A (Silent) View On The Future Of Porn
This Huffington Post interview with Peter Acworth, founder of Kink.com (which HuffPo describes as “the largest fetish porn production company in the world”), is more fascinating to me because of what Peter does not say about his business than because of what he does say. Kink.com has been innovative about extending its brand in startling ways while paring back its costs and its active site portfolio as the pay-by-subscription porn-site business model has crumbled in recent years, and the company has a unique asset in its landmark Armory facility in San Francisco. So what does Peter talk about in the interview when questions turn to the future of his business?
- A new bar called the Armory Club that now anchors the beginning and end of his new-ish Armory tours;
- The Armory tours themeselves;
- A new permit allowing use of the drill court in the Armory for “sporting events, farmers markets, performance art, etc.; and
- In the “still brainstorming” stage, “a thriving kink-centric online social networking site around our products and services.”
Notice what’s not on that list?
Yeah. There’s nothing about making or selling newer or different porn. No new sites, no new themes, no “reach new markets with our existing products”, no “branch out into newer new media”, nothing. What’s exciting about your current business direction, Mr. Porn Baron? Well, HuffPo, we’re doing all these fascinating things to monetize our awesome real estate better…
One more glimpse at the reality that porn remains, for now, an industry in search of a new business model.
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Reaching new markets and developing new products is costly. Very costly. Better ROI comes from improving resource utilization. If it enables them to keep the doors open, that’s a win in this marketplace.
Not really. Frankly, building a social networking arena to create a bigger sense of involvement and participation from Kink’s clients IS an innovative business model, particularly to the porn world. Their Upper Floor website already allows for involvement through their web cams (two-way audio). What a wonderful way to create value and brand loyalty.
Oh, it’s innovative all right, and probably a commercial winner IF (that’s a big big if) they can pull it off.
But what it’s NOT is making new porn.
[…] Eros Blog (extremely NSFW) wonders the same thing, after reading a HuffPo profile of one of the web’s supposedly most successful porn enterprises, Kink.com (a.k.a., the folks who made James Deen a star, and — apparently more importantly, own a big honking hunk of prime property in San Francisco): […]
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