If you have ever wondered who has what level of broadband access, or wanted to look into new places to live but didn't want to do all the legwork to see whether or not bandwidth was available - you are not alone.

Thankfully the US government is now tracking the roll-out of broadband across all 50 states and reporting which areas have what level of connectivity available for local residents.

Take a look at the official National Broadband Map government website to learn more.

MickeyMouse.xxx, anyone?

.XXX administrator ICM Registry and its partner IPRota have issued a white paper outlining the cost to trademark and rights holders that would like to block their brands from being registered in the adult-only domain.

The white paper was published this morning – lo and behold, because trademark holders will be forced to deal with registrars and not permitted to go to ICM directly, prices will vary – but the projected price for those that choose to block during the “sunrise” period, is $300 per address! IPRota’s announcement was scheduled to coincide with the annual International Trademark Association meeting being held this week. After the sunrise, things will apparently get much darker and potentially much more expensive.

So, that means that notoriously protective brands like Disney will potentially be forced to pay to block hundreds of .XXX addresses, in order to protect their brands. Fox senior vice president Mei-lan Stark was quoted in an article posted on WorldTrademarkReview.com, saying that the company is looking at 300 or 400 addresses that would have to be defensively blocked. Then, Stark added that if another 400 gTLDs were added to the Internet and Fox decided to defensively block on each domain, for each address, the annual cost could end up somewhere around $12 million.

Perhaps Stark is projecting a worst case scenario, but the logic makes sense. At this point, what’s to stop the precedent-setting money grab for ICM and its affiliated registrars now that .XXX has been approved by ICANN? The competition has already started as another article at RedOrbit.com announced today that registrar DomainMonster.com has blocking for trademark holders at $149.50 – more than double the wholesale price being offered by ICM for .XXX addresses. Folks that want to purchase .XXX domains from DomainMonster.com during the general availability period will find prices “starting” at $74.99.

We also would like to point out that the only company involved in the .XXX debacle that has changed to a .XXX address is ICM – and at this rate, they’ll be the only ones that can afford the annual fees. Not only will mainstream trademark and rights holders be paying to protect their businesses – adult online businesses are in an even worse position. How many addresses will you have to block, in order to prevent cyber-squatting and protect your traffic?

And when the mainstream online businesses realize how much this added extra .XXX expense could cost them, guess who they’re going to blame? The big, bad, evil “multi-billion dollar” adult industry. The folks at Amazon and Apple don’t know that the adult industry didn’t want this Top Level Domain either. And neither does India or Kenya, or any countries with anti-pornography policies. Just last week, Europe told the U.S. Dept of Commerce that there needs to be more transparency with Internet regulator ICANN, resulting from the .XXX approval – so we’re thinking the EU isn’t about to jump on the .XXX bandwagon.

FSC urges all adult online business owners to stay .COM – say NO to .XXX. We have led the opposition to .XXX because we believe that its bad for business and bad for the Internet. You worked hard to build your brand – do you want to pay Beverly Hills prices for an address in the adult-only online ghetto? Is it realistic to think that a .XXX address will attract enough traffic to cover your annual fees – or is it more likely that the registrars will be laughing all the way to the bank? – jc

(Photo courtesy of Bwmoll3)

It seems as if all anyone can talk about these days is finding new ways to improve and increase their online retail sales and conversion ratios, but what are they really doing to make a change? Knowing what your customers want, understanding what they need and being able to make all of that available to them to improve the shopping experience as a whole is a huge step toward improving your numbers. A recent study was conducted with PayPal customers in both the U.S. and Canada that revealed the top five reasons consumers have said they walked away from a sale – a shopping cart full of products, or an online subscription application just partially completed…

Reason #1 – Shipping Charges and Fees

Have you ever taken a tour of your website through the eyes of the customer? People are trying to get the best deal these days on everything from normal, everyday purchases to subscriptions, online memberships and even download-able content. Money is tight, so today’s consumer is very price-savvy. It doesn’t matter if your website offers the best products at the best-available prices, if the customer gets to the check-out and finds out that you have the highest shipping charges and processing fees, chances are the sale is lost. Over 35% of those surveyed said that the fees and charges were higher than they wanted to pay. They could have their credit card out and be ready to hit the “SUBMIT” button, but get scared away at the last moment due to the perception of ridiculous fees or unreasonable terms and conditions that you have tacked on at the end.

Tip: Check out your competitors’ websites to see what they are charging for shipping, processing, renewals and/or other fees – it is important to offer competitive rates at all levels of the process.

