The adult industry is widely known for its driving of technology, but it is an industry that is also driven by technology itself — adopting and embracing the latest in digital media and beyond. XBIZ sought to take the pulse of the industry to discover its predictions for the year ahead. Here’s the forecast from some of its top technologists:
Ela Darling
Content Manager, CAM4VR
Starting at CES, 2017 will definitely be seen as the rising year for virtual reality. Giants such as Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Facebook, and almost all of the big brands in the consumer electronics industry, are offering new products, from 360-degree cameras to VR headsets. -Jean-Claude, Terpon
I think we’re going to see a lot of varying quality VR and mixed reality headsets come to market that don’t rely on a phone or gaming computer for the experience. I think reciprocal sex toys and teledildonics will start to integrate with emerging haptic tech to create more realistic, enjoyable experiences. I think more companies will join the VR porn market as the user base continues to expand. And of course, I think CAM4VR will continue to grow as the only 3D 360 photorealistic experience on the market with better cameras and a more streamlined user experience.
AJ Hall
CEO, ElevatedX
In 2017, I think we’re finally going to see sites not up with current tech trends die off completely. Many have been hanging on and squeezing out the last few dollars they can, but I anticipate a large decline in the number of older websites out there due to outdated and obsolete site platforms, video formats and video delivery methods. I also expect to see sites that are not at a bare-minimum responsive in design, if not truly mobile optimized, suffer further losses that will result in their closure. We’ve reached a point where consumers are simply no longer as tolerant, and too much great content is being produced that fits their tech demands.
We’ve already seen a huge increase the past couple of years with paysites moving toward only offering Ultra HD video and are seeing a slow but steady trickle of tech-related CMS software inquiries and ‘how to’ questions from producers experimenting with 360 video and VR content. I’ve been working with adult paysites full time coming up on 17 years, and with the exception of a very small window of time in the very early 2000’s when Flash animation was leading edge, I can’t recall a time when we were close to experiencing an entirely new format of media itself. It is still early and years away but the prospect is very exciting and I think 2017 will be a big year for experimental content production.
Jean-Claude
CEO, Terpon
Starting at CES, 2017 will definitely be seen as the rising year for virtual reality. Giants such as Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Facebook, and almost all of the big brands in the consumer electronics industry, are offering new products, from 360-degree cameras to VR headsets.
Adult entertainment has always been on the edge of tech innovation; therefore, it makes sense that this trend will receive even more emphasis in this vertical market. Interactivity has always been the most important part of sex, and it has remained the key to any erotic business since the industry first began. Modern interactivity goes far beyond 900 telephone numbers and the pre-recorded video content of the past. From dating sites to live cam shows and strip clubs, consumers of adult content have been conditioned to expect a very personal connection with the content itself. Virtual reality is only one of the tools, and teledildonic will make tremendous progress in the coming year. From simple connected vibrating toys, it will evolve into more sophisticated devices, which will soon reproduce real feelings of natural flesh and muscle.
Artificial intelligence is the missing link for all of these innovations. It will make software bots smarter; toys that anticipate your reactions; and evolve virtual reality into augmented reality. 2017 will definitely be interesting for testing some primitive concepts, but I think it will take a few years for these to be fully operational. 2017, 2018 and 2019 will be years of exploration and discovery. As a last point, I am impatient to see the M&A battle of titans (Google, Facebook, Apple) when 5G licenses will be unleashed on our world. Internet speeds will explode, communication prices will fall, and all of this may start in 2017 or very soon after. It will drastically change the way people will consume live interactive high-quality content.
Benjamin Fonzé
CEO, ExoClick
Year over year, ExoClick is a key driver of technology trends in the adult ad network industry, where we continue to introduce industry firsts that enable our clients to ride the technology wave and generate more revenue. For example, according to Syncast, by 2017, 74 percent of all online traffic will be video, so we have provided the tools for our advertising clients by launching two video advertising formats: pre-roll in-stream video and HTML5 video banner ads. Both formats have much higher CTRs and conversion rates than ads featuring static images and GIFs. Another key trend for 2017 will be the need for more programmatic and RTB technologies, which is currently lacking in the adult ad industry. ExoClick will be introducing new tools that enhance this technology at the very start of 2017.
