Page 66 - AVN October 2017

FEATURE
BUSINESS & PLEASURE
In between meetings, attendees
found time for games and other
fun. Plus, there was the GayVN
Happy Hour, sponsored by
CCBill, GayVN and GamingAdult,
and the Leather & Lace Party,
sponsored by Adult Force, Aurora
Global, iMonetizeIt, Terpon,
TopOffers and TrafficJunky. Photos
by JFK/FUBARWebmasters.
FEATURE | By Dan Miller
“If you don’t have a great mobile site, that’s the first thing you should do tomorrow,” he suggested.
“Two thirds of our traffic is on mobile—mobile is becoming the first start point for all users.”
The “Up Close & Virtual” panel led off the morning inside the second-floor Leeds 1 Meeting Room,
sending Jean-Claude Artonne (Terpon), Daniel Abramovich (VRBangers), Lily Campbell (YanksVR) and
Jason Collins (Verotel) to the stage for a lively Q&A orchestrated by industry attorney Corey Silverstein.
Based in the Detroit area, the 15-year adult industry vet runs Silverstein Legal and has been practicing
law for about 12 years. He asked the group to address questions such as “How difficult is it to create VR
content?”
“VR is pretty difficult to create because the tech is not there yet—shoots take 12 hours sometimes,”
said Abramovich, CEO of VRBangers, who has racked up more than 100 VR porn videos featuring top
American and European porn stars since launching in 2015.
Even though Artonne launched Terpon a year ago, the former pilot in the French Air Force has been
involved with immersive technology since 1999.
“We are on the tech side of the business, we are not in porn,” noted Artonne, who offers the first fully
integrated and affordable plug-and-play 4K 3D-VR camera.
A quartet of industry pros traded opinions on “what’s hot and what’s not” on the “State of Gay” panel
that was moderated by AVN Media Network’s own Senior Account Executive Timothy Ferencz.
Danny Zeeman, (ZBuckz), Gary Jackson (CCBill), Shane Aaron (Pothos Media/CollegeDudes247) and
Porco Rosso (Kinkoid) kept things interesting discussing everything from social media to dating apps and
affiliate management.
“The latest trend we’ve seen is actually in the lifestyle—people building a relationship with their
audience based on their lifestyle,” said Jackson, the vice president of sales and marketing for the Arizona-
based CCBill, who has been with the company for 11 years.
He pointed out that models who are monetizing Snapchat is “blowing up” due to that one-to-one
relationship and that “Instagram and Tumblr are the new gay portals.”
Shane Aaron, who produces reality style content for various niches including BoysHalfwayHouse and
66 | AVN.com | 10.17
the older-younger genre, agreed.
“In terms of actual bottom line, Tumblr does really well
for me,” Aaron said.
Danny Z, who has more than 15 years experience
managing gay membership sites for an array of adult
studios, said his biggest new acquisition is an Asian fitness-
themed site, PeterFever, founded by Peter Le.
Rosso, an accomplished digital entrepreneur who
has created several successful businesses in adult
and mainstream since 2005, created the adult games
HentaiHeroes and GayHarem because “I was frustrated by the
lack of innovation and I don’t like to just complain.”
“I said, ‘Let’s do something new,’” said Rosso, who is
launching the GamingAdult affiliate platform this year. He
described GayHarem as “a bit like Pokemon but with guys.”
Zeeman said affiliate traffic remains viable and profitable.
“I started ZBuckz in 2003 and our main traffic source
has always been affiliates. Tube sites are still a big chunk of
the market. It’s the worst-converting traffic, but if you offer
promotions or discounts or special landing pages, there are
still ways to convert that traffic,” Zeeman assured.
Shane Aaron remarked that “one nice thing about the
dwindling number of affiliates is you’re able to have closer
relationships with the ones who are left.”
“My tube traffic converts wonderfully—RedTube in
particular has amazing conversion rates,” Aaron said.
Without question one of the highlights of the show was
the “Dating Dominance” seminar moderated by Revolution
Force CEO Sean Christian.
Christian led a stacked panel that included Jenny
Gonzalez (Dating Factory), Valeria Pagano (Dating Partner),
Igor Komarenko (Aurora Global), Niels van Ingen (Masters
in Cash), Paul Groen (Advidi) and Charlyn MacNamara
(AdultFriendFinder).
Christian, one of the top moderators in adult
entertainment, commanded the packed room, walking up
and down the aisles and sometimes sitting in the crowd as
he fired questions at the experts on stage, tailoring them to
each one’s core business.
McNamara, vice president of marketing for
FriendFinderNetworks, said her company has remote teams
in Taiwan and Philippines whose sole job is to delete fake
dating profiles.
“AdultFriendFinder deletes 4,000 or 5,000 fake dating
profiles a day,” she said.
Christian noted that some of the most expensive traffic in
the biz is dating traffic.
In terms of user value, Gonzalez is finding conversions in
unexpected places like Egypt and said the future is moving
toward gamifying experiences.
“We need to add some value,” Gonzalez said. “Before
it was a numbers game. Now I think everyone has to
be working on their technology and improving the user
experience. The customer attention span is a fraction of
what it used to be.”
Brian Elkan from Affil4you moderated the “Mobile for
Newbies” session about “What Webmasters, Media Buyers
& Site Owners Need to Know.”
Mobile gurus such as Andy Wullmer (SGM Media), Remi
St-Maur (TrafficStars), Olga (BongaCash) and Lee Robinson
(Exoclick) discussed the importance of carrier billing,
building relationships with your account manager and
compliance, among other topics.
“At the end of the day the most important thing as a
publisher is your user,” Robinson said. “It’s easy to take the
highest CPA and highest revenue but there’s a price to pay
for that—you lose a lot of users.”
As the activities on the show floor wound down, some
attendees hit the GayVN Happy Hour before heading to the
city for dinner and the closing Leather & Lace Party at Air
Nightclub.