It would seem that the logical answer is to incorporate the two together and provide an all around solution. Yes?

Speaking strictly from my Twistys experience.

I believe most of our success today is based on our brand. The large mass of our members have stayed members (or re-joined) because they like the total package we offer. Showcasing a lot of our new content on the tour just re-enforces to them we've maintained our high level of quality and they usually look for something new to entice them back (times are tough and they have to justify joining again). So for us showcasing and giving a lot for free works because of that.

I think that was true, or more of the case 5+ years ago. The gravy train years were really the 90's from what I hear. I didn't start to 99, but I hear people all the time that say back in 96' 97' 98' etc if you throw out a couple pages in the SE you would get tons of sales. There was also less competition. The competition increased a lot in 99/00/01 etc. People had to start "working" to make money.

A lot of the dumb money people crashed in burned by the early 2000's. Everyone else who was left had to work harder and smarter to continue to make good money and stay ahead of their competition. Some people who had made dumb money early and couldn't cut the hard work resorted to shady shit like spyware, stealing content, and banging cards. Other people got on the cross sale craze to help try to make them more money. This all happened around the 2003 - 2008 time frame.


In the last couple years to current, what has really kicked everyone in the ass is the economy, but more so the credit crunch. I don't care what you sell if it takes visa there is a LOT less potential customers today then there was 2+ years ago. When the credit card companies started taking everyone's available balances away, and more and more people were losing their jobs and living on (and maxing out) their credit cards, we lost tons of potential customers.

Throw on top of that how tube sites / stolen content have hurt picture and video membership sites you can see the challenges today are a lot harder then even 2 -3 years ago.

There is still money to be made, it's just gets harder and harder to do it everyday. The people who made easy money way back, that then turned to shady stuff, banging cards, or living off of cross sales, their days are numbered unless they come up with another way to ride the wave a little longer.

So to reply to your post, the "dumb money" people have long been gone. What we are getting rid of now is the shady people, and everyone else who failed to work EVEN harder to keep it going / innovated to stay ahead of the competition.

It's an example. An example of one of our biggest demographics. So I don't think it's that strange.

I think Twistys is great. Don't know why I would ever need to pay for any of it though. I won't post the links, but I just spent 30 seconds doing a search for free Twistys porn, and guess what?....

I'm not it's an example.

Anyone can get on Twitter and spend 3 hours chatting and engaging with Porn Stars. One girl logs off/stops replying 20 others are there.

I can see how those social sites could capture huge traffic but how does that affect the acutal sales of adult sites.

My thinking is they waste all day at Facebook for fun and then hit Twistys for 20 minutes to satisfy that itch. Facebook gets all the time but Twistys serves a purpose as well.

It just means you need to figure out a way to get those 20-25 year old's into your site. Long gone are the days of the simple tours, 3 pages, and a join page. Does that mean you need a tube site? Nope. Means you need to do something to make your site more "sticky", something for them to come back to other than another blonde babe etc. No reason there can't be porn 2.0, just like there is web 2.0 like facebook, twitter etc. More people just need to be creative and think of the ideas. That solely is the reason people do not make money in this business, or why their business is suffering now, lack of creativity and changing with the times (and I don't mean the tube bandwagon). A name brand like a Twisty's just needs to be expanded on imho. Those people that open 100 different paysites in hopes each will make a signup, those are the ones that fail. Work on a brand and expand on it.

There is simple reason for that and its not because they are busy on facebook or myspace.

5 years ago you had to pay to see the good stuff, today all of those guys know how to find the good stuff for free on the tube sites. That is why they don't ask you for passwords, because they don't need passwords now to see all the porn they could ever want.

I will always say the major reason the industry is suffering is because companies refuse to innovate.

People got too complacent when it was easy, then when more competitors came in, those lucky early bird money makers in porn had no clue what to do next.

There is a reason programs like Program3 rock -- innovative content, nice sites, simple affiliate program backend, etc.

hah, speaking of all this, i was having dinner recently with an avn award winning director of xxx parody movies, the discussion turned to the downturn of revenues industry-wide & he asked the group why does freeones get a free pass!??

i didn't know what to say.

For me personally, what always made Twistys stand out was the amount of content, how often it updated and how damn pretty the girls were. And which you state above, it's very apparent from the tour.

Not many people can say they have the abundance of content that you do.

