IN THE BIZ

For better and for worse, “Industry Insights,” the first seminar of the 2002 Cybernet Expo in Montreal, set the tone for the remaining seminars, which numbered 14 in all and covered four full days.IN THE BIZ

For better and for worse, “Industry Insights,” the first seminar of the 2002 Cybernet Expo in Montreal, set the tone for the remaining seminars, which numbered 14 in all and covered four full days. The good news is that very well informed and experienced people were on hand to share their knowledge. The bad news is that too few webmasters showed up to hear them. By my count, most of the seminars averaged between 20 and 30 people, and I must say (sorry for the editorial intrusion), with everything that’s going on in this industry – and even taking into account the low overall attendance at the show – there’s really no excuse for such a pathetic turnout. Okay, that’s out of my system.

The panelists for the first seminar were Yishai Habari from Web Media Interactive, Aly Drummond from Python, Samantha Lee from Insite Adult, and sitting in for a stranded in Toronto (yeah, right) Greg Dumas was a munificent Greg Geelan, aka Otto, from YNOTMasters. The title of the seminar presupposed a sort of insider’s knowledge by the panelists about recent trends and developments in the industry, and I was kind of hoping for some juicy gossip, but after preliminary introductions it pretty much proceeded as a Q&A session, which is actually a good thing. Over the past few years, the questions at all the seminars have been getting better and more pointed with each show.

Actually, I forgot to mention the esteemed moderator for the day, Colin Rowntree from Wasteland, who took it upon himself to ask the first question, “Where did the good times go,” a sort of rhetorical question that left the panel momentarily at a loss for words. Greg spoke up first, saying that in fact the downsizing of the industry is a good thing in his opinion, because “the people who are here now are better organized.” Several people I spoke with over the next few days echoed that sentiment.

Aly (sweet Aly) talked about pissing matches, presumably not meaning one of her sites, but rather the industry-wide tendency to one-up one another in the most puerile manner possible. She was of course referring to the monstrous exhibits of trade-shows past, and even at one point mentioned the great useless three-story Hanco thing that dominated the show floor a few years ago. (Ironic that the company departed long ago, but the booth still haunts.)

Samantha Lee added to Aly’s point the fact that $1,000-per-person parties are maybe not the most efficient advertising budget expenditures, and offer a poor ROI, or return of investment. She’s of course right, but then, I don’t think anyone’s every spent a thousand bucks on me at a party. I would have known, and they would have definitely gotten a hefty return on that investment. Still, her point is well taken, if unfortunate, because there’s nothing quite like a great and generous party.

Yishai, who is really a very, very charming fellow, then managed to maneuver the discussion to his own areas of interest, which are of course marketing, billing and technology. What it had to do with Colin’s question, I don’t know, but there was no going back. “Technology was first,” he said, “but the key issue now is billing. For every one new domestic user there are 25 foreign that are not billable with credit cards. Because of this, there is no new money coming into the industry.” That got everyone’s attention, and set off a veritable stampede of comments.

Aly said with some insistence that Python aggressively targets traffic and conversions are getting better because of it, and Colin added that webmasters have to take the concept of providing a really good product seriously. Yishai said that content should be focused, except on general sites, which are different. (He also made some sort of snide aside about Colin’s “scary websites,” but I think he’s probably a lifelong member of them.) Samantha said, “Why pay when it’s free?” Good point. Greg said that age verification is coming, and that it will be a double-edged sword, because free sites will dwindle, which is good, as more money will be made if there is less free porn. But, if they handcuff the industry with local community standards prosecutions, that will be a problem too. But Colin understood, and he responded that it doesn’t behoove webmasters to put up many free pictures.

Then Yishai got on a numbers tangent. “Read your numbers! Who is coming? Where are they going? Why are they staying?” (Remind me never to visit him.) Aly concurred that it is very important not only to know your traffic numbers, but also to experiment with different ways of procuring and selling traffic. Geo-targeting (love that phrase) is very important, she said. Then Colin uttered the most truthful sentence of the day, “Two years ago you wouldn’t have heard the word retention.” (Boy, you can say that again.) That somehow got Yishai going on about dialers, a subject near and dear to his heart, but Greg then put the question to him, “Will dialers be able to verify age?” (Good question, Greg.) Unfortunately, Yishai didn’t answer him.

Colin picked up the ball with a rather startling statistic, that 40% of Wasteland’s membership is foreign. I had no idea. (But then why would I?) That led Aly to state that there is an evolution – or was it a revolution – occurring in billing, and that gimmick marketing is good marketing only if it pays off. Greg asserted that webmasters are getting smarter about finding programs that best convert their traffic (we hope so), and added, because he knew time was running out, that affiliate programs are on the verge of being held responsible for what their members do, and it could in fact become very risky to be a sponsor in the very near future.

Then Yishai closed out the hour by yelling, “Billing, billing, billing!” But I was still thinking about what Greg had said, and how much scarier it was than any site Colin Rowntree could ever build.

Tom Hymes is the Editor-In-Chief for AVN Online and can be reached at tom@avnonline.com.