Are adult sites are losing visitors?

[r3n3gad3]

Hi,

in the paper today I read a article about adult sites who are losing many visitors (10% a month!).

And the community sites are gaining visitors, can you guys verify this if it is true of totall crap

thnx!

[Surfn]

Originally Posted by r3n3gad3

Hi,

in the paper today I read a article about adult sites who are losing many visitors (10% a month!).

And the community sites are gaining visitors, can you guys verify this if it is true of totall crap

thnx!

Logically that would suggest the we (adult sites) would have 0 visitors in 10 months...um...what do you think?

[sabin]

Originally Posted by r3n3gad3

Hi,

in the paper today I read a article about adult sites who are losing many visitors (10% a month!).

And the community sites are gaining visitors, can you guys verify this if it is true of totall crap

thnx!

Someone pull that statistic completely out of their ass. The internet is at least 97% porn (and 1% mundane blogs). I doubt 10% of the people said:

"Hmm, I think I'm going to stop jerking it to this porn and read about the new crappy restaurant that opened in my crappy town."

But hey, what do I know?

[virgohippy]

I dunno... we're over here in a community based site instead of looking at porn.

Maybe surfers are becoming webmasters!

[Licker4U]

Originally Posted by r3n3gad3

And the community sites are gaining visitors...

What's a community site?

[oldbrad]

like myspace and youtube prolly. Where you interact with other people.

Thats what i do alot over at mma.tv. Chit chat with likeminded people

[Surfn]

I would agree that 10% or more of the new adult webmasters leave each month. That is very different than the topic of this thread...

[Ronzo]

I would agree as well that 10% or more of new adult webmasters leave every month. It's possible this quote was taken out of context. I also wouldn't be surprised if that quote wasn't referring to subscription-based websites losing 10% of their subscribers... I'm sure VOD is causing some loss of subscribers. As the appeal of no recurring charges or monthly fees no doubt appeals to a lot of porn consumers.

[Mr Spock]

Could be a good thing in the long run - especially if you consider that the 10% probably comprises surfers who were looking for free porn anyway - leaving behind surfers who are more likely to reach for their credit cards.

This is just one way to spin this story - assuming that the stats quoted are correct - How you measure something like this is another question.

[jayeff]

I haven't the vaguest idea whether overall we are losing or gaining visitors. I do know that online porn as a major industry is barely into its second decade and still moving towards the inevitable equilibrium between supply and demand. In other words, competition is getting fiercer and that surely impacts on the business done by the average site.

I do believe we have "stalled". The last real innovation from the mainstream adult webmaster community was live video back in what, 1997. Our product has generally improved and most of our sites are more user friendly, but essentially we have been selling the same things in the same ways for the past 5 years and more. The internet brings us a steady stream of new and therefore curious visitors, but the ratio of experienced surfers is steadily increasing and for those to whom we have failed to appeal, we have nothing new to offer.

While sites such as "I Shot Myself" and "Suicide Girls" have appeared out of left field as it were, longstanding webmasters have increasingly resorted to feeding off each other, rather than staying focused on building sales to the general public. Boards/sites like this may be benign, but they are still a symptom of that and others like Zango are most definitely not benign. With a handful of honorable exceptions, many of our major sponsors still treat surfers and affiliates as if we were in the 90's.

Bottom line, I suspect the report is at best a distortion, but I do believe that until a new generation of webmasters moves to the top of this industry we are being held back. Right now we must have many who long since fulfilled their ambitions and are marking time, others who owe their prominence to lucky timing and only momentum is keeping them moving. That doesn't make for a dynamic market, one that is better maximizing its potential.

[Halfdeck]

http://www.economist.com/business/di...ory_id=9040354

[Jim]

Originally Posted by Halfdeck

http://www.economist.com/business/di...ory_id=9040354

That's an interesting article and I saw a chart that looks like that a couple of months ago. But, it was for different sites.

Here is what has me puzzled about the premise of less people going to adult sites. As long as there are new people getting online, new people are going to visit adult sites. I could understand if the article said that the adult site market was saturated and individual sites were getting less visitors. But, to say that adult sites as a whole are getting less visitors just seems wrong. As "old" people stop visiting, "new" people begin.

[r3n3gad3]

Originally Posted by Halfdeck

http://www.economist.com/business/di...ory_id=9040354

that was the article I was reffering to, thnx Halfdeck!

But if this is true we will need to search for different methods to keep the visitors on our sites..

