I've just returned from the highly successful XBIZ Summer Forum in Las Vegas and I have to say that I have a renewed sense of optimism and enthusiasm for the future of the adult entertainment industry.

I had many enjoyable, enlightening (and occasionally naughty) conversations in Vegas; discussing the current state of the industry and its likely paths into the future, along with some of the challenges and opportunities that it entails — and I found many of the stories I heard inspiring.

What struck me most was the fierce determination of some of these players to not give in to the mounting pressures of today's marketplace and the escalating demands on both company and personal resources that can eat profitability — and destroy the very nature of the business that drew many of us to the industry in the first place.

These guys aren't just looking to be survivors; they have a plan for success and are using it: one old friend used the phrase "entrenchment" to describe his current operation — staying focused on core strengths and optimizing his infrastructure rather than starting new ventures.

This attitude of "riding out the storm" was expressed by a few folks; many of whom are now looking at renewing existing projects in an attempt to improve the profitability of their previous efforts while providing new opportunities for future sales.

Things aren't over for part-time operators and the lone webmaster / affiliate, either.

Personally, I just received an email notification of a $40 PPS sale that fell out of the sky from a TGP text link that I posted more than three years ago; so I know that there's still a few dollars left to be made in adult — And with today's rising gas prices, a few more dollars here and there can make a big difference at the end of the month; so expect to see some old faces returning to the biz — something that we already see happening on our message boards.

At the end of the day, competing today is all about creativity and refocusing proven techniques into much more profitable consumer-driven products — and for some of us this will mean "teaching an old dog new tricks..."

Stay tuned for more…

This month's Trend Watch will examine the increasing use of advanced analytics tools to develop a more robust understanding of the factors influencing adult business operations.

While a mainstay of the mainstream business world, such in-depth analysis within the adult industry has been typically limited to larger corporations that can devote many of the required resources, including staffing and infrastructure, to the task.

It has also been the province of some of the most tightly run "one man band" operations where data security and sharing access to competitive intelligence are less of an issue.

But it wasn't porn, per se, that got me thinking about this — it was a manhunt.

While delving deep into a Google Analytics report the other day, I heard a CNN story on a "secret war" being conducted in Iran, where U.S. special operations personnel are now spying on Iran's nuclear facilities; purportedly gaining intelligence prior to a preemptive strike against the country's WMD capabilities.

"Big deal," I thought to myself: there's nothing new about spying and every country has intelligence gathering assets that contribute their individual bits of information into the big picture that is only revealed by analysts who can connect the dots.

The thought reminded me of "The Death Star" — as it was known by those that were involved with it — a three-dimensional, global, graphical representation of the links between Saddam Hussein and his known associates; with the former Iraqi leader at the center of the sphere and every tie to him located somewhere on the chart. The closer the connection to Hussein, the closer the data point to the center, which was as you might have guessed, the bull's eye.

It was as serious a graph as you'll ever come across…

Data was fed into The Death Star by countless sources around the world: from basic street-level intelligence gathered in Baghdad and elsewhere within Iraq, to tips from foreign agencies; and it was then chewed upon by banks of computers and analysts united in a common goal — to kill or capture the world's most wanted man.

Without The Death Star, processing this much material in a meaningful way would have been a far more daunting task than it already was; but through the advanced visualization of complex datasets, Hussein's hunters were able to gain insights and conclusions they might not otherwise have come to in regards to the leader on the lam's whereabouts.

While I'm not suggesting that adult operators are engaged in such a literal life-or-death struggle, or that they have the resources to duplicate the combined efforts of the free world's most innovative thinkers; but that we all can benefit from drilling more deeply into the data that we have, or can acquire, and visualize it in more meaningful ways.

One easy example of this is the aforementioned Google Analytics, which provide a vast number of ways in which website performance data can be visualized and evaluated; such as the goal funnel visualizations which I find do a great job of "bringing home" the impact of design changes on a website's traffic flow.

Sure, knowing whether 90 percent or 70 percent of a page's traffic makes it through the next link is easy enough to see as a simple text representation; but graphically showing the sizes, percentages, paths and other aspects of traffic flow, can unite a viewer's "left and right brain" to deliver a more creative and comprehensive view of the data — and the more complicated that dataset, the more beneficial advanced visualization is.

