Remember the laser disk? No, not the CD-ROM or the DVD, I'm talking about laser disks and their players that came out in the early eighties. They were touted as the future of movie viewing and they were, only not in the eighties. Even though the laser disc sounded cool, nobody wanted to pay the extraordinary costs of owning the player. Consumers were perfectly happy with their BETA and VHS machines. After a point, even the superior BETA fell to the power of the VHS.
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"Trends come and go. Some take off and some don't. Other trends take a while to catch on." |
Then in the mid-eighties, the music industry started distributing their wares on smaller laser disks called CD. Not long after that, the home computer hit the scene, followed by the popularity of the Internet, which fed the need for more storage space, and the CD-ROM. Somewhere in the blinding onslaught of technology, the DVD entered the arena and the movie laser disk was reborn.
Trends come and go. Some take off and some don't. Other trends take a while to catch on. The adult Internet has seen it's share of trends. Circle jerks sites were hot for a while and then they were overcome by TGPs. Blind click programs were once all the rage until free trial programs came along. Dialers made a stunning entrance and until recent terrorist activities, USENET picture trading managed to hide from government scrutiny.
Adult webmasters are always looking for the next big trend in hopes they can catch the wave before it ebbs and then fizzles out in the waters of overexposure. In the next paragraphs, we'll touch on some current and future trends in the market of online adult entertainment. The Internet and the obtainment of sexual content is fast-changing and here is a look at where your fellow adult webmasters believe the tides are flowing:
TGP was once the biggest, baddest dinosaur in the land. None could ignore it and most spent their every waking hour trying to feed it's massive appetite. TGP is directly responsible for thousands of adult webmasters financial freedom. TGP was a hungry monster that needed constant daily feeding. Day after day, new webmasters joined the throngs of waiters stuffing it with galleries of free porn and all was good for a while. The problem was that TGP was such a desired customer, it got served by too many. On top of that, many that once fed the best became beasts themselves by opening their own TGPs.
The adult Internet then became populated by many hungry TGPs who shit so much free porn, there weren't enough paying customers to go around. TGP2 tries valiantly to provide an alternate resource, but it looks like their efforts are about as effective as ecologists in a Republican administration. The TGP beasts insist on being fed their specific diet and become more finicky every day.
Will the TGP go the way of the dinosaur? Not completely probably. We'll probably see a time where TGP owners require payment for all their listings, which will kill off most of the smaller TGPs. We might even see more TGPs starting to charge surfers for access with AVS IDs. The TGP of today is most definitely an endangered species.
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Say goodbye. You knew it couldn't last. The fact is, the free site is like having an open bar with no cover charge. Anybody can walk in the door and partake of the goods. Sure, some will donate to the cause by signing up for sponsor's programs, but most surfers will just take the porn and leave the free site owner stuck with the bandwidth bill.
Another problem with free sites is that the warning page isn't much of a bouncer. It can't check IDs like paysites or AVS sites. Kids really are accessing imagery they're not ready to see and free sites and TGPs are the reason.
If the glut of free porn and lack of money don't kill free sites and TGPs, the government surely will. The powers that be may be slow on the uptake but eventually, they'll get around to shutting free porn sites down.
The future of Internet porn is the bottom line. We might even see the end of free adult hosting especially if broadband ever gets it's shit together. Sites will have to charge for access either with AVS IDs or become full-fledged paysites. Governmental forces are closing down even USENET and E-groups.
As far as affiliate programs are concerned, it's not so easy to predict the future. The blind link program was once diagnosed as dead but seems has come alive with Boss Hawg's Free Ezine Bucks. Porncity has single handedly revived the free email program and has a dollar-per-month affiliate service in the works. Recurring sponsorships are popular again and dialer programs are finally beginning to behave themselves.
The future is hard to predict and that's why they call it the future. The laser disks of today might become the DVDs of tomorrow. The market is driven by what the people will pay for. Surfers will always want porn and the adult Internet will continue to be their supplier.
Just the same, I still miss BETA.