Exactly :thumbsup

How many sites are you a member of? If the answer is zero then you wouldn't know right? Just saying if you are not the average paying member you wouldn't know why someone would join a site.

We are trying to provide an experience that is worth the cost of admission. We engage with our members and are trying to expand on that. When you love a particular type of content you get to a point in life (and financially) where the hassle of looking and finding it everyday isn't worth it. If you find something you like you might as well pay for it and get it hassle free. Convenience has huge value to those that can afford it.

Ultimately I know I have to be able to provide a product that is not available for free and that is worthwhile (entertainment wise) for people to pay for. It's going to be an ongoing challenge.

A free pass on what?

I agree.

You know what's interesting about you Will? I know you get into a lot of heated discussions on the board but it's obvious you are no dummy. Far from it. I'd love to meet you one day and have a drink and a conversation with you. Something tells me face to face we'd probably get along and have a really interesting conversation.

Lol I know who you are talking about :thumbsup

What does that even mean? If I ran a site that sells widgets, I can easily say that most of my customers use Twitter and Facebook too. That doesn't mean they used Twitter and FB to find my widgets, nor does it mean there is any correlation whatsoever.

Tons of people online are now using Twitter and FB in some way. Tying that in to people looking for porn is just a blanket statement.

If I am looking for a new camera I do not search Twitter or FB.

It's like saying "I sell electric chicken heads, and after polling my customers I noticed most of them are using Twitter and/or FB." So, what does that prove?

I've noticed nearly 99% of MY customers are using a video monitor of some sort to view my content.

Bingo! Go after the people who use video monitors of some sort!

I think facebook may exhaust them. I'm not sure. For example WoW definitely exhausts them. Compare how many people play games like WoW today vs 7 Years ago. We used to be the only form of entertainment online. Now we are one of many. And we happen to be one that isn't innovating or improving the product very much anymore.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh too funny.

how is everbody doing today i hope all is well

Congrats on your first post.

I think you are too much talking about fb and Twitter, point is there is sooooo much to do on the Internet right now besides porn. So not only social networking.

Wow Seriously? Here are two examples.

#1 I can name 100 pornstars I can talk to right now on Twitter. I can't even do that on Twistys. That is direct competition. Someone who loves Bree Olson may get more from interacting on Twitter than watching her on Twistys.

#2 7 years ago there wasn't as much to do online. Now there are numerous ways people spend their time online. If we are one form of online entertainment we are competing with other forms of online entertainment and with so many of them exploding and reaching new levels of traffic and adaptation that has to mean somewhere we are losing out to them.

Good post I agree with almost all of it. The one thing I disagree with is I don't feel we ever had a shake down. I think the guys who made big money early left. They didn't get shook down in most cases they hit a level of $$$ they were happy with left and moved on to bigger things. A lot of those guys were REALLY smart and it's a shame they aren't around today. The guys who came in after them have been able to survive until the last 18 months. Now the shakedown is going to start happening and happening more than ever. In a year from now I think the list of WHERE ARE THEY NOW programs/sites/webmasters will be much bigger than it is today. Probably double.

ABSOLUTELY 10000%. I agree.

I agree with you on the level that individual porn models have a fan base, and if they have a brain in their head, and at least SOME ambition, they can use social networks to promote their own sites, and even more lucrative these days - their own webcam-related enterprises.

It is not nearly that easy to get popular porn girls to bend over backwards to promote your site however, simply because they are one of the models. What's in it for them?

I've worked with hundreds of porn girls, as I know you have as well. No offense, but the bulk of them are NOT ambitious, and are NOT reliable AT ALL! The ones who are, are the ones who WILL promote THEMSELVES, for their own financial gain.

Still doesn't help a male owner of a site network too much, unless you are running their solo site, and/or webcam enterprise.

How do you innovate if you copied your way to success? That's kinda my point. There is x% that can't innovate because they have no clue. Then we have x% who don't innovate because they are fat (money wise) and lazy without a reason to do so. That covers almost all of us myself included.

Btw Program3 also happens to be the company that really took paysites to a whole new level many many years ago.

Check the comments here, that's him right:
http://www.lukeisback.com/?p=10196

This is a brilliant site. It is to webcam sites what tubes are to porn sites.

http://www.myfreecams.com/

I have no affiliation, and the reason I am aware of it is because the URL was posted here on GFY a number of times now.

You can communicate directly with the models, and ask them to do whatever you want, in real time.

