It seems that the resounding question in everyone’s head these days is, “What’s wrong with the industry?” Everyone seems to be scattering in order to find the scapegoat about why sales seem to be suffering, where the traffic has gone, blah blah blah. But, in reality, and in my opinion, we need not sit and blame the tubes, the free content, or the rampant piracy, we need to blame ourselves.Years ago, when TGPs became the latest craze, companies flocked to the new concept with both anger and anticipation. Some angry about the eminent saturation of their content and loss of sales, while the others eagerly anticipated the potential traffic and sales that could be generated. Soon enough TGPs became a staple of the industry and companies began producing tools that would allow for any new webmaster to create an account, register a domain, spend a few minutes tweaking a script and voila they have a fully functional TGP. This trend led to legions of new TGP webmasters inherently siphoning traffic away from quality TGPs into cookie cutter circle jerk networks that focused more on trading traffic than actually creating sales.
With the TGP market slowly becoming a seemingly worthless source of traffic webmasters looked for a new avenue to generate traffic and sales. Blogs had already become rampant in mainstream circles so it was inevitable for them to be integrated into the adult marketplace. Many large adult blogs were born and many TGPs converted to blog formats as a means to improve conversions and traffic generation. But, the same fate that faced the TGP market soon faced the blog network as tools were born making blogs easier and easier for the masses. RSS feeds became a staple within most programs and soon allowed for anyone to again create an account, register a domain, spend a few minutes tweaking a script and voila they have a fully functional blog. However, the blogging platforms took one variable out of the mix allowing for webmasters to create a blog without even having to register a domain, so the once formidable $8.95 barrier of entry was removed. Inevitably networks of SPLOGS (Spam Blogs) were born where the furthest thing from anyone’s mind was original content or diversity.
Moving onto the next level, tube sites were born, possibly putting the final nail into the coffin. But is that really the case? The large tubes obviously exist and I doubt any one would discount the impact they’re having on the industry. But, in addition to the large tube sites we can see mass produced tubes are springing up given the availability of tube scripts and clips. Is there a solution? Probably not in my mind as Pandora has been let out of the box and the damage has been done. Authorities may be successful in shutting this tube down, or converting that tube to legal content, but the reality is that the software is now readily available and I, for one, don’t see any way to close the door.
So what’s your point you might be asking, tell me some shit I don’t already know! I don’t have the answer as to how to combat the tubes, the piracy they bring, but I do have a suggestion. We all need to get off of our asses and get to work. Too many of us have been sitting back counting the money as it rolled in, and guess what, that time is over.
Day after day I see posts on countless boards about how there’s no money in TGPs, there’s no money in blogs, the conversions on Tube sites suck. Well, do you see a trend? Nobody is actually working! Create a TGP with quality cropped thumbs and you’d be surprised at the results. Create a blog with hand written posts, updated not once a month, but daily, and see what happens with your search engine traffic! Ultimately, create a site that is original, has something that involves the surfer and the results will be far different than a bulk loaded TGP or RSS fed blog.
If you’re like me you try to spend as little time on the boards as possible simply due to the fact that they seem to be infested with fake nicks, bots, surfers, and keyboard warriors. And by keyboard warriors I mean the people who justify their success by their join date and post count, and unfortunately little else. My point being, don’t become one of the mindless drones that fill this industry.
There is only one solution that I can offer for the state of the industry and that’s get back to work! We need to get back in touch with what is necessary to succeed in any industry, hard work and dedication. If people coming into this business aren’t willing to work hard, then let them go work at Starbucks!
