Quite a catchy title for a post that’s not going to give you any links, huh? I was just thinking how porn has been one of the biggest money makers on the internet. I’m not even going to link to any studies or statistics that prove that, but I’m sure that we have all heard how much money is made by people that run porn web sites.
The problem that I was thinking about was the fact that the adult entertainment industry has to do things totally backwards from the way that most businesses do. Because I’m thinking of this, in terms of making money with blogs and podcasts, I’ll compare the differences of the two, and how thinking differently about where money comes from could open up a whole new stream of profit.
Most bloggers and podcasters think in terms of getting a sponsor to pay them money for advertising. Is that the “only” way to make money? Obviously not. There are others that will conduct an NPR-type fundraising drive or subscription model, where people either make a one-time donation or “pledge” to make a monthly donation. Still others are paid to blog by a larger company, trying to drive in traffic. Getting traffic to a web site, these days, usually requires a lot of activity, keywords, and “buzz”. The bloggers are paid to “create” the buzz.
What if there were porn blog, or a porn podcast (let me know if you already know of one)? Traditional advertisers want to stay as far away from questionable material as they possibly can. There would be no way that a reputable company would sponsor anything in the adult industry. The only solutions (that I know of) would be to get a lower paying sponsor that’s not worried about the material, or one that is actually trying to target that particular audience. The other option would be to directly charge your audience for the material. It wouldn’t have to be anything outrageous, at all. It could be as little as 10 cents per download of a podcast. Depending on the audience and the popularity, it could go up or down.
Ten cents each? I’d pay that. Heck, I’d probably pay three or four times that amount and still be happy. The biggest problem with directly charging customers is that “it can’t actually be done”. The nature of podcasting and RSS doesn’t allow it. There’s one feed that you subscribe to, and you get everything, automatically. So, how about an “initial charge” before allowing visitors to subscribe? That wouldn’t work, either. You’d get five or ten subscribers before the feeds location was posted all over the internet.
So I guess that we’re back to getting a sponsor, or coming up with some other creative way to make something from your work. I guess I’ll leave this topic here, for now and I’ll have to think about porn a little longer…