Reason #2 – Comparison Shopping

Nearly 28% of those surveyed cited that the reason they abandoned their shopping carts was to check out the competition to see if they could get a better price or rate. You can help to get these customers back in a couple of ways – one, by allowing your customers to create an account where they can log-in, log-out, fill their shopping cart, save items or even create a “wish” list of items they want to purchase in the future. Other ways to allow customers to feel better about making the purchase at your website is to offer a price guarantee – offer to match a posted competitor’s price or beat it by 5%, or go the extra mile and create an app that will post your competitors’ prices next to your item so they can see how much it would cost at Company A, Company B, and how much they would save or get more by purchasing it through your website instead. Make sure to compare shipping, processing fees and any other costs as well – you might not beat your competitors in one area, but you could trump them in another!

Tip: Look for creative ways to reassure your customers that making a purchase through your website will not only be a smart buy, but that they will also be much more pleased with the services that you provide in the process – sell it!

Reason #3 – Short on Funds

Well, it’s no secret that the economy is still in a funk, to say the least. A lot of people will sign onto a website, find the items they want to purchase and will go through the entire process only to realize that they are short a few bucks necessary to cover the total cost once the shipping and processing have been added in – in fact, 22% of those surveyed said they left a purchase for this very reason. By allowing your customers to create an account that retains their shopping cart information and behavior, you can contact your customers with incentives that just might make the difference between making the sale or losing them to a competitor. Send out follow-up e-mails to customers who didn’t make purchases, giving them a 2-day only discount such as free shipping, 10% off the product(s) or another financial discount that just might free them up to make the purchase. Once you sell your first item to a customer you are building a relationship with them. Give them a good deal and an all-around good experience and you could win them as a loyal customer for life.

Tip: Make your website as interactive as possible, contact your customers with personal e-mails or messages that are catered just to them – enhancing the experience can go a long way toward improving your sales.

Reason #4 – Offline Options

Another 17% of those surveyed stated that they did their initial comparison shopping online, but that they liked to look at offline stores to see the product in-person or purchase it instantly without having to wait for shipping. Overcoming this objection can be tough because you are an online store and without an in-person, offline option - it can be hard to meet this demand. You can, however, get creative and offer a 100% money back guarantee on your purchases, post an area for customers to write their own personal reviews of your products or services and add other elements that will help boost customer confidence in what you are selling. As far as the “instant gratification” issue, make sure to offer next-day shipping as an option in addition to other, lower-cost options for those who “just can’t wait” to get the item in their hands.

Tip: Look for other objections that customers might have about your products, services or delivery options by opening the lines of communication on your website – post e-mail, telephone, instant Web-contact and an open forum to ensure that you make it available to everyone. Customers increasingly prefer live-chat options for questions and service.

Reason #5 – Payment Options

This is a big reason for many shoppers, so it was a little surprising to see it in the number five spot with just 17% of respondents saying payment options were important. You need to remember that when you build a website you aren’t just marketing to the people in your neighborhood – you are selling to the whole planet! Check out alternative payment options, find out what is popular in other countries and make sure that you offer enough local options to cover all your customers’ needs. Direct debit, pay-by-check and credit card payments are used most often, but be sure to stay in-touch with changes in technology, advances made in processing services and know what your customers want.

Tip: Whenever possible attend online or offline industry webinars about payment processing to stay on top of this ever-changing part of Internet-based business!

Free Speech Coalition is calling all industry stakeholders to a meeting to preview plans for Adult Production Health & Safety Services (APHSS). Performers, producers, agents and other industry members that are concerned with STD testing protocols and workplaces safety are encouraged to attend. Media will be allowed to attend an exclusive press conference, following the meeting.

The meeting is scheduled for May 26, at 1pm, at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City, with press conference following at 3:30pm in the same location. The address is 12833 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, CA, 91604.

“FSC has been in contact with numerous industry professionals and sexual health providers. Together, we are developing a solid program that will fill in the gaps resulting from AIM’s closure,” FSC Executive Director Diane Duke. “If you’re affected by the production side of the industry this is an essential meeting for you to attend.”

An agenda for the meeting is to be announced. Information will be released to industry media outlets, as well as on the FSC Blog, Facebook and Twitter @FSCArmy.

This is an open meeting for industry members only. Members of the general public will not be permitted to attend.

If you are an industry member or a media representative and planning to attend, please send an email to joanne@freespeechcoalition.com , so that FSC can estimate how many will be in attendance.

