - thanks ! I dont have to watch now. ( But I will as I have MAD respect for what JT has done in this industry).

And the Euro shows we're outstanding. Sorry missed XBIZ london but I had a prior engagement in BKK.

I thought of it as Affiliates = Content dilution. While affiliates in the past were a good idea (and probably very much needed at the time years ago) to help spread the content to get the maximum eyeballs on it and bring in traffic, they have not been required for a long time to be honest. Once the tipping point came a few years ago it made much, much more sense for programs to generate traffic in-house. Generating the traffic in-house has 2 very obvious advantages over relying on affiliates to do the leg work:

1. Greater income generated by the program (no more 50/50 splits, time/money wasting generating affiliate resources, dealing with their bitching, etc, etc).
2. Most importantly, the promotional content is controlled and can be very, very targeted. Like switching from a blunderbuss (affiliates) to a sniper rifle (in-house).

So by utilising the Tubes, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc (which required less than an hour a per day to generate more traffic than ANY affiliate) the smart owners quickly realised they could bring in, via in-house, everything any affiliate could offer for zero cost to them. And, as the owners would control this traffic, it could be funneled to EXACTLY were they wanted it to go. This in turn gives you tons of lovely clear data that you can use to tweak the promo content until you nail it. So if you can do all that yourself, for zero cost and just a little bit of time, it really doesn't make much sense having affiliates at all. :)

Good post... but you also forgot the crucial 3rd reason...

3. No more dealing with asshats. It has been a very public fact for a very long time that 99% of the complaints come from the same people... and that those people happen to send few or zero sales. Meanwhile, 1% of all affiliates, who never complain at all, continue to control 90%+ of the viable traffic. That 1% makes their own promo materials, manages their own traffic and quietly seeks out the best $/click.

If smaller affiliates were easy to work with, took a professional approach and required very little hand-holding, the downside to having them would be so little that even a few sales per month would be worth pursuing. It would be a commission-based sales force much like any other industry... and in fact those 'professional affiliates' (the few that are left) are still welcome at just about every program you will find... but the guys who send 1 sale a month while whining day and night... are now extinct. :2 cents:

That is the "no more bitching" part of the 1st reason. :winkwink:

I agree the professional affiliates (and by that I mean the whales that have the traffic and sales) will always be welcome, but everyone knows these guys 'n girls and they're invited to provide feedback and targeted test traffic long before it is opened to the general public. This is going to sound terrible, and I honestly don't mean to offend anyone that works hard for their slice of the pie, but, I think the days of the affiliate earning an income by using the same FHGS/clips/etc (that a billion other affiliates have access too) are dead. Now, of course there are many out there doing it and earning enough to justify the work put in to extract an income, but I honestly believe that it's time for a change of that model. I think something radical needs to change in the way people view how to sell porn in 2014. There is a phenomenal amount of "free" traffic out there still, and if you focus your energies on gaining your slice of that pie I think you will be much better off than slogging on with the same affiliate content 1000s of others use. which bring me onto... the Tubes!

I fully agree that many steal/stole content, and when they first started they were extremely shady and for many it seemed like the end of the world. User uploaded content my ass, etc, etc, etc. But, I never understood the outrage from the entire industry over the Tubes. I can understand that owners and content creators that had their stuff stolen would be insane with rage (I would of been too!), but I never understood why the rage continues, to this day, by everyone else (especially on the forums!) when sites like YouPorn started their content partner programs. I view Tubes today as the ultimate social media goldmine for generating traffic and sales. Traffic and Sales that dwarf any, and all, whale affiliates. The Tubes are the new whales, and have been since a month after they launched back in the day. If you think back to Traffic is King, Content is Queen, then the Tubes are the ultimate glue that brings them together. Trust me when I say I hate the mantra 'Adapt or die', but it's a pretty accurate phrase when it can clearly be shown that most never bothered to look into monetising the Tubes.

Now, I realise that there are a great many people that loved to poop on Fabian and now they poop on JT on the forums, and blame them for taking money out of their pockets. But did anyone actually pick up on the golden nuggets of information and data they freely gave? Not too many at all, much easier to attack from behind a keyboard than to actually take the time to think and work out how to take advantage of this new income source. The simple reality is the Tube genie was gone a month after the first tubes launched, so there is no going back. Going berserk on a forum will not change your situation and only make you waste time by raging about something that is not going to change. The smart ones got on board early and are enjoying the same levels of success as they did before the Tubes, if not greater. The next iteration of Tubes is coming when Cloud launches, and I honestly believe that if you aren't at least willing to give it a try then you will be left behind with no chance of catching up. I'm going way off track here now, so I'll shut up. :)

really nice keynote with some great insights. thanks for sharing, shap.

