Because most of us,... <edit> a fair amount of TGP owners like myself did not give away the fucking farm.

Whaaaaaaa?!?!?!?

Surely ye jest sire!

:winkwink:

:2 cents:

imho, 1/3 of the people posting here right now will no longer be posting here this time next year. The biz is going through one hell of a wash through right now. Even fellow foot fetish and pantyhose/nylon fetish sites I thought would be around for awhile have gone bye bye.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I am not sure which yet, I will still be here.:Oh crap

It sucks to hear, and I use to get pissed whenever anyone would say it but the truth of the matter is adapt or die. Tube sites are the future of porn. And paysite will eventually have to cater to them just like they did to TGP's in the past.

only doing this for 16 months now...so I see things going up. What I did not realize is how hard you need to work to make money. Maybe in the past it was a lot easier. Spent all day copying, pasting, uploading.

I cannot speak for every tgp out there. I have produced tgp's since 1999. pornfuck.com was my first, Digitaldivasonline.com is the present incarnation of 13 tgps. I have owned 36 lifetime.

Tubes are a TOTALLY DIFFERENT beast than we ever were. Our goal was the goal of our sponsors. To convert. If you did not, we would not have wasted bandwith on you, if you were a paysite, or unless you had something to offer that we wanted. This was pre automated script bullshit. I'm talking webrings and the time when adultcheck was king. Emailing for text trades, the good ol days so to speak.

Think TGP with a password/~krack forum. That is the modern incarnation of an illegal tube.

Tubes that are just dumbasses piss us off too. We are not in some "secret league with tubes" or anything. Am I the only one still speaking for TGP's?!? There are not that many of us left. Other TGP's that were very good friends of mine, pre digitaldivasonline.com, about 80 percent of them are gone in the wind. It's kinda sad.

There was, at one time a great camaraderie between TGP owners. Many of my friends in that game are gone. I am planning on installing a legal tube on DDO to further promote my affiliates and such. But as I posted in a previous thread a couple of weeks ago. Tubes are the natural progression. It is a testament of the amazing laziness of the modern porn surfer. They are not necessarily leaving us, (tgp's), rather they are just checking back less and less, when they get done surfing new shit, they come back and check us out again. We, TGP's are still a "comfort food" for porn surfers. But times are changing people. I will always keep digitaldivasonline.com updated and shit, it's not even complete yet. Although I have changed my business model from a tgp to an index and directory, again, adapting or dying.

In the end, you catered to us and still do, because we put your name out there in ways you could not even fucking imagine. And many times, "brand named" some of your ungrateful asses:2 cents: and put you on the map! When the big players started the game in 2002 to see who could have the most free shit in their webmaster areas, some of my fellow TGP owners went ape shit and some of us did not and remembered our place in the cycle and kept moving shit forward. All of this tube shit was not our fault. It was the natural progression of easy access, better options and the allure of streaming video. :2 cents:

No things will not get better, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of money to be made.........

Also, tubes are just a small part of the problem...File sharing has become a lot more "mainstream" now, the growth of file sharing forums, torrents & tubes is literally exponential.

The other part of the problem is the lack of trust between consumers and online porn websites. People have been BURNED by cross sales, fraud, etc. I was talking to a buddy of mine and he was telling me how he had been burned 4-5 years ago and would never put his CC # in an online porn site again. Then he was telling me about how he found free porn, he was talking like it was the newest greatest secret he had just discovered.

The two factors above contribute to each other, and unless there is a major shift, this industry will continue to decline.

THE GOOD NEWS IS, mainstream is growing exponentially. Just a tiny fraction of people are buying goods online and that # is growing exponentially. If you are is despair about "net porn sales" I suggest you look into mainstream. I'm glad I did. ;)

I wonder who will be blamed when virtual reality becomes a reality? Or holographic porn, and they blow what ever technology that is "Killing the Biz" at the moment right the fuck out of the water. It's coming. Many of you paysite owners that reaped the benefits of us TGP's should not bite the hand that fed, or is still feeding your asses, imho.

it is kind of a mystery why some of the well-known TGP's are still TGP's and not tubes yet. Or atleast not in the midst of transferring into tubes. With the bookmarkers they still have left they would grow very quickly.

Tell us how you really feel tootsie. :winkwink:

I remember those days, I am reminiscing again... *sigh*

Some of us that are left are in the process of becoming hybrids. LEGAL hybrids. Some others have gotten lazy, become complacent and cannot afford it frankly. ...No idea what they do with their earnings. Unless they aren't converting anymore. We always had an open door to our Sponsors. That is something that the new paysite owners will never know, sadly. Too much selfishness. But as for me and the Digitaldivasonline Network, every one of my Sponsors has my personal cell, no matter how big or small. Tubes do not do that as far as I can see.

