Trade shows are made up of the people in the industry..
It's not the calibre of the tradeshow that's fallen, but the calibre of the industry itself.
- I talked to major content providers talking about zero demand off websites for their product (almost flat new sales)
- Over half the biz worried about being able to process a credit card
- crappy conversions
- bubkuss tgp's channeling lord knows how many hits for languishing returns
- every major video release freely available for download in dvd quality
- half of sales from spam, is spam becoming a criminal offense shortly?!
- 1000 front ends to the same old shit in the back
- major players not in attendance, for many reasons, economics being one of the biggest.
Demand for porn has not changed, the net continues to grow..
but the money appears to be tighter to get to, I wouldn't be worried about attending the shows per se due to quality drops, but worried about the future viability of this industry in anywhere near the format it is in today!
My point being, the piggish behavior described at shows is a direct reflection of the piggish behavior pervasive in this biz - shortsighted to the extreme. Don't worry, the 'patent' pigs will be out in force in 2004 as well, each with his own bullshit patent to try and pigout on the carcass!
call me a pisher, but I'm praying for tighter visa controls, stripped merchant accounts, a serious crackdown on spam, and a good dose of obscenity panic like the one that came over the biz when copa was put on the table.
The online porn biz needs a dose of its own medecin, a big fat juicy ennema. These revenue models were tapped in 99, it's no wonder that in 2003 they look like aids victims... I'm just wondering how long before the payouts fall back to $15-20 a signup like they should have stayed at in the 1st place!
I hear a lot about big brother, well little brother imho isn't doing such a fine job securing this business, so maybe it's time big brother came in to crack some heads, the quicker the better - that's my 2 cents.