Ah adult in 2014

SpookyCash had in-house traffic sources from before we even launched the program, so I'm totally on-board with generating traffic in-house.

That said, when we had 6000+ affiliates where most of them were just earning beer money, that was still a heck of a lot of beer money. How much effort does it really take to maintain an affiliate program? It just doesn't have much ROI in 2014, at least not when compared to say 2005.

Well, why would you pay 50% to a lot of people for doing something you can just as easily do yourself today? :) Back in the day having masses of affiliates, and spending the time and cost of generating content FHGS/clips/etc for them to use to promote your content, had a more than justifiable ROI. Back then, when porn sold as easily as selling water to a thirsty man, affiliates and owners loved each other and made great money together because the market was "more eyeballs = more sales = more money" for all. The program sent out affiliate content, the affiliate spread it, lots of people saw it and signed up, everyone was happy. But in todays market of 2014 if you, for example, had those 6000+ affiliates your content would be spread over their 6000+ sites, Torrents, Tubes, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest Sites, Blogger, The Chans, Personal Blogs, Forums, etc, etc, etc within a day. Now most seem to think that's a good thing, but all it is doing is actually making your diluting your content to point of it being worthless within a few days. Having your content spread so far and wide would be great if "more eyeballs = more signups = more money for all" was still true, but what is actually happening is you're losing more and more control over how to monetise the content (not to mention ratios). With todays generation of internet consumers asking "why should i pay for <insert anything here>?", and this industries long love affair with handing out free content hand over fist (even after critical over-saturation limits were reached!), their question is a very valid one.

Affiliate content, from what I'm told, back in the day started with a few pics, then a 10sec clip, then a few more pics and a 30s clip, then 4x30s clips, then 12/16 pics and a 1min clip up until very quickly it ended up with 16 pics (including in most cases the pop shots), and HD 1080p/4K 15min+ tube 'clips'. Now they need new content 24/7, 365 days of the year, the longer the better, which then only helps keep the dilution going. Seems to me the owners simply gave up control of their content thinking if they sling enough of it they're bound to get a good value return. Today, I don't believe they do. While affiliates back in the day provided an income stream for the owner that basically removed/eased the dilution problem, once the Tubes/Social Media (I don't mention torrents/lockers etc as those people are obviously never going to pay) took off those golden days died overnight. So for me it's a question of control of the content these days. With running an open affiliate program you're basically trusting someone to use your content, your livelihood, the food on your table, to work with you and help make you both make money. With your content, that you've spent time on creating, time on cropping/editing for the FHGs etc, making it all easy to import for them, easy to handle, easy to use. You do all that, spend all that time, and they click a few buttons.... and collect 50%. That seems a bit crazy to me. If a simple error occurs, how long until the affiliate posts on GFY. What if their traffic converts better on a similar niche site? There is absolutely nothing you can do if they want to simply keep your content up, change links, and send their traffic to the rival site. What if they simply use your content as fodder to build a buttload of sites to generate income from traffic/cams/pop-unders/overs/etc for themselves that you won't see a penny of. Every single benefit 6000+ affiliates could bring to programs back in the day can, for example, be done by the right 3 people in-house these days. Two do social media, so you have 24/7 coverage on it, and the other one uploads your content to the partner tubes (tiny bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea! :)). The old cliche is true, you really don't have to work harder, just smarter these days to get great results and returns. :)

Many programs simply identified their best affiliates and hired them as service providers to create in house campaigns. One professional being properly paid can produce the same amount of promo as hundreds of whining hacks. The amount of 'affiliate free site' work isn't declining, the number of people needed to generate it has declined rapidly... the people providing it are exponentially more professional than the people who are being obviated.

It's worth watching.

What does that even mean?
:Oh crap

Most or all affiliate programs should be invite only. :2 cents:

The only thing you gloss over is the viewpoint of the content owner. Filelockers and illegal tubes, tubes that steal, members that steal to upload to lockers and tubes have devalued content production to the point it is hardly worth it anymore. Most content I see these days is rubbish. In 10 shooters from 2000 how many are still shooting and making the same living?

Everything else you say I pretty much agree with. Content owners should be monetizing their own content and drop the affiliates who do not produce or do an invite only program.

Mr. JT???