Of course, it is the depth and breadth of the underlying information that makes the data useful, so gathering it in the first place is the foundation to any program of analysis and this collection of information comes in increasingly useful and accessible ways.

For example, many operators study the search engine keywords that lead surfers to their site, but do they as diligently study what visitors that actually use their site are seeking?

Personally, I'll be installing an internal search engine on one of my text link-based TGPs — not just because I want to make it easier for my site's visitors to get off on the free porn they desire, but because I want to analyze the search logs to see what they were after, in hopes that it will help me to fine-tune my approach by making more relevant offers.

While the resulting dataset from this effort will likely never be displayed as more than a long list of search terms, it will provide many more dots for me to connect and give more insight to other datasets that I am evaluating — developing a fuller picture of where the site is today — and where it is likely to go in the future.

Regardless of the size of your operation, the gathering of information and the advanced visualization of datasets is a vital component of continued growth and a necessary step in your efforts to "connect the dots" — and the development of the technology behind these processes is a trend worth watching.

There is a limit to what one man or woman can do by themselves: Across many fields of endeavor, the efforts of the collective are needed in order to achieve the desired results — and the larger and more complex the undertaking, the more people are needed to succeed.

A case point is an event that occurred on May 25, when after a 423 million mile journey away from Earth, NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission entered an exciting new phase; with its lander spacecraft gently touching down on the surface of the red planet.

I watched the event unfold live on the Science Channel — scanning the telemetry that signaled each successful step throughout the lander's process of entering the Martian atmosphere; deploying its parachute and then finally its retro-rockets, as the spindly craft settled to the ground in preparation for its mission of drilling deep into the alien planet in search of water — the foundation of life here on earth — and possibly elsewhere, too.

This is very big stuff which represents a decade of commitment on the part of the many scientists, engineers, flight officers and support staff that were responsible for making it happen — and as I watched the professional, tense faces in the "Star Trek"-like control room periodically flash looks of relief and even elation as the mission milestones rolled by like clockwork, then witnessed the joy of the 800 team members and their families that were gathered to share in this long-awaited day; I realized that the outcome could have easily been quite different.

Rather than joy and the celebration of a huge achievement in their multi-billion dollar enterprise; sadness and disappointment could have easily reigned, as a flaming dream came crashing to the ground.

All it would have taken for this outcome to have prevailed is for just one person to have let the team down by not doing his or her best to address the inevitable problems that come with all great undertakings.

But that's not what happened here: everyone involved came together and worked towards a common goal — struggling against seemingly insurmountable odds and conquering one obstacle after another until a success was achieved that all citizens of humanity can be extremely proud of.

Of course, you expect rocket scientists to be smart enough to do the right thing; but what about pornographers? Are we all smart enough to do the right thing and work with each other towards a common goal?

As I look at our terrestrial landscape, I see our enemies rejoicing in their recent victories against Karen Fletcher and her "Red Rose" text-only website; Max Hardcore's defeat and other high-profile trials that are still underway; as prosecutors and politicians smell blood in the water and move in to feed.

Some operators (whether they financially support these groups or not) feel that leaving the protection of our industry to the various organizations that seek to accomplish this goal is adequate to ensure our longevity.

Indeed, the efforts that ASACP has expended in Washington lobbying on our behalf and producing Public Service Announcements featuring Stormy Daniels that promote the use of the industry-developed RTA website label that prevents children from accessing adult websites, is having a major positive effect on legislators and other entities.

But sometimes it takes more than an ad — it takes action; and not just on the part of an organization, but on the part of the collective, working together towards a common goal.

This is one of those times; as the DOJ is now proposing to change '2257 once again, this time amending the "record-keeping, labeling, and inspection requirements to implement provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 that require producers of depictions of simulated sexually explicit conduct to maintain records documenting that performers in those depictions are at least 18 years of age. The rule also implements provisions of the Adam Walsh Act that create a certification regime for the exemption of producers, in certain circumstances, from those requirements and from similar requirements for producers of visual depictions of the lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a person."

While you'll need to discuss how these changes may impact your operation with your own attorney, you do have the opportunity to let your feelings on the subject be known to the Justice Department — which does read, consider and address these comments.

You can submit your relevant comments online by visiting www.regulations.gov and entering "Docket No. CRM 105" in the "comment or submission" search box — you have until August 5th to do your part and work towards a common goal.

Together, we can accomplish great things.

