One such site is PornoTribune.com, run by a gentleman named Art. Recently, XBIZ chatted with Art about his site, its approach and its future.
XBIZ: So Art, for those of you who may not know you, please tell us a little bit about you and your review site, Porno Tribune.
Art: PornoTribune.com is an adult entertainment newspaper where we write reviews about pretty much any and every porn niche site on the market. We as a company believe that every surfer has unique stuff he loves in porn, and we want to show him the way to find it. We started back in 2005, and since then the list of sponsors we work with has grown to more than 800, and we value every single one of them. We are proud of the fact that we promote several thousand paysites and have established good business relationships with many sponsors, and we do our best to keep it this way.
XBIZ: What was your background in adult before starting Porno Tribune?
Art: Prior to joining PornoTribune I worked for several offshore companies in SEO and as an online marketing specialist. My last position was as VP of marketing. Those companies combined operating in both the mainstream and adult. PornoTribune is the first company where I am entirely focused on the adult market.
XBIZ: Why are you qualified to run a review site? We all know that anyone today can start a review site and that everyone has an opinion. Why should people consult Porno Tribune before making buying decisions for porn paysites?
Art: Well, it's true that everyone has their own opinion, but unless you can listen to your audience and figure out exactly what they want, you're never going to succeed in this business. You've also got to be open-minded; if your sexual fantasies are limited to what was acceptable in Victorian England, then don't bother to go into the porn site review business. And last but not least, you need a sense of humor and erudition — yes, working in adult doesn't mean you have a low IQ.
XBIZ: What would you say was the main motivation and/or inspiration behind creating a site like Porno Tribune?
Art: We thought that since there is a newspaper for pretty much every topic in this world, there should be one for porn site reviews. People were used to reading newspapers before the Internet Age, and they read things on paper. Now they read content on a website or via their favorite RSS reader. Just like a regular newspaper helps people to navigate an ocean of information about politics, sport and art and so on, PornoTribune.com is a surfer's guide to finding the specific kind of porn he's looking for.
XBIZ: I'm sure you see many other porn review sites out there. How do you distinguish yourself from the crowd?
Art: We believe we found the right balance between attraction and distraction in terms of a website design, functionality and content. Here is what I mean: On the one hand, people want fresh, well presented porn sites to choose from; but on the other hand, they do not want to be buried with tons of information about different sites in the same niche. That can be just overwhelming and confusing. We think that this is pretty much the case with other review sites we see. A newspaper layout is simply the perfect choice. When a person opens a newspaper, he is ready to see columns, which help him more quickly and easily to find information. It is a tried, true and tested format which has already worked for centuries. This idea works both for a younger and older audience; at the end of the day both are interested in quickly accessing information, and the format of a newspaper is the sure way to accomplish that. And here is a big thing: Quite frankly, surfers don't care about a porn site's rating. They also don't care when they read 9.5/10, as it doesn't tell them anything. What surfers do care about is 38FF-24-36. That's why we dropped our rating system and now stress the porn site's content description.
XBIZ: Your page count is more than 161,000 unique hits a month and has an Alexa rating of about 24,000. How did you build up such a dedicated readership in such a short period of time?
Art: We keep it simple and fresh, easy to navigate — and sure enough, it's about hard work and constantly brainstorming up new ideas.
XBIZ: What advice do you have to those people trying to start their own porn review sites?
Art: Forget it! Well, seriously don't waste your time unless you've been hit with some brilliant idea about how to make something really cool, new and something that people will love. The adult market is highly competitive, and to succeed on it you have to be continuously creative and innovative. To stress it even more, a competitive advantage is what you desperately need when you decide to go into the porn site review market.
XBIZ: What do you like best about being a porn reviewer?
Art: It's a chance to influence people's opinion and to help the people help themselves.
XBIZ: Does it ever get boring watching porn all day?
Art: Actually, it may even kill you. I remember some gamer from South Korea who was found dead after a 48-hour-long game marathon — porn will do it even faster! To answer your question, we never watch porn eight to 10 hours a day; because if you try to eat caviar all day long, you'll stop loving its taste.
XBIZ: So Art, what is your own personal favorite porn niche and why?
Art: Lesbian. I think two women in bed together is the eighth wonder of the world. But it has to be true emotional action, a kind of action when actors forget about the camera and that they're following a script — true, wild lesbian love. You can ask my psychologist why.
XBIZ: One final question: What are your short-term and long-term goals for Porno Tribune?
Art: We plan to release PornoTribune v.2 in the near future. As time goes by, we will review more and more paysites. New niches are sure to appear, and we're going to continue to provide a great experience to people on the site. The site does, however, need a major upgrade. We did our best to combine the original idea of an adult newspaper with web 2.0 technologies, to let people easily find the porn that they love. Version 2 will feature an easy-to-use Tags Cloud search, more info about the sites — i.e. what kind of photo and video content they provide, their update frequency, fees, etc. Our long-term goal is to keep up with people's demands and ever-changing technology, and of course, continuing to help people help themselves.