[Halfdeck]

That graph isn't tracking change in overall number of visits, just change in % share. You could have more people visiting adult sites and still show a negative trend.

For example:

Month 1:3 adult site visits / 3 myspace visits = 50%/50%.
Month 2:5 adult site visits / 15 myspace visits = 25% / 75%.

[Allfetish]

Originally Posted by jayeff

I haven't the vaguest idea whether overall we are losing or gaining visitors. I do know that online porn as a major industry is barely into its second decade and still moving towards the inevitable equilibrium between supply and demand. In other words, competition is getting fiercer and that surely impacts on the business done by the average site.

I do believe we have "stalled". The last real innovation from the mainstream adult webmaster community was live video back in what, 1997. Our product has generally improved and most of our sites are more user friendly, but essentially we have been selling the same things in the same ways for the past 5 years and more. The internet brings us a steady stream of new and therefore curious visitors, but the ratio of experienced surfers is steadily increasing and for those to whom we have failed to appeal, we have nothing new to offer.

While sites such as "I Shot Myself" and "Suicide Girls" have appeared out of left field as it were, longstanding webmasters have increasingly resorted to feeding off each other, rather than staying focused on building sales to the general public. Boards/sites like this may be benign, but they are still a symptom of that and others like Zango are most definitely not benign. With a handful of honorable exceptions, many of our major sponsors still treat surfers and affiliates as if we were in the 90's.

Bottom line, I suspect the report is at best a distortion, but I do believe that until a new generation of webmasters moves to the top of this industry we are being held back. Right now we must have many who long since fulfilled their ambitions and are marking time, others who owe their prominence to lucky timing and only momentum is keeping them moving. That doesn't make for a dynamic market, one that is better maximizing its potential.

Excellent post. I agree with the sentiment. It seems we have reached the point where conversion ratios seem to be ever climbing and competition is increasing making it harder to get traffic. Program owners now seem willing to screw over affiliates in their desperation to maintain a certain income level. They do this full well knowing the consequences that it will have to their relationship with potential affiliates. To me this tells me that either 1) Many of these people are starting to pursue an exit strategy where they are seeking short term revenue in order to be able to leverage that revenue in other non-adult ventures or 2) The program owners are taking calculated risks and assessing marketing conditions. They have decided that affiliate contributions to their revenues will likely decrease in the future.

[Halfdeck]

essentially we have been selling the same things in the same ways for the past 5 years and more.

I blame bad marketing. Affiliates over promise and paysites under deliver. It should be the other way around.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by Halfdeck

That graph isn't tracking change in overall number of visits, just change in % share. You could have more people visiting adult sites and still show a negative trend.

For example:

Month 1:3 adult site visits / 3 myspace visits = 50%/50%.
Month 2:5 adult site visits / 15 myspace visits = 25% / 75%.

I thought of that just after I posted. You also have to look at one of the largest groups of new users...children. Of parents online, almost 1/3rd of their children under 2 are also online. And the largest group of new users are people under 21. So when you throw underage users into the mix, the data has to be scued.

[bluemoney]

I think I'll just keep plugging away at it. . . .fuck the "experts"

[BOSS]

This is incorrect according to my numbers

[Ronzo]

I think many people in this business... both affiliates and program owners, whether they know it or not... are thoughtlessly pursuing a short term revenue model. There is such an enormous emphasis and attachment to the word "free" in this industry. In most other businesses, that word is not even in their industry vocabulary. When a newbie comes to this board, or any other board, and asks for advice, they're encouraged to start building free sites and galleries. Submit them to TGPs... and keep doing this day in and day out. The end result of this strategy is over-saturation of every niche and trend that comes along. It gets to be that the only surfer you have a chance of selling is a new one... or one who's not an experienced porn surfer. Because, as surfers become better educated on the adult side of the Net, they find less and less reason or need to purchase porn... especially that which is available through subscription sites. It's no wonder we're seeing higher and higher conversion ratios.

Try to make a regular, dyed-in-the-wool, gallery submitter see this point, and they'll boast that they make a sale or two every day. So, for the time being, this MO may be working for some. However, the long term deficiency in this strategy is that eventually internet growth slows down, creativity stagnates, technology languishes, and what worked in the past, fails miserably in the present, and provides no profitable segue to the future. We're intensely involved in a "give away the store" mentality to make a sale, instead of instilling value and worth in what we sell... and that's a very flawed strategy.