I’ve seen a few posts on the boards recently talking about how the majority of porn sites, pay and free, have become nothing more than templates. The question arises, “are we boring the surfers to death?” I don’t make it a habit to cruise for porn 🙂 After all….Variety Is The Spice Of Porn…

by Sharon Bryant a.k.a. Circes

I’ve seen a few posts on the boards recently talking about how the majority of porn sites, pay and free, have become nothing more than templates. The question arises, “are we boring the surfers to death?” I don’t make it a habit to cruise for porn 🙂 After all…. I’ve got plenty of it on my own HD including content that I’ve created myself, but I have done my share of research so that I might better represent the “virtues” of a sponsor’s site and sell it. Quite honestly, the only time I’ve really been impressed with what was inside a sponsor site is the few times that I’ve seen something “different or unique” that sets the site apart from all the others. That has been rare. For the most part the biggest difference between one boob site and the next is the design work for the tour, they can be exceptional and of course, that is the part that lures the surfer into parting with their money. Unfortunately for the surfer, once he’s purchased his trial or regular membership, he’ll find a rather simple interface on the inside of the site which looks remarkable ordinary in comparison to the awesome looking tour. Also, and this is a biggie, once the surfer starts browsing the content, there’s a very good chance that he saw the very same thing at the last paysite that he signed up for. It’s no wonder then that signups are decreasing and members are canceling after only their 1st month. Their needs and expectations are not being met. We’ve given them a tour that consists primarily of hyped advertising ploys that send their imagination reeling and then fail to continue to support that imagination.

I know if I was a surfer looking for a “home base” in porn, I’d be looking for a site that either catered to the niche or niches that are of the most interest to me and provided a unique look into it, and not just on the outside of the site in it’s tour. I wanna be entertained, not just inundated with innumerable photos, videos and stories that all begin to look and sound the same. I wouldn’t wanna tune into a live show where the performer is obviously bored to death with his or her job because they’ve done it so much that it’s lost it’s glamour. And I wouldn’t want to see the same performers over and over and over from site to site. I want UNIQUE! I want to see the same imagination of presentation that I see in the tour, repeated inside of the site. These are the magic words, UNIQUE and PRESENTATION. If you’re going to show me something that’s been done before, at least show it to me in a different light, in a unique manner. Give me something that not every other paysite I’ve ever been to has.

When it comes to content for a paysite, photos are the core of the site. If it’s a niche oriented site, you can expect to see a certain amount of pictures that apply to that niches, but wait…. if the webmaster can’t say “we have 100,000 fresh, unique photos of young women getting fucked while standing on their head”, then they have to get that number up there by using general filler content. So, in truth the surfer is getting maybe 10,000 fresh, unique photos of what he joined to see, and the other 90,000 photos are part of a pool of porn that is present on almost every other site he’s ever seen. And of course, then there are the live feeds, which in and of themselves are usually pretty good, but if every other paysite has them, then they start to lose their attraction.

I think we really started to lose the surfers when we began to see what I call “hub” paysites, mass produced. A number sites built by the same producer who share a primary core of generalized content and then add a front door to it via the creation of a small, targeted niche site. It wouldn’t take the surfer long to realize that they are paying big bucks for a site whose majority of content they’ve already seen elsewhere. I know that would sure make me wary of pulling out my credit card again. And of course, what makes this even more noticeable is that the tours and the promo text for the tour all say the very same thing… “The #1 Site On The Net Of Girls Getting Fucked While Standing On Their Heads!” How can every damn site be the “#1 Site On The Net”?????? It’s absurd! Yes, yes… I realize that this is an advertising ploy that works well for those neophyte surfers who barely know how to turn their computers on let alone the magnitude of the net and what they’ve just bought into. They too will rapidly begin to get the picture.

In the end, we wind up with net savvy porn surfers who are much harder to please than their neophyte counterparts. So we’re back to square 1. We’ve used up our old tricks and have to come up with some new ones. If we’re to stay in business, we have to be able to offer something unique and of “real” value. So you ask, how do we do that. Well… I’m no expert, but I know that my own imagination can entertain me more than most porn sites. It’s apparent to me that I can’t be the only one who can say such a thing, therefore the solution must lie in the production of a site that appeals and can stimulate the lusty imaginations of the porn surfer. Don’t just throw photos, videos and live shows in their face….. at least not the kind that they’ve seen everywhere else. If you can’t provide unique content yourself, then go out and look for those content providers who can. More importantly, find out if that content is available en masse to every other porn site on the net… if it is, it’s probably not what you’re looking for. Just as the really good photo content providers set limits as to how many CD’s of a particular content they will sell, so should those who provide other types of content. You want to put cybermiles between your site and the next site that uses the same content. You want to look for content packages and plug-ins that are unique, exclusive and updated as frequently as your surfer may suffer pangs of boredom, daily is best! I know of one content provider off-hand that delivers such content… Oculus.

Ok, so what do we need to do to keep those surfers pulling out their wallets to join our paysites? We have to make it look just as good on the inside as it does on the outside. We have to provide unique content which is presented in a unique manner. We have to give them at least some content that is updated daily. And last but not least, we need to continuously play on their imaginations… work up some promo text about the next update and what it will contain (this is most important to keep those recurrings rolling over). Let them know about new features that you plan to add, 3 month or 6 months down the line (gives them a reason to check back, even if they intent to cancel after a month or two). Above all, don’t promise something you can’t deliver!

Ok, now put on your thinking caps and go out there and WOW the porn masses!