My partiality towards the lexical aspect of the mature amusement trade -huh? - should be well known by now. Even though I defy the rules of sentence structure and write 85% passive tense, I think I manage to make sense most of the time. The truth is there’s no line of young pups holding journalism degrees hoping to have a career writing for an Internet porn site. But some day there will be.
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"They've gained from the power of a sponsor banner while it winks at a horny reader from a good dirty story." |
My Boss sent me to Vegas and I did a four-part piece on it. I was sent to cover the show and I did. I was sent to represent Cozy, C-Pimp and Girly who couldn’t come because they’re finishing up a year and-a-half’s work on the next big Cozy thing. I represented. I was blessed to accept the award Cozy received for Best Webmaster Resource from Xbiz. I met people. I shook hands. I passed out business cards. I got to meet Raven from the Cozy team. I got to hang with Boneprone. I didn't get in any fights. I didn’t get stupid drunk. I did what I was sent to do and I think I did it well.
That’s why I feel moderately safe telling you about my secret Vegas agenda. I took a small blind poll while I was there. I’ve got this theory about the future of our business and I wanted to see if others felt the same.
I believe what we so coldly refer to as text or filler will become more valued content. Bartering an article for a link will happen less in the days to come. Only the very poorest of upstarts will purchase inadequate prose for centimes a word. Paysites and free sites will search for and pay more for well-written copy and erotica. Text is the new adult content.
I spoke to many people about text in Vegas. I used different words for it like stories, erotica, articles and copy. The majority of folks I spoke to agreed that words on a web page made their sites better especially adult resource sites and adult online magazines. This sentiment goes along with my companion theory of the future of online adult. I see specialization ahead.
In fact LAJ (from YNOTMasters) sat me down on the couch of the YNOT booth at INTERNEXT to discuss the future of our end of this wacky biz. He and I concluded that resource sites containing nothing more than some sponsor ads and five outdated tutorials/articles would fall by the wayside. We talked about how resource sites will continue but they will be stronger, meatier destinations.
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There’s a current plethora of adult webmaster resource sites for a reason. Adult webmasters need them and adult webmasters are valuable traffic. The resource sites that survive the next few years will be the ones that deliver high-quality unbiased information, news and articles. People who can write coherent text in an interesting fashion will be appreciated and paid. We writers will take our place on Olympus along with the programmers, graphic designers, animators, photographers and marketing gurus. LAJ agreed as well did a lot of others at INTERNEXT. Journalism majors might one day come nipping at the heels of this old hack.
The other end of our business is beginning to understand the worth of the written word. Paysites that feature good erotica are finding it’s inclusion a marked factor in member retention. They tell me that erotica lovers are a faithful market. They’re finally realizing they can’t buy good erotica for four cents a word. They tell me they look for adult story content on provider’s sites and find the stock lacking. They want good words and they are learning they have to pay for them.
Free site operators are now taking advantage of erotica to make their pages sticky. Insert pun here. They are starting to see how important it is to keep a surfer on the site. They’ve gained from the power of a sponsor banner while it winks at a horny reader from a good dirty story. They feel safe serving up erotica on their unguarded pages because text porn is more legally defensible that image porn. Practically all adult webmasters who sell for sponsors prefer text links to graphic banners. AVS as well as paysite owners know the importance of punchy sales copy in their tours.
The Adult Chamber nominated twelve individuals for their Webmaster of the Year award. Several of those nominees were writers. They gave the Award to Danny of WebmasterJoint and guess what he does?
I have lots of theories about the future of our business and our place on the Internet. I liken online adult to the bootleggers of old who financed and built Hollywood. I see the mainstream headhunting us as consultants. I see the media finding it harder and harder to demonize us as we effectively police our industry with organizations like ASACP. We’ll confuse the corporate world by demonstrating the constructive power of our free exchange on message boards and resource sites. I see us all going way beyond adult entertainment. I see us owning the future. Write on.