Recently, Washington Post military correspondent Tom Ricks reported on the problem of a "porno virus" being spread by both American and Iraqi military personnel that have obtained and are now trading illegally copied DVDs – a situation which I briefly expanded upon in an XBIZ News story entitled "Is Bootleg Porn Threatening National Security?"

When covering malicious software attacks of any kind, it's important to strike a balance between covering the facts of the story without revealing details that might be useful to budding hackers — and this piece was no exception — and while I don't want to give bad ideas to the wrong people, it's important that these threats be identified so that they can be addressed and resolved.

Having said that, there's an additional dimension to the story that I'd like to share with you here, which deals with the issue of content piracy, as I reprint below the comment I left about Ricks' piece on the Washington Post website:

"This is an example of the widespread and diverse nature of the problems resulting from the illegal duplication and dissemination of copyrighted intellectual property — in this case, adult entertainment.

While the financial impact of piracy and content theft on the legitimate adult entertainment industry is conservatively estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars annually, the security threat posed by the rampant trade in unauthorized DVDs and the malicious payloads these bootleg materials may carry, such as Trojans, key loggers and other malware that could gain access to, and transmit to its creators, sensitive information with direct military value, is incalculable.

The price of copyright violation and content theft can indeed be greater than a simple financial loss for the material's producers. In this case, it can cost lives.

This isn't a "porn" issue; it's one of theft and national security.

When America's fighting soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are not allowed to purchase legitimate, licensed adult entertainment materials on-base, this situation is bound to occur — and the consequences might be disastrous."

###

While the industry struggles with the impact of piracy on our bottom lines, it's important for us to remember that there are other, far more important costs to this digital scourage.

It's no secret that some of America's largest corporations profit directly from adult entertainment offerings, including those made through hotel pay-per-view services – despite ongoing public protests from various faith-based organizations and special interest groups.

Typically targeting the lonely business traveler or other guest looking for a way to unwind at the end of the day, these premium adult video services, though historically profitable, may be facing increasingly hard times – and an increasingly uncertain future.

Indeed, many of the same market forces that are impacting both the physical and virtual distribution channels are also affecting the consumption of in-room erotica; much to the detriment of profits and chagrin of corporate defenders who may no longer have a very compelling reason to ignore the cries of the enemies of free speech and consumer choice.

While accurate figures are hard to come by as adult PPV figures are rarely broken out of overall "guest services" on publicly available financial reports, anecdotal evidence of a downward usage trend can be found in a "Question of the Day" that was recently posed by technology website Gizmodo which asked its readers "Hotel Porn Or Bring-It-Yourself Porn?"

According to the Gizmodo website, "…in this day and age, with iPods and portable media players and laptops and portable hard drives, what kind of person still orders hotel porn? It's expensive, slightly embarrassing ('Ma'am, I have never even heard of Dirt Pipe Milkshakes'), and unhygienic (think of who touched those remotes before you). So we pose the question to you, our faithful readers. Do you enjoy hotel porn, or do you bring a sack lunch?"

At the time of this writing, 407 respondents accounting for 10.6 percent of the vote stated that they preferred to view hotel erotica, while 3440 respondents accounting for around 89.4 percent of the vote preferred to bring their own porn on the road with them.

There were also over 85 comments, many of which expressed similar sentiments, such as this example posted by "AZTriGuy" who is not a fan of the hotel's watered-down fare: "First off, with this day and age of YouPorn and others, who even needs to pay for porn these days? That and the hotel stuff is always somewhat censored and expensive as hell."

The widespread availability of in-room Wi-Fi or wired broadband access and its resultant doorway to the mountains of free porn on the Internet was frequently cited as a reason why hotel services were being eschewed.

While certainly not a scientific sample, there were a decent number of responses, with this data being compiled within around 24 hours of the poll going live.

The bottom line is simple: fewer people are seeing the need to pay for porn; whether it's at home or on the road – and it's no longer just "the little guys" that are being hurt...

I want to tell you a little story about the huge menace posed by the relentless advance of technology and the demands of 'keeping up' that it poses on smaller operators without the benefit of IT departments and other timely, qualified, on-site assistance.

Yep, I'm having computer problems again and I want it to serve as a lesson to you all…

You see, my lovely wife Dawn just bought a fancy new widescreen Dell laptop running Windows Vista and I'm giving her a hand in transferring the files from her old laptop on to the new one. The problem is that I tried to take the "easy" way out.

