One of the most irritating and grueling parts of my job is having to rewrite old tutorials. I spend a good bit of my soul on trying to make instructions and tips as clear as possible. When I recommend a software program or adult sponsor or industry-related provider, I take the time to research and verify. I give the best information I can for the sites I write about at the time that I write. While the Internet makes my research and efforts a thousand times easier, I still put a lot of muscle behind my work. So, it completely galls me when I discover that some host or designer I wrote about six months ago, went out of business or changed its company name.

"There are methods and tips for success that just don't exist anymore...Tried an true business models come and go almost as rapidly as fresh pornstars."

Or worse. There are methods and tips for success that just don't exist anymore. When I first began to write for Cozy in 2001, a webmaster could still start out on a free host and see enough income to afford stepping up to paid hosting and unique domain names. That didn't last. Today, a website on a free host equals death. The newbie that depends on free hosting is shot before he loads the gun. In the mid-late nineties, adult webmasters made bunches of money by submitting galleries to TGPs. Today even those Thumbnail Gallery Posts are suffering, when they were once the kings of small enterprise in our industry. Tried an true business models come and go almost as rapidly as fresh pornstars.

To add to the grief, technology is always working against us. Just when we master some new format fad, another awesome new way to waste time on the Internet comes along. Remember when we all laughed at Flash animations? Remember how we all insisted that the wmv format was the standard for viewing video clips on the net? Now we have YouTube schooling us by serving clips on their mega-busy site via Flash players. We got blogs inventing a fresh way to serve ads and make money that just didn't exist a couple of years ago. While the majority of Americans and the world are sailing through websites on broadband connections, how many adult sites are just as static as ever? Where's the interactivity? Where's the next hot niche? How can a webmaster keep up when he is in one of the quickest moving professions ever?

When was the last time you took at look at the programs your sponsor has to offer? Don't lie. You log on to your affiliate account just so you can access your stats. I bet you have no idea that you sponsor has five new paysites, incredible hosted galleries, an added RSS feed and a whole buttload of ingenious promotional materials, just waiting for you. That absolutely indispensable software you love has come out with an upgraded version that you're missing. There's a convention coming up that will hold seminars, covering the latest and most exciting technologies and business models. Are you going to plant your ass on your chair and miss a chance to hop in the fast car?

To state that this industry moves quickly is just redundant. You already know computer and Internet technology move at high speed. You have to be aware that the adult Internet profession is fast-paced. However, don't mistake acceptance with complacency. You don't have to go to every single show and read every singly industry article. The question is do you make any effort to keep up at all? Our personal lives tend to be well-insulated from outside forces. We work for ourselves and so many of the normal day-to-day stuff does not enter our lives. We concentrate on our sites and trades and traffic and stats. We find it hard to stop working and read a few articles or take some days off for a show. My advice is take the time.

Before you know it, something you do, some technique or trick you implement to make money will become obsolete. Some payment processor will declare bankruptcy or your main content provider will retire. That format you banked your life upon will be replaced in popularity with a new one. Someone, somewhere will re-build the whole mousetrap and those who fail to foresee will get caught in the snap. The industry moves quick. Look ahead, learn what's coming and grab your cheese before you're too late.