(Photo courtesy of BZiL)

Let's look at the original kind of sextoys: dildos.  History has it that jade and stone and probably wood and bone have been used as sextoys in the past (and probably still are.  Maybe that's where the term "boner" came from).  Dildos were and probably still are the most easily accessible toys out there - pretty much anything with a cylindrical shape that can fill a woman's vagina (or, for both sexes, a butthole) is a dildo.  Hey, why do kids on the playground insult each other by calling their rivals "You dildo!" ? If they only knew at their tender ages that dildos can make for some hot sex, they'd use a different insult...  Some people call these "dongs" also but I think that's an old school name for them so I'll call 'em dildos... where did the name "dong" come from anyway?

Back to sex toys.  Dildos have been made with all sorts of things then a rubber material called latex came along.  Ah, latex.  The material that was once part of every toy is now considered old school.  It's kind of expensive to use now and it's sticky and stinky and messy to use so most companies are getting away from using it for their toys.  And there's that pesky latex allergy thing that so many health care practitioners are complaining of, probably due to over exposure to the stuff... glad I didn't use too many BandAids as a kid.  So not many companies are using it anymore for toys and that's a good thing.

So what ARE they using?  Briefly, there's the top o' the line silicone - a non-porous rubber that has no odor and costs a little more but is worth it.  And here's a little known factoid about silicone dildos... wanna learn the history of how they became dildos to begin with?  Sure
you do!

Once upon a time, there was this Jamaican man named Gosnell Duncan, who, due to an unfortunate accident, was unable to copulate with Mrs.   Duncan (I'm keeping this story PG in case you want to read it to your kids at bedtime.  Or your girlfriend).  One night she said to her hubby, "Oh, Gosnell, honey, I wish you could make a dildo so you could fuck my brains out at night."  (Whoops, forgot about the kid's bedtime story) "Oh, Gosnell, honey, I wish you could be the man that  I married and make love to me like it was our wedding night again."  

So what did the enterprising Mr. Duncan do?  After months of thinking about this with his other disabled men buddies, he thought of what kind of material was out there in the world that was durable, firm yet flexible, could retain body heat, was waterproof (I suppose Mrs. Duncan might have gotten a little wet in that department), could be made in many colors, and could easily be made without having to travel to Indonesia to get that raw, stinky, latex material.  And guess what material that was?  Silicone!  As in SILICONE BATHTUB SEALANT!  Yep, Mr. Duncan went straight to the source who originally formulated the stuff, a little known company called GE - known more for their light bulbs and bringing good things to light.  The kind folks at GE started to work with Mr. Duncan with his odd but compassionate request for help and two years later, Mr. Duncan was fabricating real looking dildos out of skin toned silicone which all the men and their lucky wives enjoyed copiously.

So how did these puppies wind up in the hands and snatches of women around the world?  Ah!  Not an easy answer!  Around 1975, Mr. Duncan was reading about a small, feminist sex toy shop in Manhattan (which is also credited with being the FIRST one in the country) called Eve's Garden, founded and owned by Dell Williams.  When he saw the ad, Mr. Duncan
thought in his sing-songey Jamaican accent "Owh... I wonder if leeezbions would like dem?" and he got in touch with Ms. Williams and the rest, as they say, is HERSTORY.

And oh, about those other materials for sextoys?  I'll let you know about them in future blogs.  I gotta go do some product testing.  Now where's my lube?

Okay, so this one is not really "unsung" as Joanna is possibly one of the best exposed adult entertainers in the biz right now.

But, this is a "hats off" for her crew and partners that make this magic happen.

I have been doing some cross-promo with Joanna's team over the past couple of weeks and noticed something note-worthy:  They work their asses off and deliver on their promises. On Time. For those of us dealing with larger entities, we instantly see this as novel, in a time where dysfunction and chaos rules, and 99% of the "deals" set up for B2B fall through the cracks.

Two thumbs up for Joanna Angel's small crew of FOUR that run the entire company, and, the "Unsung Hero" of note for this edition of my running blog, Mitch Fontaine. Mitch is the Unsung Hero here. He keeps the trains running on time, is on top of deadlines, and, all the while, is a perfect gentleman in the NYC manner (rather than the la-dee-da California, I need to go do some blow, and have lunch with people about promises of dot-xxx riches) manner that tends to stall out most of the time, IMHO.

New here and looking for something different?

Go to JoannaAngel.com and hit the webasters link. (Yes, it is CCBIll, but not bad in this instance!)