Vista supports a feature known as Windows Easy Transfer, which according to its website, "helps you to easily move the files and settings stored on your PC running Windows 2000, Windows XP, or even Windows Vista to a new PC running Windows Vista. Windows Easy Transfer will automatically transfer things like: user accounts; files and folders; e-mail messages, settings, and contacts; photos, music, and videos; Windows settings; program data files and settings; Internet settings … let Windows Easy Transfer do the work for you."

It sounded good and I went to BestBuy to pick up an "Easy Transfer cable" – a special connector that uses a USB port – and easily connected the two laptops together.

Perhaps I should have known better and investigated the advanced options more closely, but the on-screen prompts had recommended that I stick with the default settings and transfer everything – all I needed to do was push the button – Heck, Microsoft knows more about its software than I do, so I pushed the button like it said.

Yeah, I know; be careful what you ask for…

I won't get into the litany of problems I created for the new laptop (and my network), but suffice it to say I went looking for the "undo" option, only to find out that there isn't one – and worse yet, I wasn't able to successfully return to any previous restores point on the new box in an effort to return it to its original configuration.

I'm now slowly working through the issues and making sure my sweetie is able to work with her new system as efficiently as she did with her old one – and I seriously regret having used the "Easy Transfer" process.

Googling for solutions reveals that I'm not alone in this, so if you find yourself needing to transfer your old files to your new Vista box and thinking "how can I make this all go easier?" – I know an option you should be very careful about trying!

"Content is king" they claim, and given the vast size of some paysite's member's areas, this statement is apparently true – with some sites offering a seemingly endless supply of photos, videos and more to an increasingly insatiable audience.

But what happens to smaller operators with a limited content supply – are there ways in which they can make that content palette appear more robust – or are they doomed to failure in an age of 'tube' sites and other mega-channels of free porn?

While the question of the survival of many small paysites is an open one, operators that are planning for the future need to find ways in which to leverage their content.

Although quality issues are beyond this discussion, the perception of quantity can be impacted through your presentation of the content to the viewer. But not so fast – how that impression is impacted, for better or for worse, may be a matter of preference for each individual member.

For example, consider a small website starting up with 50 galleries, each linked to using thumbnail images: Which would make the site appear more "full" – a single page with 50 thumbs on it, or 5 pages with 10 thumbs each – or even 10 pages with 5 thumbs each?

Your perception may differ from that of many other users.

For example, I personally think multiple pages would look "fuller," but my wife likes the convenience of displaying everything on one page, which allows for easy comparison and selection of desired items.

"I want to see it all at once," my wife said, showing me the Spiegel website as an example, which offers a choice of viewing 9 items per page with controls to navigate the product pages or a 'view all' option that removes the navigation controls and displays all relevant items in a long scrolling list.

"Give users the choice of which they prefer, just like this," she opined, insightful as always.

This brings up the issue of whether surfers prefer scrolling down long pages or clicking through multiple pages – but offering a Spiegel-style choice leaves this up to the viewer.

While we haven't answered the question of which presentation appears more robust, and it appears that there is no "right" answer, offering multiple content display options gives the viewer a level of interaction and choice that can provide a positive impression and suits the needs of all users.

Hopefully the chosen presentation mode leaves the viewer satisfied with your offerings.

With all of the American election-year news stories going around, I thought I'd take a moment to switch things up and bring you an election-related story from the land of my ancestors; Poland.

As countries around the world struggle with the advent of technology and the usefulness of its applications, one of the areas to receive attention is on the political front in general and the management of electoral rolls and the overall voting process in particular.

For example, here in the states, electronic vote counting and its inconsistent paper trails is a subject of much debate; while in Poland, the issue for the election commission is one of whether or not to allow voting via the Internet as a means of increasing participation, especially among younger voters.

While many arguments can be made about the security of such a process, it seems that one politician opposes net voting based on a different set of reasons: that Internet users tended to be folks that watch "pornography while sipping a bottle of beer."

"I am not an enthusiast of a young person sitting in front of a computer, watching video clips and pornography while sipping a bottle of beer and voting when he feels like it," Former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski stated on his party's website, adding that Internet users are "the easiest group to manipulate, to suggest who to vote for."

