Porn Publisher floats on the Stock Market for the first time

[Tomfurbs]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/feb/12/pressandpublishing



Interactive Publishing, who own such illustrious viewing publications as 'Asian Babes' and 'Forty Plus' is to float on the FTSE.
It is the first time a porn 'empire' has done so.


Which begs the question: 'How long before we can buy shares in Grooby?' :lol:

[BeardedOne]

If Grooby does an IPO I will certainly be at the head of the line to buy shares.

[GroobySteven]

The months avnonline has an article about investors in adult internet (private investors) which is pretty interesting.

I don't think I'd ever want to do stocks in the company, I'd then have to answer to the stockholders - if it ever got to that, I'd sell up and movie on :-)

[youcancallmeclaire]

It seems a little late in the game to start selling shares... 'specially since it's so easy for amateurs to put out decent content, with the dropping prices and rising quality of video equipment.

That, and I just don't think it would be fun anymore. Corporate smut sounds so un-guerilla.

[GroobySteven]

Actually Claire the problem is that the corporation style porn is winning. They've the money to pay for big affiliate advertising, top of search engines, etc and to provide some (fairly souless) websites that depend on massive amounts of people joining on a regular basis and less on keeping those members happy.

It's getting harder and harder for "Mom and Pop" type porn to keep up. Visa now charges $700 (or there abouts), server costs are more, getting free advertising which used to be easy, is now hard and affiliates demand a minimum of 50% of sales, competition with the corporations or sites that have been around a long time is harder. It now takes one of our new sites something like 12-18 months to break even. It used to take 40 days.

As a company who sits between "Mom & Pop" and the larger corporations, I'm in full support of the smaller operations and girls running their own sites as well as other companies similar to ours - and we have quite a good commuication network to often help each other out.

I'd hate to be starting in this industry today.

[youcancallmeclaire]

I was figuring that large porn companies would face the same sort of problems that the movie and music industries do right now with piracy... Although when it comes to those things, I'm about as far out of the loop as one can get.

One thing I really like about this forum is that you talk so openly about these things. It lets girls like me know what we are up against. :)

Is the Visa fee like a one-time setup charge, or is it like a monthly fee?

[GroobySteven]

It's a yearly fee.
It;s pointless starting a site without visa as most people have that card.

Drop me a pm or email and let me know what your up to and I might be able to point you in a good direction or give some advice.
S

[slinky]

Visa now charges $700 (or there abouts), server costs are more, getting free advertising which used to be easy, is now hard and affiliates demand a minimum of 50% of sales, competition with the corporations or sites that have been around a long time is harder. It now takes one of our new sites something like 12-18 months to break even. It used to take 40 days.

The renewal cost is $750. Start-up is double that. The big programs are often offering 60% revshare or more, and the PPS wars have $35 a pop now seeming on the low side (and for the first time that I know of, PPS often yields more even in the long run for affiliates, because retention across the board has dropped to very small numbers). And to start off a site as PPS, you have to have substantial dollars behind you :to last until you have enough joins to break even/pay off the start-up; but even more importantly, you need to be a fairly big program to make PPS work for you, because to make big dollar PPS work, you have to be able to have things like 2 pre-checked cross sells, and that doesn't come easily, only the big boys get it. Also, affiliate marketing is a job unto itself which needs a full time or even team doing it, so if you aren't big, it's much harder to do.

[slinky]

I was figuring that large porn companies would face the same sort of problems that the movie and music industries do right now with piracy.

My personal experience on the difference:

with porn, there's 2 types of guys (IMNSHO): the one's who will pay to join a paysite and the one's who won't. If you totally eliminate piracy, the guys who won't pay still won't because there's so much free porn that isn't pirated that they still have plenty.

With music especially, there's tons of people who would never steal anything who wouldn't think twice about "sharing" music over Napster (and didn't). Part of it is a historical thing: ever since they invented cassette tapes, people recorded their own (bought) vinyl albums, and it wasn't a stretch to record more and "share" with friends. So culturally, people are used to sharing music and don't think of it as stealing. As such, the people who need to sell music have to be more vigilant.

Also, I think for most guys, porn is a lot more interchangeable than music. If they want music, they want a specific artist, album down to song. With porn, as long as they have the general thing to jerk off to which wets their appetite, they don't need a specific scene which they set out looking for.


(I use "guys" here because the overwhelming majority of porn is still bought by guys).

[GroobySteven]

My personal experience on the difference:

with porn, there's 2 types of guys (IMNSHO): the one's who will pay to join a paysite and the one's who won't. If you totally eliminate piracy, the guys who won't pay still won't because there's so much free porn that isn't pirated that they still have plenty.


This is a good point and as you may know I've been working against piracy in our niche when I can. There are a hardcore group who will never pay, it's just against their nature and they have the time and inclination to search out their porn. Your right in saying that there is so much free porn that they have plenty but the niche sites/content are the ones which are going to benefit most from less piracy (if we shut off as much access to pirated tranny content then people are more likely to spend at some point). My main problem is with pirate forums that post direct links to file sharing sites so that with one click, you can download a file. It's so simple, practically anyone can do it and if you've new surfers then they're not going to buy if they find it for free, so simply.

Danny do you work as on affiliate sites full time?

[slinky]

[quote=Danny partridge]

Danny do you work as on affiliate sites full time?

No. I also run my own sites, paysite program, do affiliate marketing/management, PPC advertising, produce content........ and do about 100 Grooby transactions a month.... recognize me now?

Oh, and our new biz..... spamming (the 100% legal kind, so it's not "spamming", it's email marketing, but we all know it really is)

[slinky]

Your right in saying that there is so much free porn that they have plenty but the niche sites/content are the ones which are going to benefit most from less piracy (if we shut off as much access to pirated tranny content then people are more likely to spend at some point). My main problem is with pirate forums that post direct links to file sharing sites so that with one click, you can download a file. It's so simple, practically anyone can do it and if you've new surfers then they're not going to buy if they find it for free, so simply.

I agree with the exception of I don't think you are slicing it thin enough. I think you have to get into real microniches before cutting the supply drives guys away from seeking it free. I don't think simply cutting it to "shemale porn" is enough because there is already way too much for free. A good example of the type of content which I think it matters for would be a site like Ultimate Surrender, where you can't really find any of it's content or even it's whole subniche for free without a great deal of effort.