You know I always do, fellow footie perv, BF :thumbsup

Also, there is still a very nice market for TGP's and indexes and directories. Always will be imho.

It isn't just the video that sells, its the story behind it. That was always the difference why I could make a shitload of sales on tgps with average oversaturated movies while others couldn't, I added a story to them. If you make a site with a hot story and tease the surfer right, there is no way he will be looking for the videos for free on tubes, he won't care, he will be so horny, that he will want to join the paysite asap, doesn't even matter what the paysite price is, if 9.95 or 39.95. Thats the beauty of good marketing. A tube site will be always just a boring list of videos, nothing else, that never sold as good as...see above.

Until this industry realises you can't sell hamburgers if someone can afford to give them away nothing will change. Except for the worse.

We've had years of Tube sites luring customers away and we have done little to nothing to stop them. Yet the answer is obvious. They can give away single or two scenes for free, if this meets our customers needs what are we doing try to sell them a months subscription when all he needs is 1-2 scenes?

Tubes give away hamburgers to sell ads for steaks. Maybe we should sell hamburgers and give away steaks. We have $30 a member per month to spend on satisfying the members needs, that should be enough to meet his needs better.

Are you saying you can't screw the customer for years and expect him to take it when others who don't offer it for free?????? :1orglaugh

Novel idea but will it take effect?

Thinking the customer is too dumb to find paid porn when he clearly has no problem finding free porn is illogical. :upsidedow

Of course he is dumb and also lazy. 80-90% of the world population is dumb and with the right marketing you can sell sand to people in Sahara.

Some really good reading in this thread. Too lazy and hung over at the moment to post something usefull though. Let's bump this thread in 1 year and see who is here and how we all doing :) I know I'll be around(unless this headache kills me).

Porn never was and never will be an impulse buy. The only impulse is which one to buy. The impulse is in deciding to jerk off and then what to jerk off to. Someone is a food shop is not making an "impulse purchase" he's buying food to satisfy a need. And that for our customers is what porn does.

Back in the good old days of expensive hosting few could afford to give away tons of free so the customer who wanted a full scene had to buy a months membership. Since then the world has changed and hosting costs have fell to 10-5% of what they used to be. How did we react?

Did the industry increase or members areas 10-20 times the size of before or did we increase the amount of free porn to give away?

The effect of Tubes on porn is hard to specify, assuming members are flocking to them instead of paying shows how little we know about our customers and their needs.

So how do so many find free porn?

You have to remember porn existed when it was only sold in shops that had to be found, the Net did not invent porn.

Yes, porn existed, but how many people visited those shops? The customer base is now 1000 times bigger, because of free porn. Yes, back then maybe 50% of people paid for porn in shops, now its maybe 5-10%, but now those few % mean millions of paying customers. Free porn is an important marketing tool, if you can't cash on it, blame yourself.

How many visited those shops? Few but all BUYERS.

The people consuming porn today is a lot bigger, the customer base is a lot smaller. The industry revenue figures back that up over and over again. I doubt now if the money taken on the Internet would compete with what magazines used to sell 20 years ago. As for DVD sales they have been decimated.

Yes free porn is a good selling tool, which is why everyone is giving so much away and selling more today. :upsidedow

NOT !

Also, i surely miss Xpics !

I have lost 50% of my revenues and i've been online since 96 ! Can't stop the way down no matter what i try. Don't know how long i will be able to keep up. That is, get rid of servers, domains, scripts etc...

Yep mainstream is damn hot ! I just started a project and made 10 sales so far with what ? 200 hits sent ! The problem is, to get traffic like in porn. Also, it takes time to setup everything and before cash roles in. Don't know if i'll be able to wait.

FUCK ALL damn it.

:thumbsup

The problem is, people think they can do the same shit over and over again and it will make the same money. Well, it will not, people have to change their methods, have to change content, have to be unique. Do you think that if someone re-relased a movie from the 90's in theaters today, that anyone would pay for it? This free porn blaming is just an excuse, because people aren't creative enough to sell porn with good numbers year after year. You said porn isn't an impulse buy, ok, but online porn is. Its just winning the guy over, there are methods to do that even though he may have a tube site open in the next window, trust me.

Stop thinking you need VOLUME traffic. You need quality, targeted, CONVERTING traffic.

That is, and remains, one of the biggest issues why people fail online. Adult, or not. Failure to properly target their market, and buying consumers.