Colin

About the Author:

As the founder and CEO of Wasteland.com, the Internet’s oldest and most popular
alternative sexual community, Colin Rowntree is a true pioneer of the online adult
entertainment industry. Since launching Wasteland.com in 1994, Colin has developed a
network of sites that encompasses the full breadth of adult business sectors, from content
production and distribution to affiliate program management, mobile content delivery to
transaction processing, just to name a handful.

Colin’s stature within the adult industry is reflected by the many honors and recognitions
he has received over the years from adult industry media outlets and trade organizations,
including his 2011 induction to the Adult Video News (AVN) Hall of Fame and 2010
XBIZ Award for Excellence in Alternative Erotica. Colin was also the recipient of the
2011 Leadership Award from the Free Speech Coalition (FSC).

An eloquent, witty and thought-provoking commentator, Colin is a frequent contributor
to industry trade publications and websites, including Adult Video News and XBIZ. He
has been interviewed by and featured on BBC Television, the Fox Network, HBO, Wired
magazine, Cnet.com and Bnet.com.  Contact Colin at his B2B network site, SpiceCash.com.

Doesn't it just make sense to get every single join out of your current traffic before going out to purchase more traffic? Only you know your European traffic figures, but have you checked to see how many German surfers arrive on your pages and how many leave without joining? Now, there can be a number of reasons for Germans leaving your site without joining and we have to do some analysis to really determine differential outcomes, but the fact remains that well over 70% of Germans still cannot or will not use a credit card online to purchase entertainment even if they have one...and the same is true to varying degrees for surfers from every other European country.

Adult industry professionals are always seeking more and more traffic...I guess as long as traffic was plentiful this made sense in terms of limited outlay of time and expense for the swiftest, best ROI. These days this is less and less the case however, and I've been watching to see who leads the way in terms of maximizing their existing traffic. You already have a cost-per-acquisition assigned to every potential user who arrives on your pages - a percentage of your fixed costs, advertising and traffic expenditures, marketing and show expenses...all this outlay must be divided by the total number of visitors - this is for every surfer arriving on your pages...you have another entire calculation to make to determine your cost per join! So if six or seven out of ten Germans who land on your sites have to leave because they could not pay, what have you lost?

If you haven’t yet looked into the advantages of adding more EU billing capability to your processing cascade you really must do it now – most options can be used in conjunction with every other join option you already have – They don’t really replace anything, but provide a measure of additional coverage even if some overlap to ensure that users arriving on your pages find one more possible method by which they can join your site or make a purchase...and for the major EU markets, adding this additional coverage option can be significant indeed. Why lose a single join?

Convert every possible user.

Bill every European with or without a credit card online.

Do not let any joins escape.

If you need guidance or insight into any payment method do not hesitate to contact me at traffic@giantsense.com

What a deal!

DomainDiscount24.COM has listed a “May special” pricing schedule for .XXX domains, starting at a whooping $133 to $158 per address. As explained in this articlefrom YNOT.COM, the price is more than double ICM Registry’s wholesale price of $62. Oh, and don’t forget about the application fess – which start at $115 – for addresses that have not been permanently blocked and which are not purchased during the “general availabilty” registration period. Sounds pretty special, doesn’t it?

We encourage you to read about the rest at YNOT, where you will find a link to various pricing for the sTLD. Then, we  encourage you to do the math. For a large online program – say, with 10,000 .com addresses – even at wholesale price you would be looking at $62,000 annually in fees. And that’s just for starters.

Oh, and did we mention that, after .XXX was approved, Europe requested that the U.S. Department of Commerce delay  introduction of the new sTLD to the root system, pending further discussion?

FSC opposes .XXX. You worked hard to build your online business – do you want to move it to an address in the adult online ghetto? Stay .COM, and say “NO” to .XXX. – jc

(Photo: Some rights reserved by AMaGill)

Folks outside the adult industry are often intrigued to learn about the day-to-day life of someone who runs a porn company,  and nearly as often, they are most surprised to hear that we deal with all the same issues any mainstream company has, from employment law and workplace safety concerns to raises, layoffs and terminations.

Given that most of us at Pink Visual didn’t come from a corporate background, there was definitely a learning curve when it came to some of the basics, like how to handle employee performance and salary reviews.  I recall a team meeting maybe seven or eight years ago when someone asked what the average annual salary increase was for most corporations, and someone threw out the number 10%, and that ended up being the number we used as a baseline for a couple of years. Some employees found it unfair, while others were happy with that baseline, but one thing is for sure: relying on that number in the absence of other criteria contributed to a culture of entitlement that took root during that time. Employees came to see their annual raise as something to be expected, and not tied to their job performance, at all.

