XBIZ
Edge Of Gay: The Content Kings
He isn’t an old-timer, but it’s safe to say that Michael Stabile has been around the block a few times. The industry guru first came to prominence in 2004, co-writing the serial Wet Palms for Jet Set and Naked Sword — a series that forever changed the gay porn content landscape and proved to be an influential experiment that would have a lasting effect. Recently hired to manage marketing for the rising Kink Men brand of sites, he is now helping to shape the gay space into even more extreme and exciting directions. In between those gigs, he has seen and done it all. To put it not so mildly, Stabile knows his shit. So how are things looking?
Edge Of Gay: Live Nude Dudes!
There are many ways to describe the gay porn consumer — the need for immediate gratification one of many aspects defining their purchasing habits. And with the rise of the “reality” craze — an outlet that allows consumers to not only feel like they are part of something more intimate, but even strut their own stuff on tube sites — the live cam market has grown from an afterthought to a necessity, much like the gay consumer has to many companies that previously treated them like the red-headed stepchild of the straights.
Edge Of Gay: Of Machines and Men
Remember the good old days when the only way to get your gay porn was through the mail, the kind that a postman had to physically deliver? Neither do most of the gay porn consumers who have drastically altered the industry’s business model over the last decade, forcing companies both big and small to adapt or die as technology has opened a new world of options to get online — and get off faster and more efficiently than ever before.
Bridging the Real and Virtual Worlds
Take one look at nearly any venue’s event calendar and you’ll quickly realize that like-minded folks like to get together; and the adult entertainment industry and its fans and operatives, are no exception to this — as evidenced by countless business gatherings, porn star meet-and-greets, karaoke sessions and more — providing benefits for attendees and exhibitors alike.
DMCA: The Porn Industry’s Worst Nightmare
For porn studios, no law pertaining to intellectual property rights seems more inequitable than the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Size Matters, But It Isn’t Everything
Most everybody wants to be the biggest kid on the block. Given the choice between owning a five-star restaurant or the hot-dog stand on the opposite street corner I suspect that most folks would opt for the more opulent alternative — and for many of those folks, it would be the wrong choice. You see, there are advantages and disadvantages to being a large company in any field, with the online adult entertainment arena no exception — and a marketplace where the big boys are increasingly squeezing the little guys out.
XBIZ to Mark Industry History With 6 January Shows, Announces Dates
XBIZ is pleased to announce plans for an unprecedented series of six grand-slam events dubbed “XBIZ 2013” that will kick off the New Year this Jan. 9-12 in Los Angeles, taking attendees on a 360-degree journey into the heart of the industry to decode its future, ignite commerce and spotlight success on center stage at the most extravagant awards show in industry history, the 2013 XBIZ Awards.
Diversity For Dollars
While their mainstream media viewing may be more closely related, there is often an understandably vast divide between the preferred adult entertainment choices of straight and gay audiences. But beyond the obvious differences in their content choices, are there underlying, identifiable trends in viewing habits that can assist Internet marketers, and are there ways to effectively provide relevant content to each market segment?
Kinky Community
BetweenMySheets.com (originally called Between the Sheets) was started as part of a large blog network circa 2006. A year later Rori, the blog’s current mastermind, took it over from its previous owner and what started as her personal blog covering a range of BDSM and dominant and submissive topics has evolved into a loyal community. Rori sat down with XBIZ to discuss turning an online journal into a full-time business venture.
Pegging 101
Despite a recent explosion of harness system designs and movies focusing on pegging, Charlie Glickman, Good Vibrations’ education program manager rejects any claim that this an emerging fetish. “Pegging has actually been quite popular for a while,” he says.
XBIZ TV: Watch Coverage of Tuesday's APHSS Meeting
The Free Speech Coalition's Adult Production Health & Safety Services hosted an industry-wide meeting on Tuesday to explain how the organization works as well as address the Los Angeles condom ordinance.
Bringing Online Adult to ‘Handi-capable’ Audience
Planning for accessibility is an increasingly important (and legally required) concern for website owners, which goes beyond “doing good business,” to “doing the right thing.”
What Is Contributing to the Increasing Popularity of Fetish Products?
Incorporating BDSM or kinkier desires into a vanilla lifestyle is undoubtedly easier if the goods can pass as fashionable outfits or camouflage among home décor, thereby discretely delivering added value. Modern romantic reinventions in product design and female-friendly marketing are making it easier for mainstream to view bondage products as an acceptable form of enhancing intimacy between couples.
Geo-Targeting - Right Match
Widely used to deliver advertising, such as the ubiquitous “meet me in your town” adult dating ads that are familiar to many readers, the value of geo-targeting extends beyond maximizing the profitability of adult affiliate promotions to become a vital tool for displaying highly targeted content to your website’s audience.
Guys On The Rise
With cock rings, masturbation sleeves, replicas and other sex enhancers as mainstays in the sex toy market for straight males, manufacturers are tapping into fetishes for new product developments, as well as taking new angles to cater to the conventional “macho man.”
IFrames and Alternate Content Injection
Not to be confused with old-style frames and framesets, inline frames (iframes) are the foundation of many popular ad network, affiliate and content injection tools; such as “status update” boxes, data feeds, “like” buttons and other widgets which extend a site’s content range and revenue generating opportunities.
XBIZ TV: Joanna Angel Talks Career, Rise of BurningAngel
XBIZ TV on Friday debuted an exclusive new video interview with adult film star Joanna Angel.
Kink Comes Out
When it comes to fetishes, the pleasure products industry is blowing the lid off of hidden fantasies with extensive collections and matching accessories to encourage deeper exploration of desires sometimes considered obscure and extreme. With a built-in consumer base of experienced fetishists, manufacturers are not only keeping the market fresh with innovation and options, but also attracting a crop of curious newbies. Through softened packaging, education and branding, even the most vanilla couples are being seduced into exploring fetishes.
Performance Testing for Hosted Ads
Ask any group of online marketers if they measure the performance of the third-party advertisements that appear on their site, or of their own ads, which appear on other sites, and you will likely hear a discussion centered on A/B split tests and click-through rates.
Free Sites 2012
Free, advertising supported websites are an increasingly dominant force on the adult Internet today. Deprived of any direct revenues from “selling” the content they contain, these sites have to find alternative ways of dealing with the cost of purchasing content — still one of the biggest expenses involved in running an adult website.