It is not FB, but I suppose it is a social network of some sort.

A genius business model, and no affiliate program at all.

Addictive, dirty, and fun.

Will likely serve as the new webcam business model for the next generation of webcam sites. Not sure how it helps me in any way, but certainly interesting on many levels.

Easy, innovative, assorted models, direct communication, live sex... brilliant!

LOL...

Tell me about it!

:thumbsup

Ask yourself WHY people pay for porn even though porn is available for free.

I have actually asked 1000s of surfers that question and I know TheBestPorn asked it as well of their users. The results come back in four very simple statements, three about equally often and one that comes back more often than all of the others combined:

1) If I don't buy porn, people will stop making quality porn and Ill be stuck watching old dvd crap with nothing new to enjoy.

2) I don't feel right stealing... and pirating videos is stealing.

3) If I become a member of a good porn site they listen to my feedback and I have some say in what kind of porn gets made. I love being able to suggest a specific model or a story for them to create etc...

and #4 which gets said more than the other three replies combined....

4) I don't TRUST tube sites and torrents. I don't want to get my PC infected by a virus or have a free site abuse my credit card or get spam mail and other annoying crap from free sites so id rather just pay my 30 bucks and enjoy some quality porn without all the headaches.


Free porn does not kill the porn industry. Scam sites and aggressive billing does not kill the porn industry. The COMBINATION of aggressive billing by paysites and free porn being available is what is killing the industry. When a customer is just as likely to get card banged, spam emailed, virus or malware infected etc from a site he paid 30 to join as one that posts content for free... he becomes a permanent free site user instead.

Give customers a quality user experience and an ethical sales pitch without scamming them... It really is that simple. :2 cents:

I think the industry took a bad turn when the industry stopped evolving.

I haven't seen any fresh a cool ideas in porn for years. The adult business used to lead the way, now it copies the mainstream.

People will pay for an experience, the market of paying 39.95 / month for access to 2500 videos getting 3 updates / day is dying, that's why cross sales became so popular.

Interesting thread. As someone who literally - literally now - started with ZERO I am one of "those" who got into this business for that very reason: I had zero and there are very few opportunities out there to be successful starting with zero money yet limitless 'sweat equity'.

So I believe in hard work, new guys getting into the business, not having limitations, being a success when almost everyone else is hurting or leaving or predicting doom. Perhaps it's my personality, or the fact that I've been a success - MY definition of success, mind you (the only def that counts, to me) - in every single thing I've ever done, ever. Of course, the "success" of which I gloat only came after years of struggle, disappointment, failure and learning. :)

So I knew this wouldn't be an 'easy' gig but could, potentially, pay off big time (I want to post silly GFY threads from my hot tub, too, like Mr. Frisky did earlier today). Do I lament not getting into porn back in '01, '02, '03? You betcha - but I simply cannot get my damn time machine to work properly so fuck it. LOL

The reason I quoted Robbie here - instead of the other 1/2 dozen or so excellent points made by others - is that what he wrote is, in my opinion, a major reason I "made it" (so far): modeling. I didn't try to re-invent the wheel, so to speak. (Well okay, when I knew nada back in '07 I did, but everyone does that at first.) Six months in I knew I'd better start 'copying', as Robbie puts it, others' success, and start doing what THEY were doing. I also looked at sites that were NOT successful so I could NOT do what they were doing. LOL

But then I found what I think is CRUCIAL to anyone's success, especially these days: a twist. Something just a wee differant than all the other stuff people see when they surf porn. Maybe it's a "so crappy it stands out" tour design, or maybe a funny/sexy video where you laugh first then get turned on. Maybe it's a little pervert in a green trenchcoat someone can instantly recognize as a 'brand'. Who knows? Keep trying til something clicks.

So what I'm saying here is this: follow the leaders...up to a point. Then, when you've learned just enough to be dangerous, try throwing in a little 'twist', something unique to YOU/your sites that will make you stand out a little. It will go a long way. be your own Leader, for your own World. :)

Actually Leo does have some affiliates ;)))

yup. lolz, he's a good guy from what i gathered that night but he's made y'all the poster boy in his mind for what's wrong in the biz today.

Absolutely. The owner of that site is really smart. He's been successful for many years and continues to operate quietly and effectively.

i think what you are saying is spot-on and congrats to your success- so far.

:thumbsup

One of the largest sites out there. That man can burn some bandwidth.