PHOENIX, AZ — Patrick Curran led five well-respected leaders in the gay online market through a series of Q&A encounters that sometimes felt like a casting call for a queer reality dating show but ultimately communicated a deep love and personal commitment to providing quality gay content and working together with the people involved in its creation and distribution.Curran masterfully led the participants of the one-hour seminar down a getting-to-know you path that began with the classic question of how each of the panelists had gotten involved in gay adult and ended with a reflection about what things they would have done differently were they given the opportunity.
Across the board, the participants reported having entered adult from the mainstream – with none indicating an interest in returning – and all agreed that the paths they had taken to get where they are now were vital to their current success. Rainey Stricklin of PrideBucks.com did suggest that she might take on a pseudonym instead of using her legal name, whereas Andy Fair of DirtyBoyVideo.com proposed that he probably should have purchased property in New York.
Although the “Gay Site Specifics” avoided addressing too many specifics, a number of important general topics were dealt with both directly and indirectly during the hour-long roundtable discussion.
The assembled speakers agreed that the biggest change they had seen during their various years in the business was the enormous growth of the gay sector. Several expressed a belief that the discovery of the gay market by straight businesses has led to an often poorer product, however, since the straight content provider or developer does not have the same passion for and insight into the consumer demographics served. This was sited as one of many reasons for GLBT industry members to share information and provide peer support to one another.
This sense of community solidarity was a common thread during the hour, with some members of the panel feeling that this was one of the things that sets gay market professionals apart from their straight cohorts. Tim Valenti of NakedSword.com proposed that “Individual pride in what we do,” was the core difference between gays and lesbians in the industry, versus the more money-driven ambitions of the straight side. Fair observed that the straight arm of porn often focuses primarily upon the success and value of affiliate programs, as opposed to the final quality of its released product. Interestingly enough, Steve Lightspeed had been emphatic during the previous day’s solo girl seminar about the importance of all members of the industry working together, which leads to the possibility that sexual identity is less the issue in information sharing than is a common interest in the content itself.
One thing all segments of the industry agree upon is the need to promote and advertise adult online properties. Chief among the suggestions proposed for doing so successfully were careful use of search engines – with Brian Dunlap of CorbinFisher.com reminding all assembled that it can become “easy to isolate ourselves from the world outside the internet and think that it is the only way to generate traffic,” although many surfers only use the internet for specific purposes. This led to a spirited discussion of the merits and demerits of using print advertising in order to promote sites. Although the value of such advertising was uncertain to some panelists, Lisa Turner of BadPuppy.com observed that her company had been doing so for years with positive results, which are measurable due to the creation of unique URL identifiers which track sign-ups from various publications.
Although the market is always growing and changing, Valenti, Stricklin, and Dunlap all agreed that one of the hottest trends is in the straight boy genre, although reality porn remains popular. Stricklin spoke volumes when she reminded those assembled that, regardless of any thing else, the surfer determines the market, with different things working for different sites and members regularly moving from property to property in order to see what things are available.
Ultimately, Valenti summed up the current gestalt of the gay online market by observing that being sincere is “the most important thing you can do” in order to achieve success in the business.
