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How to draw viewers into Web Video - lessons from porn

guerillashowrunner.com

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Re: How to draw viewers into Web Video - lessons from porn

#11

Post by chopsueyar »

thenomad wrote: post #3
radioactive21 wrote: post #2

I am pretty sure Porn as an advantage in one aspect. People went out of their way to seek it. In a aroused state, it wouldn't matter what you're watching, it could be someone just running a hand over their other hand and you'll get viewers, it's just enough to get off on.

Ah, but these days, as a porn site you've got to compete with thousands of others. It's not "will the audience look for porn", it's "Why will they choose your porn over someone else's?" (Likewise, it's not "Will the audience look for an action-adventure show", it's "Why should the audience choose YOUR action-adventure show?")

That site caters to a specific fetish, female domination. There are not thousands of sites competing with it.

Most successful porn sites cater to a specific fetish, instead of a bucket of random porn.

He needs to find his target market. Not sure who it should be, though.

Re: How to draw viewers into Web Video - lessons from porn

#12

Post by dotBen »

I know a lot of the people at Kink.com (they're a solid part of the local SF tech scene, regardless of what people think of the content) and they have some interesting technology across the board.

However I wouldn't actually use their websites as good examples of best-practice in this vertical. Having disrupted the traditional DVD-based content houses, Kink.com is now getting disrupted themselves a little by the 'tube sites' and they really are not on top of this new era for that industry.

The main issue for video sites - of all content genres - is discovery. The author's premis about 'drawing in the viewer' doesn't really allude to this greater issue. YouTube doesn't really do a great job of discovery - relying only similarity clustering and string search.

I'm not going to link to sites from here, but there are a number of adult content tube sites that have some really quite excellent taxonomy, categorization and deeper search functions - surfacing the content that each viewer wants is a unique experience for each person.

Many of their video player experiences and social features are excellent too - ones that YouTube should really take a look at (in fact I know of YouTubers who gone to work for these sites).

For me, the tube world is yet another example of where the adult website industry is once again leading the R&D in the space.

Re: How to draw viewers into Web Video - lessons from porn

#14

Post by thenomad »

Vlasta wrote: post #9

After reading the article, I am not convinced, we should copy the techniques employed by porn sites when building all "ordinary" sites. On a porn site, the content variability is low - it is easy to pick one video, promote it, and it would probably satisfy all viewers to some degree. On a normal site, each user wants something else and pushing one video may annoy 90% of viewers, because it is not what they are lookin…

I agree, this technique is definitely not for all sites. I'm specifically talking about web series, where there are usually some fairly obvious entry points. For a bigger content aggregation site or similar, you'd need another approach.

Re: How to draw viewers into Web Video - lessons from porn

#15

Post by JonLim »

CoffeeDregs wrote: post #5

This is a bit harsh, but, based on the author's site design and the design of his other sites, I'm not sure why we should take the author seriously.

I honestly don't think it's harsh - his websites for his shows are groin-grabbingly ugly, and it should be no surprise to him as to why they do not attract viewers.

Want to pull people in to your video content? Look at some of the better video sites on the web and see how they do it.

I can think of one off the top of my head: http://epicmealtime.com/

Re: How to draw viewers into Web Video - lessons from porn

#16

Post by Unseelie »

chopsueyar wrote: post #11
thenomad wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but these days, as a porn site you've got to compete with thousands of others. It's not "will the audience look for porn", it's "Why will they choose your porn over someone else's?" (Likewise, it's not "Will the audience look for an action-adventure show", it's "Why should the audience choose YOUR action-adventure show?")

That site caters to a specific fetish, female domination. There are not thousands of sites competing with it. Most successful porn sites cater to a specific fetish, instead of a bucket of random porn. He needs to find his target market. Not sure who it should be, though.

Please google your tagword. Better yet, google Female domination Porn. You're going to get a lot. If you go out and use the actual jargon, Femdom Porn, you're going to get quite a lot as well.

Point being: there may not be thousands of sites competing, but when the search returns over a million sites and its nearly straight femdom out to the thirteenth results page (and likely beyond)...I'm going to wager that you didn't do that very simple bit of research, a google, before making such a declaration.

Re: How to draw viewers into Web Video - lessons from porn

#17

Post by davidmathers »

dotBen wrote: post #12

I know a lot of the people at Kink.com (they're a solid part of the local SF tech scene, regardless of what people think of the content) and they have some interesting technology across the board. However I wouldn't actually use their websites as good examples of best-practice in this vertical. Having disrupted the traditional DVD-based content houses, Kink.com is now getting disrupted themselves a little by the 'tub…

there are a number of adult content tube sites that have some really quite excellent taxonomy, categorization and deeper search functions - surfacing the content that each viewer wants is a unique experience for each person

Many of their video player experiences and social features are excellent too

Please name names.

Re: How to draw viewers into Web Video - lessons from porn

#18

Post by [deleted] »

Vlasta wrote: post #9

After reading the article, I am not convinced, we should copy the techniques employed by porn sites when building all "ordinary" sites. On a porn site, the content variability is low - it is easy to pick one video, promote it, and it would probably satisfy all viewers to some degree. On a normal site, each user wants something else and pushing one video may annoy 90% of viewers, because it is not what they are lookin…

[deleted]

Re: How to draw viewers into Web Video - lessons from porn

#19

Post by dotBen »

davidmathers wrote: post #17
dotBen wrote: post #12

I know a lot of the people at Kink.com (they're a solid part of the local SF tech scene, regardless of what people think of the content) and they have some interesting technology across the board. However I wouldn't actually use their websites as good examples of best-practice in this vertical. Having disrupted the traditional DVD-based content houses, Kink.com is now getting disrupted themselves a little by the 'tub…

there are a number of adult content tube sites that have some really quite excellent taxonomy, categorization and deeper search functions - surfacing the content that each viewer wants is a unique experience for each person Many of their video player experiences and social features are excellent too Please name names.

Responding to this cos it got a high vote...

I don't feel comfortable linking to such sites on Hacker News or really talking about them here in any more depth.

Feel free to contact me offline from HN if you want me to suggest some leading examples. (details in my profile)

UPDATE: turns out the original author discovered all of these sites via my partner Violet Blue (http://guerillashowrunner.com/2011/02/why-a-good-porn-site-m...) -- so the circle is complete. Lol.

Re: How to draw viewers into Web Video - lessons from porn

#20

Post by jamongkad »

dotBen wrote: post #12

I know a lot of the people at Kink.com (they're a solid part of the local SF tech scene, regardless of what people think of the content) and they have some interesting technology across the board. However I wouldn't actually use their websites as good examples of best-practice in this vertical. Having disrupted the traditional DVD-based content houses, Kink.com is now getting disrupted themselves a little by the 'tub…

> content tube sites that have some really quite excellent taxonomy, categorization and deeper search functions - surfacing the content that each viewer wants is a unique experience for each person.

Fascinating what sort of sites have this feature?

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