Page 12 - AVN September 2016

WE’VE GOT ISSUES | | By Sharan Street
The Dollars Are in the Details
Free Porn Day ... and ways to make adult pay
SEPTEMBER 2016
and distributors—key players in delivering
Last month’s issue of AVN focused on retailers
adult entertainment to consumers. In this issue
we look at the flip side of the (bit)coin: the
webmasters, payment processors, webcam studios,
traffic experts and other tech-savvy professionals who
help consumers safely enjoy online entertainment—
from traditional membership sites to cam shows to
cutting-edge virtual reality services.
Managing editor Dan Miller talked to experts in the
live cam field and found that this burgeoning sector
continues to innovate as it matures. As more cam
models and studio operators enter the competitive
fray, things continue to get better for the consumer.
“This is an early adopter market that’s maturing,” said
Steve Hamilton, model manager for Cams.com. “More
players are entering the playing field and turning
up the pressure on providing unique services and
winning and maintaining new audiences.”
After examining virtual reality technology in depth
earlier this year, we decided it was time to explore
other innovations that have garnered as much
publicity. Writer Stewart Tongue looked at several
areas where the adult industry dominates, including
the continual growth of 4K, which Wasteland.com
founder Colin Rowntree points out is “important
because it results in much higher quality porn and
accelerates the pace of how quickly the glut of free
porn online will begin to look stale and out of date.”
Other areas are frictionless billing and targeted traffic.
After all, if you can’t build an audience with properly
targeted traffic and then make it easy for them to pay,
it’s hard to get people to purchase adult content.
And on the subject of getting fans to pay for their
adult entertainment, in this issue you can find out
more about an innovative approach to showing
consumers the value of high-end adult content. As
Adam Grayson, chief financial officer at Evil Angel,
explains, “Free Porn Day started as a seed of an idea
at Evil Angel. Our VP of Product Chris Gentile said,
‘Man, wouldn’t it be great to have all those tube-only
users take the Pepsi Challenge for a day to see what
they’re missing?’”
Set for September 8, Free Porn Day has drawn the
support of more than twenty companies. And there
is reason to hope it will have an impact on its target
demographic: young consumers whose porn-viewing
experience has been limited to what they can find
online for free. In the last couple of years, the volume
and quality of free content has begun to shrink. At
the same time that litigation has made running user-
uploaded content sites more difficult, top studios have
started to license lower-quality content to make their
paid content portfolios more desirable. The creators
of Free Porn Day argue that fans who’ve never been
behind the paywall of a high-end membership site
may not be aware of how much better paid porn has
become. This is a chance for them to find out. For
details about Free Porn Day, see page 62.
As our staff was putting together this issue, we
were also preparing for AVN’s big September event:
Webmaster Access Amsterdam. A fall tradition
that’s now in its 12th incarnation, WMA takes place
September 15-19 at the Doubletree By Hilton in
Amsterdam. The largest webmaster show in Europe,
it will bring together more than 1,500 attendees from
thirty-plus countries.
The show’s presenting sponsor is Bitter Strawberry,
a mobile traffic management tool that focuses on
maximizing mobile traffic efficiency. Registration
for WMA is sponsored by PussyCash. To see
other companies represented at the show, go to
WebmasterAccess.com/participants.
The original webmaster conference on the adult
digital circuit, WMA will feature a wide-ranging
series of educational seminars designed to give
attendees insights into international markets.
Panels will be focused on several global centers
of commerce, spotlighting regions such as North
America and Eastern Europe and countries such as
France, Germany and The Netherlands—marking a
new approach to WMA’s offerings. Those discussions
will feature a multinational group of executives
representing industry-leading companies in several
major adult tech categories such as media buying, live
cams, mobile, traffic and dating.
Another first at this year’s show is the GAYVN
Lounge, a space where companies who do business in
the gay sector can meet and network. The sponsors,
Buddy Profits and CCBill, will have displays posted in
the space, and it will be open every day during WMA.
The space will also be the location for the GAYVN
Happy Hour, held September 17 at 3 p.m.
In addition to business, WMA is also about
pleasure. On September 15, CCBill will sponsor the
Welkom Party in the Skylounge at the DoubleTree
by Hilton. Guests can kick off the weekend with a
showcase of CCBill’s new mobile payment and digital
wallet, CCBill Pay. It’s an opportunity to get started
early on both networking and partying.
The next night, September 16, Epoch Payment
Solutions will host its 20th anniversary party at the
Sea Palace. For more about this party and Epoch’s
milestone—it’s the first adult online billing company
to reach the two-decade mark—see page 46.
On September 17, the host will be GFY.com,
throwing a bash with lots of swag and in the
Skylounge at the DoubleTree by Hilton.
And the closing soiree for WMA will be the
Lingerie Party, sponsored by Bitter Strawberry,
Bongacash and TrafficJunky. The Lingerie Party will
take place September 18 at Jimmy Woo Nightclub,
located in Amsterdam’s Leidseplein, in the heart of
the city.
As always, affiliates register for free—and this year,
for the first time, free registration has been extended
to talent.
For details, go to WebmasterAccess.com.
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