CONTENT TRENDS

Our customers are a very demanding lot! They drive us ragged keeping our sites looking fresh with new content, new galleries, new streams… the list goes on and on.CONTENT TRENDS

Our customers are a very demanding lot! They drive us ragged keeping our sites looking fresh with new content, new galleries, new streams… the list goes on and on. Acquiring that content can be very costly, but fortunately there are new technologies available to simultaneously reduce content costs and increase revenues on adult websites.

Bringing some of your content generation in-house can lower your costs as well as allow you to better target your audience and increase your retention rate.

Live shows present one such opportunity — performers associated with your site host live shows. These live shows are made available to your members as part of their membership package, or to clients on an ad-hoc fee basis. Members love this presentation because it’s live, it’s unique and it is in fact tailored just for them. Your performers will love it because it represents a steady income flow and they can work where and when they want. And you’ll love it because you just have to stand back and watch your revenues rise!

These aren’t just shows in the traditional sense where the audience watches a performance on stage. These shows are interactive, with the audience constantly engaged and helping the performer make it a meaningful experience. This interactivity gives live shows a significant edge over other traditional content. Performers will constantly adapt their show to meet the needs of the audience. Shows can be set up for a number of viewers, or exclusive one-on-one shows can be arranged for a higher fee.

You’ll also find that by setting a schedule with each performer, you’re promoting the notion of scarcity. We all know that what is available on a limited basis is more valuable than what can be had by anyone, anywhere. In this vein, you’ll find members coming back at particular times to see a particular performer. You might limit a performer’s schedule to only a few key hours per week in order to heighten his/her scarcity value. Since shows won’t go on and on, and each can have a number of participants, you’ll be spending your limited funds more wisely.

Recent technological advances now allow even small sites to offer live video/chat streaming shows at minimal cost – a cost that will be repaid in months from a happy and growing customer base. A number of key technologies have helped drive down the cost of incorporating this sophisticated feature.

First, the continuing strength of standards, such as JPEG, TCP, Java, and J2EE has allowed developers to write to standard interfaces and protocols, creating much more powerful programs in record time. Second, the open source movement has supplied significant software including Apache and Linux, but also many developer-oriented software blocks, which significantly reduce development and integration time. Third, as we’ve seen in many other fields, maturing technologies tend to move down the food chain and become accessible to smaller organizations. While live streaming technology has historically only been available to large companies that can afford to create custom solutions, new software now allows even the smallest adult sites to take advantage of this exciting capability.

Let’s talk about content for these live shows. Of course, your performers represent the content. These are people that are engaged by you to host shows. Recruiting is a slam-dunk since you will offer flexibility. Their hours can be set around their other activities. Also, with sophisticated, low-cost webcam technology, they can work out of their homes. In some cases, a dial-up connection might provide acceptable quality although high-speed connections are becoming the norm. Offering broad flexibility (not high pay!) is the key to recruiting the one to three performers that your site will need.

For example, our company offers a kit called Sidekick, which can be “added on” to an existing or new web site. Basically, in your members only area, you would provide shows using the Sidekick software. The entire package is hosted on your server. A system like this is very cost effective, even if you only offer a few hours of live shows each week.

This emerging trend allows you to uniquely differentiate your site, since your live shows will be unlike anyone else’s! If the focus of your site is Sword Fetishes, then you can offer live shows with this twist. Since creating other content about Sword Fetishes, such as videos or photo shots can be quite expensive, live video give you a low-cost mechanism to satisfy your customer’s desires. (Well, maybe you’ll have to buy a knife set or two!) It gives you more control over your expenses and allows you to be in more control of your site.

Today there are still few sites offering this unique viewer experience, but in the near future this will become a standard form of on-line entertainment.

Dan Finkelstein is the CEO & Founder of Nearly There Network Technologies at www.nearlythere.net and can be reached at dan@nearlythere.net.