{Biz thread?} Displaying content in members areas in better ways
 

I was going to post something about Imitation Marketing or Porn for Women, but I think this might be of more interest for a few of you, so here you go. Proper thanx to Dr. Agnes Z. who provided the psychological insight

Displaying content in members areas in better ways

For most membership sites there's a common misconception: "the more, the better". Although this holds true when speaking about number of scenes and/or models, it's not correct when you talk about length and amount of content for any given scene.

Thus, you can see many sites using "10000 Gb of video, 2000000 images, yadda yadda yadda", when it says about anything to consumers (aka your target). Instead, the correct way to express it would be something like "2000 scenes featuring 3000 models". That says a lot more than the previous claim.

So, after that, most sites build their members areas based on that misconception, and you see scenes with 10-12 5 minute clips and 300 pictures. WRONG.

For anything and everything in commerce, there are logical procedures, tested ways and studies that will help in developing and innovation of new ways. Plainly put, there's no innovation that comes out of the air, but it has some kind of background, whether it comes from logic, psychology, previous experiences (even in different fields), etc. The "megacontent" scenario is one that comes from an error and from there it evolved making it even bigger.

Think about this: adult entertainment isn't really a mistery, it has psychological roots that dig into lifestyles, conceptions, moral values, subjectiveness and such. Hence why it is really easy for many people with no real formal background in the field to make money off it: because it's inside each and every one of us. If it wasn't that way, everybody would be opening more "society friendly" business and succeed, which of course doesn't happen. The purpose of this reasoning is to go into what people wants to see in a porn scene, which relates basically to a single word: fantasy.

Most human people use fantasy as a psychological tool to keep themselves into the boundaries of what's accepted into their respective social groups. Anything out of that would be considered a deviation (a strongly cultural dependent concept that can vary from a culture to another) or a perversion. Both deviation and perversion have its own psychological paradigms and ways, so we'll stick to the somehow known as "common people".

"Common people" fantasizes about things that can't be done and they would like to. Without going any deeper, a porn scene is the sublimation of a fantasy, the closer this fantasy is to the viewer, the more he/she'll stick to that. So, men like to see an idea of man that in their minds has the strengths (or weaknesses!) they'd like to have. Since it's impossible to cater to each and every person in the worlds, we'll use common stereotypes that are usually accepted as the standard for what a "real man" should be: strong, muscled, with big genitalia and the ability to please more women than the average person. The counterpart for this "perfect" man figure should be one or more women who simply want to "get served" by this ideal stallion and will cater to all his wishes. Basically, sexual slaves. (Side note: this applies only for heterosexual men on western cultures and slight fetish fantasies)

So once the content is served, the viewer will be into the fantasy, and, accordingly, he'll share it with a sexual partner or most commonly, he'll masturbate. The average video should include the logical step for erotic pleasure: warm-up, masturbation, ejaculation. In average, the whole proccess shouldn't take more than 5-6 minutes, so 10-11 minutes is always a safe bet. Once the video is running, the fantasy is going on. If they need to forward to go to the climax scene (let alone loading another clip), the fantasy will be broken, since there are strange elements that shouldn't be there, in this case the need to fast forward/load video and the confirmation that there is no fantasy: just something they'll have to pay. Even the less educated prostitute knew this for thousands of years, but somehow most adult sites are going the exact opposite way, trying to say, scream and yell to their members: "this ain't no fantasy for you, this is business for me".

The exact same thing happens with photo shoots. Besides the lack of creativity of most photoshoots (pretty understandable when you have to do 20 photoshoots a week, and of course this applies to video as well), it's a total lack of respect to your member to display 300 photos, of which 250 are the same with a slightly different position. Even worse, there are many sites that include photos that aren't rotated properly. This just says the membership site didn't care at all. Try this: 40/60 photos that continues the story in a logical way, hand picked. Give something from yourself. Let you members know YOU hand picked those for them, make it personal. If you feel unsure, just add the option of the 300 crap photos so they can compare. And you'll be able to compare results as well. You'll be surprised, believe me. (Another side note: Photo content is so strong yet very few people realize that)

Of course, there's a lot more to the story, but for some of you, here's some food for thought. And even if the tip of the iceberg, it might be a lot more than what you already have :)

Discuss (if you want) :)

Nice read.

I prefer, and always have, showing the member's area but locking it down. I have always done this on my celebrity sites. I used to do it on my porn sites before moving them to SiteDepth.