Fabian Grey
CEO, AliceX
In early 2016, we saw that virtual reality was going to be the big tech topic this year. Throughout the year, the news about VR has continued to be strong, with new hardware and software developments coming out in recent weeks and months. With the current momentum and discoveries, I think 2017 will also be all about VR. There are major updates for almost all VR gear scheduled in 2017, and the startups and funding towards this new medium are ever increasing. In summary, I plan to stay tuned for more exciting progressions, which will optimize the virtual reality experience in 2017!
Brad Mitchell
CEO, MojoHost
2017 is going to be a great year for the adult industry to increase operational efficiency, performance and savings. Advances in virtualization technology are abundant, finally allowing entrepreneurs to fully start their move into the cloud and other hybrid environments. Taking advantage of faster solid state (SSD) storage and processing power should be on everyone’s roadmap for improving customer experience and retention. While many public clouds still do not allow adult content, companies such as MojoHost have developed new feature-rich environments, which scale globally at competitive prices that really drive innovation. Buyers should beware of many purchasing pitfalls in the cloud such as more obscure and expensive bandwidth and CPU processing overages as they are not always easy to understand from standard pricing matrixes. Engaging pre-sales engineers and to understand the costs, benefits and risks associated with different platforms is more important than ever.
While most technology has in every way become more accessible, users are often left with very complex implementation challenges. It has always been the case the ‘right solution’ implemented the ‘wrong way’ can be frustrating, expensive and delay time to market with new products. Highly experience support has become harder to find and more expensive to access. Wage scales are at an all-time high for this type of talent. Most hosting companies have already outsourced technical support to other countries to lower costs and this has created high demand for quality support. It is reasonable for users to expect paying a premium for access to senior level developers and systems administrators. In our experience and offerings, great technical support has always paid a larger dividend to clients than every other advancement in technology. Combining the best of technology and people is timeless and will always achieve the greatest results.
Vladimir Jelic
Vice President, Quantox
At this point we have new things going on in several technologies. Angular.js released v2 with new features. This cool JavaScript framework just got even better, and no wonder, when we know Google is standing behind it. React Native is also something we are playing with at the moment. It will allow us to build native mobile apps using JavaScript, and is a good opportunity to cut down app development costs while keeping the performance. We also see an increase in requests for dating and cam platforms, which shows this very popular vertical is rising even more. In 2017, we expect to see some major advancements in IoT and Smart Home Tech, as leading companies such Google, Amazon and Apple are starting to get involved in this space. In 2016, we’ve already seen big steps forward for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). Next year we expect that things will really take off, so we’ll be able to get a ton of VR and AR experiences.
Artificial Intelligence is on the rise and will continue to be in 2017. We’ll see the world around us become embedded with AI, as appliances, assistants, robots and everyday apps will become effortless to use. The most prominent influencers in 2017 are sure to be big data, connected devices, and IoT, as they are continuing to flood modern businesses with information. IoT is gaining more and more popularity each day, and with the plethora of affordable microcontrollers and microcomputers, we can expect to see the biggest rise of IoT devices so far, making smart and semi-smart homes a standard by the end of 2017. Since the unveiling of the new solar roof tiles in October 2016, Tesla marked a new era of functional solar panels, and the beginning of decrease in fossil fuel dependency. 2017 will bring this affordable renewable green energy to a large number of households. With the success of Pokemon GO in 2016, augmented reality will find its way in to many more uses, and the expansion of AR devices will occur — from Google Glass-like devices to vehicle dashboard projectors. Since Google DeepMind just made its AI Training Platform publicly available, we also predict AI / machine learning utilization in more common applications, and therefore its widespread usage in numerous scenarios over the next year.
It is clear from these expert insights that consumer technology is now merging across both adult and mainstream applications, driving desire for both — and 2017 will be the year it all comes together.
Stan D’Aman
CEO, AdultCentro
In 2017, I see VR making a lot more headway as more well established studios will start rolling out VR products to complement their normal offerings, as well as VR live cams becoming more popular than before after a successful holiday season rollout of the latest VR gear in both headsets and cameras.
Additionally, I think mobile will play an ever-important role as even more traffic shifts mobile, and more companies and products will be shifting to a mobile first strategy. Performers’ management of their fan base through social media will be ever more important as they will be able to bring more value to any production by being able to market the product to their fan base.
