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Online Porn - The Technology Testbed?
DaveAtFraud writes "USA Today is running a only slightly tongue-in-cheek article pointing out that the on-line porn industry has become the technology testbed for innovative content delivery. On-line delivery of 'adult' content has been wrestling with issues such as digital rights management, video on-demand billing, wireless services, and geo-location software since long before these became issues for 'mainstream' content providers. Maybe having an adult content provider listed on your geek resume isn't so bad after all."
I much suspect that the real reason is that there's shitloads of people who just want the porn and don't want to jump through hoops and wander around meaningless shitlinks for 'free pron' they never seem to get to(also, hunting down some spesific pics of a spesific girl from a spesific site WILL be bitchy compared to just paying few dollars).
I'd guess fetish sites are the winner in all this, just general 'naked chicks' for little hanky panky is very easy to find by almost anybody, but spesific videos or picture sets are not that easy to find just when you 'need'..
also there's lots of dumb fucks who waste their hard earned cash on some payphone dreams, so there must be 'few' willing to do the same thing online(camwhores).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Well, for one, I do. Specifically, I pay for two types of porn:
A) Broadcast porn (i.e. "stuff on the television") because 1. It's of a higher visual quality than the standard net stuff; 2. I don't have to hunt around for it; 3. Unless I'm traveling, I like watching porn on my TV more than I like watching it on my computer. Yes, I could use either my PS2 or my XBOX to stream porn from my desktop, but when I want porn, I don't want to have to go and boot up one of these systems.
B) Truly excellent or unusual online porn. I have no problem using my money to encourage people out there who do good work and who cater to my (shamefully, these days, pretty vanilla) tastes. I pay for Red vs. Blue even though I could get it for free -- why not porn?
Lastly, to be honest, I've found porn downloads via, say, Kazaa to be fraught with disappointment. For one thing, there's the horrendously slow speeds often times; also, the unclear (or outright deceptive) descriptions can be a bitch. I still do it every once in a while, but for visual porn, my TV's a primary source these days. One exception to this is written porn -- www.asstr.org is your friend, and I use them pretty much exclusively for my written porn.
The company I work for hosts some of the largest porn sites on the web - we have 4 gigs - Internet, and all the latest Cisco toys: iSCSI SANs, 6500's with load balancing, IDS, and firewall modules, gig E everywhere, real-time geographical load distribution, you name it.
My last two gigs were Universal and Sony (I'm in LA) and both were tiny Internet environments compared to this.
Our SAN has 7TB of content so far & we're adding 1/2 a TB a month...
Being an adult webmaster myself I can assure you that our customers complain if something is wrong. But all the free porn makes up for a lot :-)
And it pays well too, so it should be a career option for all techies out there, seeing the current techjobmarket.
Especially when there are excellent specific sites like Suicide Girls that treat the people paying well and have a brilliantly laid out site.
No, I don't subscribe, but if I ever wanted to pay for porn they would be the first to get the cash.
Goblin
It's all fun and games until a 200' robot dinosaur shows up and trashes Neo-Tokyo... Again
Ok, I'll try to answer this...
To become an adult webmaster, don't do it for the money. It has to be something you're interested in (ha ha, joke's on me! Who isn't interested in porn?). Honestly though, you need to be passionate about the subject, otherwise it WILL get boring. There are thousands of TGPs & MGPs out there, so try to come up with something "different" to build hits.
Photo shoots are "interesting" to say the least. I have only been on one, and basically, it went like this:
Me: "Hi, glad you could show up. This is the photographer. Do you mind if we stick around for the shoot, to provide input?" (I was ABSOLUTELY lying through my teeth. I just wanted to see her naked.)
Her: "No."
"Ok, have fun!" At that point I had to leave the room. Stock images are great for original content, but they can be expensive. Photo sets range from $20 to $50+ per set, and buying new content on a daily basis is immensely expensive. If your sponsor/advertiser revenue can support it, no problem. I usually hit usenet for image sets, as I can get untagged images for free.
Strippers are seriously one of your best points of contact. They have no problem taking off their clothes, and usually aren't afraid to pose in front of a camera. Usual billing rates are $100 to $300+ per hour, depending on the "talent".
No webmaster wants to talk about revenue, but IF (and that's a HUGE if) I filled all my advertising slots, I would clear in excess of 22k per month. I have NEVER come close to filling my advertising slots, so for now, the point is moot.
No, there are no "fringe benefits" that I know of. Other webmasters may operate differently from myself though. I'm married, and the very thought of John Wayne Bobbit brings up horrific images. You do the math on that one.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.