The Current State of Internet Porn
At this moment in time, almost a billion people have Internet access. In 2003, Nielson/Net Ratings put the number of users Worldwide at 560,000,000. In April, 2004, the Pew Internet and American Life Project stated that two-thirds of US Internet users have made purchases online. In 2001, Forbes magazine estimated the dollar amount spent on adult Internet content to be in the range of 10 billion annually.
While the Forbes article might have overstated the numbers, this last February British/American firm Visiongain Publishing, reported that global spending in 2004 for overall adult content was approximately 21.5 billion euro or $28,623,000,000.
The configuration of the Adult Internet has expanded into a multi-faceted world of paysites, sponsors, TGPs, content providers and hosting companies. Almost anyone can buy content, register a domain and acquire hosting for very little money compared to brick-and-mortar ventures. Even better, practically anybody can sell adult programs and services on a commission basis via the sponsor/affiliate model.
These affiliates can make a living as easily if not easier than those who run adult paysites.
There is a natural progression for the adult webmaster. Most start out as affiliates that sell for sponsors. They do this by building free sites, AVS sites, blogs and thumbnail gallery pages. The methods are as varied as the different types of porn for sale. However, the basic formula involves applying sponsor banners or text ads to an adult page and promoting those pages to a web-based audience. When a surfer buys the sponsor’s product, the affiliate webmaster is paid. When a webmaster becomes proficient at selling sponsor content, many of them then create and open their own paysites or adult services and often start their own affiliate programs.
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While it’s fairly easy to master the task of building a website, it’s not so easy to sell porn on the net. Gone are the days when a person could make big money from a paysite with a hundred photos. Most newbies can’t afford the tens of thousands of dollars needed to create a competitive paysite, so they turn to marketing other people’s porn as affiliate webmasters. Even then, they must compete with thousands of other affiliates for higher search engine rankings and site traffic. High traffic and high SE placement are a vital part of an adult webmaster’s success. If a site has no visitors, it will surely fail. Even when it gets lots of hits, a page or gallery can still fail if it isn’t saleable.
Webmasters will submit sites and galleries to link lists and TGPs. They will trade links with other similar sites. Some will buy placement on prominent adult sites. Still more will buy traffic from traffic brokers or use traffic trading software. Despite the method, there is no guarantee for success. Adult webmasters work very hard to get that traffic and garner those sales.
Some webmasters develop into specialists and sell their services to those in the industry. Some will become graphic designers, content providers, script gurus or marketing experts. Still others find their talents lie in search engine optimization, copy writing or hosting. Whereas some adult webmaster will always be webmasters, there is ample opportunity for all skill sets.
Nielsen/NetRatings states that as of December 2004, more than half of US users are connected to the web through broadband. Nielsen also claims that 69% of broadband customers surf the web on a daily basis and stay online an average of 21 more minutes than the dialup user. It’s only fair to assume that given a few years, broadband connections will be the norm.
The static images and video clips that are the main focus of most adult sites today, may not attract the porn surfer of the future. Endeavors such as plot-based porn shows and artificially intelligent smut applications might become the wave of the future. Even cellphones are getting in on the game with incredible capabilities for live and streaming content delivered over ever-faster connections. The technologies are evolving faster than the telephone, radio and television combined.
Whatever the future of the Internet, you can rest assured, porn will be there.