The “porn” flight took off from Los Angeles International airport early in the morning on July 31, 2003, heading directly to the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida airport. Nearly a quarter of all the passengers on our flight were in the industry by my estimation.The “porn” flight took off from Los Angeles International airport early in the morning on July 31, 2003, heading directly to the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida airport. Nearly a quarter of all the passengers on our flight were in the industry by my estimation. While the summer Internext felt right at home for many of us hours before the festivities would begin at the world’s largest adult Internet tradeshow, I couldn’t help but laugh and think what would go through the mind of a religious zealot on that flight if they realized moments before takeoff what the people flanking them did for a living.

At any rate, the smooth and timely flight to Florida seemed a perfect precursor to what was in store for the next few days at Internext. In my opinion, the show flowed very smoothly from beginning to end and was an extreme pleasure to be at, professionally and personally further demonstrating why I feel that the show in Florida kills over the one in Vegas. In many ways this Internext was the very antithesis of its winter counterpart.

For starters, the Westin Diplomat Hotel was extremely accommodating, and wasn’t the physical maze and possess the endless red tape that the Venetian Hotel has to “offer.” The showroom floor wasn’t a smoky noisy mess with ridiculous displays of booth space and hanging banners obscuring everyone else. I found myself wanting to spend as much time as possible on the showroom floor as opposed to getting away from it, and was extremely pleased that I left each day with my hearing intact and not reeking of an ashtray.

And I have yet to hear any real complaints of anyone coming down with the “convention crud.” Congrats to AVN.com for their fantastic work on the show and for bringing it back to South Florida. From start to finish it would appear that this show was organized with the hope of being as accommodating as possible to all Webmasters and companies big and small.

And while I do have to say that I was very pleased with how accommodating, friendly and wonderful the Westin Diplomat Hotel staff was, I was less than impressed with the food and the prices at the hotel, and even less impressed with the quality and cost of the drinks. When one thinks of how much business and money our industry pumps into the economy wherever we have conventions for several days in a row every year, I would think that we would deserve just a little slack in areas that are huge markups to begin with. If I’m paying $15 for a cheeseburger (with tax and tip) it shouldn’t make me physically ill, and if I’m paying $8 for a Jack and Coke… well, I’m sure you get the idea.

All in all though, from a professional standpoint, I would have to say that business-wise, this show was perhaps the best for YNOTMASTERS for as long as any of us can remember. Yes, it was that good. And when it comes to the bottom line, business should be everyone’s priority first and foremost in attending conventions like these. Especially in this day and age.

It was almost painfully obvious that the landscape of our industry noticeably changes with each convention. Here today gone tomorrow still applies for many people, unfortunately, whether company hopping or industry hopping. It was also clearly obvious at this show and from the seminars that external forces are requiring our industry to band together more, innovate, figure out how to turn adversity into opportunity, and get with the program or get lost.

We’ve seen several companies pay to play when it comes to Acacia, and others pay or go away when it comes to Visa. Dealing with bad press or picketers isn’t even an issue anymore it seems, and certainly wasn’t a concern at this show. Aside from a few cops standing around, I’m pretty sure there were Acacia and Visa reps and various government officials trolling the floor and taking notes to aid them in their next strategic moves. At the very least it was great to see all of the infomative roundtables well attended this time around which tells me that more and more people are making their Webmaster education and protecting themselves a higher priority.

Getting back to what helped to make this show such a positive experience for so many in attendance, was of course, the numerous sponsored parties. Unfortunately many of the parties overlapped, or were announced way too late in the game. Since it’s hard to be in several places at once and since everyone’s experience is going to be a little different, I would at least like to offer a recap of some of the parties that I was able to attend, and I apologize in advance to those companies whose mixers I unfortunately was not able to attend.

The opening night dinner sponsored by Epoch and the yacht party sponsored by GFY were a great way to relax and get into the swing of things before the show got underway. The daily poolside bikini contests and the jamming tunes of the surf/punk band RockFish sponsored by SilverCash, were a fantastic way to wind down every afternoon after the show. The nighttime parties in Grimshawn’s suite and the Spread4U suite were always a great place to go and chill before exhaustion from the day’s activities set in.

I would also like to thank the people at TrueCash, Shane’s World, CE Gay and Cybersocket for their fantastic parties, and on a more personal level, an enormous THANKS goes out to Adam and the great people at OrgasmCash for my new Xbox. What an amazing way to finish out several days of hardcore networking, partying and sleep deprivation!

Honorable mention is definitely due to some great new products and services out there on the market launched at the show that I had the pleasure of seeing for the first time there: http://www.dollars.com (brought to you by the people at Consumption Junction); http://www.sinulate.com (partnered with XXXpresstoys.com); and http://www.dilf.com. Seeing is believing!

Before I wrap this up, I have to touch on a couple of things here that I know upset a number of people about this show, and it has to do with the behavior of a select few individuals who will remain nameless here. My intention is never to rat anyone out, but rather to make people aware of what goes on in front of closed doors where it doesn’t belong.

Having fun is one thing. Being reckless is another thing. Doing both at the expense of others, and thereby threatening the livelihoods (and lives!) of individuals and entire companies and the potential future of adult conventions like this is downright irresponsible. Some of the activities at various parties (including but hardly limited to throwing objects off balconies, spreading rumors about people’s personal lives and companies, and other forms of inappropriate public sexual and physical behavior) have no place at shows. Our industry already has a negative public opinion as a whole. We don’t really need the actions of a few to spoil it for the rest of us, so don’t condone it!

To end this editorial on a positive note, I would really like to extend a heartfelt thanks to the writers of this issue of YNOT NEWS who attended the seminars and helped us bring the goods in a timely manner, further making YNOT NEWS the place to go for comprehensive seminar coverage. Without the support and amazing writing and time management skills of the following writers / Webmasters, this issue would have been damn near impossible!

TheLegacy from http://www.sexxxycontent.com

Danny from http://www.siccash.com

Cyndalie from http://www.pswbilling.com

Mark from http://www.lavenderlounge.com

And CodeMonkey from right here at YNOT!

So be sure to learn from and enjoy their articles, thank them for their tireless efforts and check out their programs while you are at it!

Please keep in mind that in next week’s issue of YNOT NEWS (August 14) we will be back to publishing the usual Webmaster tutorials, articles and editorials. To the awesome writers who are next up in line to be published, I thank you for your patience while normal publishing got bumped due to Internext.

Jay “LAJ” Kopita is the Editor-In-Chief for YNOT NEWS, VP Marketing & Communications for YNOTMASTERS and Chat Board Administrator and can be reached at editor@ynotnews.com.