LONDON — XBIZ EU wrapped its second day of seminars and business networking on Tuesday.
A speed networking hall in the morning gave way to compelling seminars in the afternoon. Later, attendees enjoyed rounds of drinks during happy hour, just prior to the inaugural XBIZ Executive Awards that started at 8 p.m.
The afternoon’s seminar series looked at hour-long sessions on traffic, live cams and the important issues facing the adult industry with the "State of the Industry: War on Porn” panel that focused on the wars hitting porn on both sides of the Atlantic. The day also included an advance look at several authors’ project called the “Porn Studies Forum.”
In a seminar titled “Traffic: Building, Management and Monetization,” panelists included ATKCash’s Kim Nielsen; Cash In Pills’ Bruno; JT of ReallyUseful; Chris Rodgers of Payze; and Ruby Goodnight, a porn and sex toy website writer and former fetish performer. Damian Jennings moderated the seminar.
One of the panelists, JT, who was a founder of YouPorn but later sold the property to Manwin in May 2011, discussed how he was able to achieve success by analyzing traffic and making important decisions.
“We had a massive amount of experience with YouPorn,” JT said. “We had 317 million users coming in a month coming. With that you have a lot of data, and we had a lot of content. We found that clips that are two to three minutes get the most views with a beginning, middle and end. And we were receiving 1.5 million views in the first 24-36 hours after posting.
“We knew what people were working for,” he said. “Tube users are very fickle; the typical user goes for 10 to 15 minutes on the site. They go on, whack off and sign off.
“If you can give customers the best representation of your brand and later when customers see your name on the thumbnail, and if they like it, they become allegiant to it. Customers know what they want."
When he sold to Manwin, the site’s partner program had rocketed to 2,000 sites with hundreds of thousands of clips. JT said that he’s used the knowledge he learned with YouPorn for his next project.
The "State of the Industry: War on Porn” panel included as panelists U.K. obscenity attorney Myles Jackman, the Free Speech Coalition’s Diane Duke, Jamie McCann of Studio 66 and Nichi Hodgson, a U.K. journalist, broadcaster and author. The session was moderated by Don Parret.
The session looked at the politics of porn that have been spurring a series of global regulatory changes, including U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s opt-in porn plan that would include measures to automatically block adult content by ISPs in the U.K. unless account holders choose to opt in and the issue of ATVOD and their regulatory measures, as well as a number of other issues facing American adult entrepreneurs including 2257 and moves to create mandatory condoms in the biz.
With another panel, “Porn Studies Forum” editors Clarissa Smith and Georgina Voss spoke about their academic journal already in progress.
Described as “the first dedicated, international, peer-reviewed journal to critically explore those cultural products and services designated as pornographic and their cultural, economic, historical, institutional, legal and social contexts,” with particular attention to “the intersection of sexuality, gender, race, class, age and ability.”
Another panel, “Interactive Insights: Live Cams & Online Dating,” included panelists Sam of DatingFactory; Gary Taylor of WhiteLabelDating; and Jeff Dillon of GameLink were led in the discussion by moderator Oystein Wright of Mansion Productions.
Tonight, the inaugural cocktail-style XBIZ Executive Awards ceremony culminated XBIZ EU, honoring 10 significant executives who are exceptional decision-makers on a multitude of factors such as overall leadership ability, business acumen, market experience and industry standing, as well as the volume of nominations received from the community.
Tomorrow, a “farewell toast” will be held at the Radisson Edwardian Bloomsbury Hotel in central London for the last day of the international digital media conference.