However now I am moving my new company's porn/niche sites back to that. As well as offering a seconds of FLV per clip. So they can see all the clips, models, descriptions. They can even watch a few seconds. After that, they have to sign up.

I am in the business of the teaser SALE.

I understand you're talking about tours, right? This is more related to members areas, although the same basic concepts applies for tours, there are some specific differences, including the "teasing" thing you mention

No. I am talking about membership areas.

For example,

Celebrity Sites.

Surfers come to the site. Today's updates are available for 24 hours. They can be clicked on, and viewed, assuming you come back daily to check them out. Everything over 24 hours you can see as a surfer (as a thumb) but if you click on it, you get join page prompt.

Basically anyone coming to the site can SEE the whole site.

Porn site.

I have all videos uploaded. Surfer can come to site. See every scene. Who is in it. Description of the scene. Basically everything a member would. However, they only get a 20-30 second preview where a member sees full length.

It's pretty solid insight man. Of course redundancy and bulking out content will continue as long as it sells the product and review sites rate sites on total amounts of content.
"OVER 500 GALLERIES!" ... of Tammy in the living room by the sofa... standing there. If it sells, then who can blame them?

it does get redundant shooting the same types of scenes over and over for me (i always use bathrooms and kitchens) but its just easier that way as its my style of shooting that i'm comfy with. i think as long as you make it about the girl and not the setting they are in thats all that matters. and btw i'd click on 500 galleries of ivyB all day long

True dat.

I have read a lot of emails over the years. Not once did the mention the couch, or place where the scenes are filmed. Only chatter is about the women, and action.

:2 cents:

Nevertheless variation helps. You don't need to go crazy about location, but it will help. However, the main thing is action and the way it's displayed (as in filmed/shot). If the action is good, you won't even notice the background.

This being said, we did some research on the location factor. It might be slightly skewed from general results since it was done on porn star niche sites, hence people was looking for pornstars, which is a very very specific niche most people seems not to understand. Some of the results shown this preference (in order)

1- outdoors (nature)
2- outdoors (urban)
3- dark ambience
4- exotic ethnic scenarios
5- office/work sets
6- kitchens
7- bedrooms
8- living room
9- cars
10- bathrooms

This preference has a logical explanation from a psychological point of view, so I assume more or less it will apply to most general niches.

Anyway, the point of the OP was more directed to content rationalization rather than the content itself, but this is a very good discussion as well.

In my country, we call the usual membership site's behavior "la máquina de hacer chorizos" (the choritzo machine), meaning that you put anything in it and mass produce without caring about the final product.

As I mentioned about the pictures, it's outrageous to see the way they're displayed, but you can see the same about videos: 45 minutes of a guy pumping a girl and he'll never come, the girl usually looking bored as hell (well, after 45 mins...), no edition at all, boring camera angles that usually never shows the real action and so on.

Talent is another important factor in the equation, but I won't get any further since I've some amazing site to finish for a client, and he'll probably kill me if he sees me posting here instead of working on his site, lol :1orglaugh

It's always interesting to see how sayings translate in other languages or cultures. We (meaning my associates and I, not necessarily all Americans) call that approach "making the donuts." :winkwink:

Good read :thumbsup

Can you put up one of your site URLS I would really love to see how you do it...sounds interesting


thx

Contact me privately via ICQ (sig).

This deserves a bump. I enjoy your posts Harvey.

thanx man, I really thought this would be more of interest, I'd have included the word tube in the title :upsidedow

Good thread. Bump for us.

The people who don't get it, never will. The people who do get it, don't want to share their insights just in case a dim bulb suddenly lights up and they have competition.

I enjoyed your portfolio site, if you have Skype please add me so I can remember to use you at some point. Skype info in sig.

Just picking the ONE right pic/screenshot from the RIGHT content and writing the HOTTEST unique story around it will make ALL the difference in the world IMO.
That sells.

Hey Joel, you have mail :)

Pretty much spot on :) Automated software will never EVER replace human eye when dealing with content

Excellent thread. Thanks for starting it.

I agree with everything you've said so far, especially about people still wanting photos. I LOVE photos still and prefer them over videos 90% of the time.

No need to thank, I started it to fire up some discussion on issues that could be of interest for many people here. By sharing my thoughts, I hope to learn from other people as well, and I'd be really interested in hearing anything you got to say about content. You, as well as ADG, EscortBiz, Mutt, MikeSmoke, BobG and a few others (sorry if I forgot someone, just naming out of the of my head) are really on track about this kind of things, so the feedback is really appreciated :)