Once that culture of entitlement had been established, it took a couple years -- and several revisions to our policies -- in order to eradicate that culture and to establish a more results and performance-based criteria for our annual reviews. One of those changes was to move towards an “Employee Performance Matrix” for salary reviews. Google that term and you can learn more about its application in the general corporate world, but I’ll provide more information about how Pink Visual uses it here.

First, we had to set defined salary ranges for each position we have in the company.  This can be hard, since being an online adult company creates some unique positions, but it’s possible to accomplish and worth the effort.  We typically averaged out three to four different sources of salary-range information and include what the going rate is for that position in the industry (which we determined in part by asking around among other companies in the industry), we considered what other types of local jobs would this employee qualify for and what do those jobs pay, and in some cases we looked at trade-specific data, which was particularly useful with respect to design and IT positions.  The average we established helped us create a range that was fair, considering that we are mostly competing locally and secondarily competing within the industry for employees.

The next step was to adjust these salary ranges to be competitive and fair based on the value of the position to the company.  The best example of this is to compare a job that might take three months at the company to learn versus a job that might take two years at the company to become fully trained on.  In the first example, the range was adjusted so it was not as wide as the range for second example, with a low and high end that hovered right around the average we had calculated. The thought process with this was that the position could be replaced relatively quickly, so there was no need to pay well above the calculated average.  In the second example, for a position that takes years to learn we stuck with a wider range, because at first the employee may not be as valuable to the company as they will later become, so it’s okay to be below average during that time. As the years go by, that employee’s/position’s value increases and it’s increasingly important to for the company to retain them, which it does in part by paying that person above the average.  When we established this system for coming up with the salary ranges, we also decided to review our ranges every two years to ensure they don’t become outdated.

The next part was to create a matrix that outlined where the employee was within their range from the lowest quartile in pay up to the highest quartile in pay, and to cross-reference that with their rating for performance.  We use a 1 to 4 scale where 2 is a solid but average employee.   This then gets filled in with percentages of salary increases where the best performing employees who fall into the lowest quartile of pay get the highest percent increases and the highest paid employees with the worst performance get the lowest percent increases.

So the matrix might look something like this:

Please note this is a sample of a non-aggressive matrix.  More aggressive matrixes would look more like this and encourages a competitive workplace with significant turnover at average performance levels.

At our company, we decided to discuss and review all of our employees as a leadership group in order to ensure we all used the same criteria for rating performance.  This assures that the “easy going” managers don’t give 4’s to members of their staff for doing an average job while the “tough” managers give their staff members 2’s. Assuming you have a staff that is mostly hard working and high performance, what you should end up with is a fairly even distribution across the 2-4 ratings range, with just a handful of 1’s (up to around 10%).

When it was all said and done, this method ended up being better received by our staff, because it utilized the same logic for everyone and ensured that everyone’s salary/raise was related to their actual job performance, rather than an arbitrary increase that was the same for high achievers as it was for slackers. 

From an efficiency point of view, performance matrix cuts down on the debates and discussions in comparison to those surrounding arbitrary raises, and it allows the reviews to be done faster.  On the financial side, it allows decision-makers to anticipate increases in salaries for the year and create a budget that accommodates such.  It can also be changed from non-aggressive to aggressive, or vice versa, to match your own company’s corporate culture.

Performance reviews used to be a time of high anxiety and angst-ridden debate for us, but with our performance matrix in place, it’s much smoother sailing here at Pink Visual where performance reviews are concerned. If you find yourself frustrated with your own company’s review process, or feel that you’ve lost control of that aspect of your business, I highly recommend giving this approach a shot to restore some sanity in your conference room when review time rolls around again.

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As a result of conversations with adult industry producers, agents and performers, and in response to the closing of AIM, the Free Speech Coalition’s Board of Directors has voted to support the creation of APHSS (Adult Performers Health and Safety Services). This entity will focus on performer health and safety and coordinate heath protocols and services for adult productions. Included in this effort will be:

• Selection of high quality, industry-friendly and affordable testing and treatment facilities for adult performers
• Provision of a secure database to provide information to performers and producers on performer availability based on industry protocol
• Provision of resources for compliance with workplace safety procedures for producer
• Provision of training about STI prevention and treatment for performers
• Creation of a six-person advisory board to assist with adult production health and safety policy and oversight. The Board will consist of three performers, one attorney, one sexual health expert and one producer
• Coordination of industry practices and protocols concerning health and safety for adult productions