Now that everything is FREE... what's next?
 

We now have plenty of free Hard porn in tubes, torrents and Usenet. And free "light porn" in My Space, YouTube and Facebook (a highly growing trend). It seems availability of content is now taken for granted,.... so what's else to make money in this business?

I have read here and there that audiences have stopped to be passive and they are
becoming more "content producers" and "mashing-up" things (mixing different contents to create customized, creative things). Could this be a trend that in a couple of years be a standard in porn?

Let me explain myself a little. I have seen in some free boards a growing trend in photoshoping images. Posts like "fake my girlfriend" or "celebrity fakes" are now more commonly found as categories where there is more demand (I want you to fake this) than there is offer to do it. That is, not everybody is apt currently to mash-up that image with that other image. Using photoshop is a technical challenge for many yet.

So as you see getting porn is not hard these days, there is abundant, plently of it, especially since it's FREE. So it seems most surfers want now to move to another level of EXPERIENCE, interacting with porn (hence the growing segment of virtual and cam sites).

So I guess CONTENT will not be our only business in the next years, but creating easy to use applications to bring the mash-up spirit to a level of new fantasy satisfaction. Ok, the compulsive buy (I want that pic, that video NOW) will persist as PREMIUM content to make money, no doubt about it. But there will also be a demand for innovative ways to help the surfer to reach sexual gratification AND DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES.

So my question could be this: is there a market for easy-to-use porn software and -in specific- for porn apps? (I can think now of the success of Facebook apps and the growing segment of photo editing apps where you can clone and play with your friends pics). Can it be a business model really? How to charge for that?

Perhaps some of you have though also about all of this, what I call the "next level" or Porn 2.0 ...It will be interesting to see if anyone has already some offers for this and your experience so far.

PS By the way, some of you may be aware also about the "Japan Story" with manga, which was reported by the NYT this week. The audience production and download of manga content is now a hit that is bringing a lot of money to the cell and editorial companies, according to the Times, highlighting women as the top consumers (which tend to like "reading" manga more that "seeing" manga compared to men)

I personally think that we should start paying users to join our sites. Its the next logical step.

mainstream upsales :D

Not really. Why would people buy an app if they can just do the same thing with their photo editing software?

What's next? We've already seen the beginning.

1. Tube sites will pay surfers to upload their collections, it's already being done.
2. Video hosting sites like rapidshare which are just ways to upload paysite collections and link em on porn sharing forums are paying surfers to upload and get others to download: http://www.storage.to/earn

At some point something has to give. There will be a point where producing porn won't be profitable, at this point a service like apple's itunes for porn needs to come in to make things profitable again.

sexeducation? Is that you?

Interesting Gleem..... putting others to work! hehe

I agree that the massive production or delivery of amateur content provided by surfers will not be a permanent guarantee for the good future of the industry, I rather see the future in apps and formats that let the consumers have different experiences with available content. First there were those little dirty magazines, then came the Beta & VHS and now the Internet. An holographic stripper will be next?

I have not seen that....what I have seen are surfers PAYING to upload, not getting paid. They PAY for a "premium" "account" and then they can upload all they want and download all they want. The selling point from the tube is that this pays for "bandwidth"
:1orglaugh
It's ingenius. But no, I haven't seen any tubes paying surfers to upload. They would be out of business the first day.

Very interesting post. I definitely see the intersection of CROWDSOURCING and content monetization. It will happen first in mainstream, then in adult. The same way Youtube came first then the rise of the adult tubes.

Another way to say your thesis would be: the old days = content = traffic. The trend: traffic = content. Things sure have come a long way from people pissing themselves just to click on a CJ link in hopes of actually getting to see a full porn picture set much less an actual short ass movie clip.

There are tubes paying for uploads, not per upload, but paying monthly prizes for top uploaders each month, $1000 for top uploader, $500 for second... so on and so forth.

Surfers are getting paid by the upload services you are talking about for upload AND then getting others to download, they get paid PER download.

there are tons of boards that pay users to upload full site rips. stile is paying 1000 for the biggest uploader to his tube.

two trajectories will continue: further into reality and further into interactivity.

i think some places pay third world surfers pennies per upload or something like that.

Tube sites will get their asses kicked within the next 2 years!
Legally and most likely from Gov side :)

You can always sell sci-fi books talking about pregnant virgins and resurrecting people.

on the money :thumbsup

The only ones complaining are the ones who still cant answer this question. THERE IS STILL BIG MONEY IN ONLINE PORN... but only if you have programmers on salary and a team. Step your game up!!!

That's pretty interesting. But my question would be...what is my programmer supposed to do about all the studios that are cutting back production of new porn and in many cases closing down completely. Once there isn't any new porn being produced it won't make much difference as to who "steps up their game". And as for a "team"...well, that's the same mistake all these companies already made the last 10 years. Hiring a bunch of folks to work on salary who had no true vested interest in the company.

I kick more ass on my own and move faster than any "team" out there.

Not trying to be a jerk, but your post sounds like a lot of talk. No specifics to it at all. Right now the only people making money are cam sites and adult dating. Paysites are hurt. DVD sales are dead. Those are your two producers of pornography.

So I think your statement needs to be ammended to say: There is still big money in chat and dating.

But eventually, it is going to be cost prohibitive to actually produce porn. Can't expect producers to have to pay to shoot it, edit it, distribute it, carry the entire legal burden of 2257, and then have some guy come along and steal it all and destroy any chance of the producer making a profit.

so as a paysite owner you are not making any money?

I'm not the average bear my friend. I'm speaking in general across the business. I don't use bought content or outsource or live in the Porn Valley bubble. I'm one of the few guys who actually has his hands on the wheel of my machine and can move fast.
Of course there are a very few exceptions who still make money. But I can tell you right now that I would be making a LOT more if not for what is happening.

Sell free hookers and drugs that need credit card age verification with prechecked cross sales.

I doubt it, I see this as a trend to stay, they will be around some time either as tubes or something that will follow.
If pressured by US govt they will find ways to make money with processors based in some asian or former soviet countries. I agree they are killing the old business model, but FREE will be more present in the years to come, thats why my original point is that we have to build something new based on abundant, free content, something that can be mashed-up and even make cash from it (as it happens with patents, i see pics loosing copyrights -even very soon- once they circulate a lot in the Net).

UCG content will never make it up for the commercially produced stuff - users are lazy and rarely original, they do not have enough knowledge and skills, they also do not have budgets to produce anything decent. Sure those swarms of surfers could tweak and photoshop some pics and vids, but most of their "art" sucks and it is derivative activity anyway - they need somebody else (the original producer) to create the original art they can then tweak and photoshop. Without the original producer, there's no chain of derivative works.

Thinking that swarms of surfers would replace professional producers and become the main source of quality content in the future is just stupid. It is the same if you believe that swarms of clueless people will start producing quality cars (for free of course) instead of the professional manufacturers who have factories, engineers etc. Not going to happen.