Kaczynski, who once ruled Poland alongside the president, his twin brother Lech, admits to not having a cell phone or bank account, so his views of the typical Internet user are to me at least, a bit suspect.

The point to all of this is that regardless of the arena, there will always be 'haters' as well as misinformed – and misguided – individuals that seek to impose their will on others. While this is an unfortunate truth, right-thinking people know not to stereotype people and to keep an open mind – whether the issue is porn or politics.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to sip some beer and surf some porn...

If you've been noticing a recent increase in web traffic, you're not alone: more people are spending more time on the Internet – and some adult website operators are benefiting.

It's not just the growing number of people surfing the web or the time they're spending online, but the money they're spending and the way in which they're doing it that is good news for e-commerce merchants.

For example, Nielsen//NetRatings is reporting across the board increases in user metrics such as sessions per person per month; domains and pages visited per person per month; and page views per surfing session.

In simple terms, consumers are looking at a greater number of websites; drilling deeper into them to more thoroughly view their content and then clicking on more links to other websites – which increases the chances that one of those sites may be yours.

They're not just looking however; they're also buying.

According to Alex Burmaster, a European Internet analyst for Nielsen Online, online shopping has risen by 40 percent in the past two years, going from roughly 627 million customers (one in ten of the world's population) to 875 million.

Burmaster also claims that more than 85 percent of Internet users have shopped online; with half of all users having made an online purchase within the past month.

An interesting and ironic statistic is that books are the most purchased item online, accounting for 41 percent of recent sales: interesting because these sales are often made to developing countries such as Brazil, China, Egypt and Vietnam; ironic, because when the Internet debuted, many critics proclaimed it to be the end of print publishing.

Clothing, accessories and shoes; videos, DVDs and games; and airline tickets, rounded up the list of most popular e-commerce segments.

Retention isn't just a hot issue for adult paysite operators and tangible goods merchants, with 60 percent of consumers preferring to be repeat customers of websites that they buy from regularly, rather than trying a new vendor.

Of course, this figure could also be interpreted to indicate that 40 percent of customers have been unsatisfied with a particular vendor and are seeking an alternative source for the products or services they desire.

"This shows the importance of capturing new online shoppers as they make their first purchases," Burmaster said. "If e-tailers can grab them with a positive shopping experience, they'll likely gain their loyalty and their money."

Merchants looking for more clues as to how best to serve their markets will note that after consumers considered vendors they have previously done business with, general surfing (following links) was the next most popular way of finding products or services, followed by search engines and finally special offers.

While the online adult entertainment industry has its share of challenges, it's clear that more people are looking to satisfy their basic needs online and are willing to pay to do so. Getting consumers to send their discretionary entertainment dollars our way is still going to be the tricky part, however.

For more than a few years now, I’ve informally measured the pulse of the industry by the various things that I’ve seen at adult industry tradeshows – and I don’t mean the latest in affiliate programs, tools or technologies – but by the shenanigans that have often typified these gatherings.

From furniture being tossed out of windows, to ‘overexposed’ talent, and even blatant, public sexual acts on the show floor (to which I myself must plead guilty), the industry has frequently presented a less-than-mature face when its operators are gathered together.

As the business has evolved, however, many of those responsible for the most outrageous antics have passed by the wayside; victims of the inability to compete and thus afford to attend these events – their presence replaced by an increasing number of ‘suits’ vying for their share of the multi-billion dollar porn pie.

In a way, it’s a bit sad watching our industry mature; its youthful exuberance superseded by the necessities of business and the masses of bean counters swelling its ranks.

It’s come to the point now where it’s my wife that tends to do the most outrageous things: a case in point being her skinny dipping at the XBIZ Summer Forum reception party two years ago, as she exclaimed “You’ve all gotten too boring and someone is going to get naked here, damn it!”

I love that girl.

But this year, at the recently concluded XBIZ Hollywood Conference, it became clear just how grown up we all have become, as once again, my lovely wife Dawn did the most outrageous thing I saw at the show: she picked a ripe kumquat off of one of the trees that circled the pool at the Roosevelt Hotel.

As we walked away, feeling naughty and admiring our prize, one of the hotel’s security guards gave us a scowling “don’t pick the fruit” glance.

I straightened my suit, took my naughty wife by the arm, and we strolled away; glad that some kind of monkey business still makes its way into these events to brighten things up…