Unless you are being paid by Alexa for your site's ranking,.... like those in the traffic game.... then you should not even be worrying about Alexa. You should be worried about your SEO, SERPS, and quality of customers coming through your site.

:2 cents:

The initial porn sign up, or clip sale, is an impulse buy IMHO.

However, the membership rebill shows your brand's loyalty and quality. People willing to support your site, and company's content.

Of course, rebilling is a different story. Its even harder. But I just love this game.

I think tube sites are hurting pay sites for sure. One way around this in my opinion is exclusive, quality content that you can't get anywhere else. Also obviously a cool niche is a good idea too. Also add in the economy sucks ass and people are cutting back. So maybe offer 2 months for the price of 1 special. Things like that.

But there is only so much discount that people can offer before they are conducting charity and no matter what form of new content you produce if they can steal it they will and put it somewhere on the web!

The guys buying porn are not usually 18 to 30 year olds, they are guys who are older and into their niche and style they have been into for years. They're not the guys surfing around for anything to jerk of to. This is why porn has changed so little over the last 50 years except in mode, clothing and strength. As for the movie reference this is an excellent way to show how the stories stay the the same and all that changes is the actors locations and technology.

How ever scenes have to be distinguishable. Once they all merge into one they are boring, but ry getting people to spend the money on content that's different enough to enthrall the customer and you soon see why so much is the same.

It does not need to be unique and changed every day. It needs to be shot by people who understand the niche, know how to shoot, can direct models and have a budget to allow them to create good content.

Free porn is not to blame and you're spot on there. This industries lack of a response to free porn is.

Once a guy is in a porn clip site, Tube, TGP or anything porn related the impulse is to buy porn is gone. He's in the shop. :winkwink: It's now an impulse on what porn he buys. This business relies 90% on regular buyers. If it were impulse buys the impulse would soon be crushed once he joined a site that failed to meet his needs. I'm sure a lot of sales have been lost this way but not the regular buyers, until we completely piss him off.

i totally agree!

Tisk tisk tisk Markham.

I would have thought in your 200 years on this planet, you would have grasped the concept of the steps involved in a sales, or conversion, cycle. It is not as simple as you lament. Simple marketing, and psychology reinforce this.

It is no wonder that a lot of people in this industry either completely fail, or are having a hard time in this famine economy.... You look at your customers as pea brained apes who have no choice, or original thought in the matter. They are just there to see some tits with credit card in hand, and are happy to have been graced by your site and content.

They are just surfing the web for porn daily, and then get to your site, see tits and momba womba as if in a trace, pull out their credit cards. Get hit with their 12 different cross sales. Enjoy your 50 scene pay site that has not been updated since 2001. They send you some email, you do not answer. Refuse to cancel their subscriptions. Then sell them, and their information off to the next porn company for $0.50.

Fucking Christ.
:disgust

Sure it's a marketing tool... same as if you go into a store and they give you a FREE sample to "test the product"... they don't give you the whole damn company for free!!!!!!!!!!!

But you can watch every movie from the store for free...in the store. You just can't take it home with you. Can you download movies from tubes? There surely are scripts for that...but the average surfer can only click the IE or firefox button to start a browser, thats it.

Yes, fucking cross sells and just being a stupid fuck to your customers. I have never done that shit and never will. But, I was a surfer before I was a pornographer. And remembering things I hated about buying a subscription, I made sure not to do, when I was lucky enough to start my own paysite. And remember, surfers remember EVERYTHING! If your a paysite owner and were ever shady, perhaps this is the "goes around" part of the old adage, "what comes around, goes around. Not in any way directed at you, Mister Markham, just saying. :2 cents:

True dat.
:2 cents:

Tube8 allows free downloads.

By typing "porn" into google and clicking the first link. Or by typing "porn" into bing and clicking the videos tab.

And what adult sites do you run again?

i am an affiliate and yes i wish things were what they were 4 years ago.

i also product non-adult content and it sucks in the current climate.

but you also you have to be realistic about the current situation.

sure you produced bunch of content and it may be now worthless. sucks. but you took a chance in business and most businesses fail.

Your sadly mistaken if you think thats all a surfer knows how to do these days... the majority of them know the ends and outs of this biz to the T!

whatever!

Seeing how tube sites like pornhub.com exist, I don't even understand the need to pay for a paysite anymore. I mean people can just get porn for free. Unless they are completely unaware of the existence of free porn on the internet. Some people may say - "Well paysites are higher quality." Well, free porn quality is not too bad out there.