This morning, a press release from AVN came in, I scanned it as I sipped my sugary poison.

Paul Fisbein wrote “As DVDs have begun their decline. Adult VOD, mobile and Internet usage is increasing dramatically, and the same thing is now happening in the mainstream. Keep your eye on adult to see how the convergence of television, mobile devices and the personal computer plays out – the industry will be the weathervane.” - Press Release Here

Actually, the convergence of new media and delivery of mobile content has long begun. Look at the bloggers, the adult segment on Facebook and MySpace, Tumblr and Pownce, Twitter and Brightkite. We are already here and connecting, we are taking our concepts mainstream.  The fact is distribution and marketing have already merged with content, and the results of that development are already being monitized in the adult entertainment business.

When I decided to start Studio Erotica, I decided the most important partner I would need would be an auteur.  I hired Dan Dubelman because he is a storyteller, filmmaker, and musician who understands the culture of the internet and the convergence of marketing, content and distribution.  In an early meeting we had Dan said, “ TV and Film are follow an extremely tight structure. If the inciting incident doesn’t occur on the correct page, the script won’t work.  The characters themselves are forced to serve the structure, which means the characters cannot have real depth. Online storytelling offers a chance for the characters to drive the structure and the distribution in a sense.  Flexibility with regard to segment length is only the beginning.  You can do a series in 2-20 minutes instead of 20-60 minutes, you can release new episodes several times a day or only on the full moon.  Length and frequency are flexible and the audience accepts it.”

Studio Erotica is experimental, but our timing seems perfect. While we are collecting data that indicates amazing viral growth, we are also experimenting with transmedia where the characters push the marketing and distribution itself.

Business Wire: Press Release Here

We all know there is an ugly side to this industry, it’s not something I spend a lot of time blogging about, but I spend a lot of time following it. A few days ago, a wonderful girl (non-adult industry) who is desperately trying to be a model in Los Angeles tells me she has landed an amazing twelve day job shooting in a fantastic location and she needed me to cat sit for her. I said yes and congrats. She is only 21 and I (feeling maternal), asked her to give me a full itinerary, a copy of her ID and her passport and the numbers of emergency contacts, just in case there was an issue.

But she didn’t have it. I said to her, “No professional agency is not giving you an itinerary.” I asked her to explain the trip in greater details. And I got this:

• Oh, I only have five days to prepare, it’s last minute.
• I found it on XXXXXXX.com.
• We fly to New York on a private plane.
• We then transfer to another private plan and we are flown to <XXXXXXXX>.
• We are shooting for 12 days.
• There is no pay, just work for her portfolio.
• We are staying a private house (all the girls together).
• We then have to pay our own airfare back to the US.

I was quiet, none of this added up. I start to think, this is Los Angeles, any decent agency flies models on commercial airlines and put them up in their own rooms in hotels. Modeling is actually stressful and girls here get private rooms to decompress after shoots. She knew this! And no return airfare home?

I emailed the scenario and the post to a friend who works with trafficked victims in California because I was suspicious. She said “absolutely not.” Too many red flags. After two days, I finally convinced her not to go, I told her my extensive history of adult (and that I didn’t just design websites for people), that caught her attention. Was this gig a bad thing, maybe not. But everything I knew about screening clients and safety was screaming “NO! Don’t go, you will not be heard from again!” I don’t think I would have forgiven myself if something had happened to her. I had just imagined, she gets off the plan in New York, passport taken and that’s it.
In researching Human Trafficking as it relates to the U.S. and other areas, I was amazed to find the following information:

• It is estimated to be a $5 to $9 billion-a-year industry in the U.S.
  
• 27 million are trafficked everyday, that’s one person every 1.5 minutes.
• Globally, its $42.5 billion per year.
  

To learn more and to help prevent, please visit: StopTheTraffick.org

SEO is an acronym for “search engine optimization”. It is the process of analyzing your potential design and problems for search engines indexing and positioning. In other words, making your web site and its content attractive, relevant and visible to search engines and web searchers.

There is nothing worse than having a beautiful web site with excellent content that can’t be found!

Before you begin optimizing your website, remember the following are SEO spam techniques:

• Automatically generated doorway pages
• Cloaking and false redirects
• Keyword stuffing
• Hidden text or hidden links
• Pages with irrelevant words
• Duplicated content on multiple pages
• Misspelling of well-known web sites
• Unrelated and centralized link farms
• Black hat SEO techniques

If you use one of the above techniques, you might get short term results, but it’s most likely that your site will be banned from search engines, and therefore you will put your business at severe risk.

Target Your Efforts
Target a search term on the page. If you want to be found for your keyword, make sure that term is on the page you want to rank. The term should be in the page title and in your description.

Get other sites to “link” back to you. This is one of the most important factors Google considers when ranking sites

If you blog, blog often. This can help you get links.

Don’t be afraid to use tools! Use Google Webmaster Tools and create a text-based sitemaps.

Don’t over do it and don’t stuff your pages full of keywords. You will not be successful.

There are a lot of questions regarding blogging in the adult entertainment field, many people wonder if blogging is worth the effort or time? Well, it depends on the purpose, the goal and if it used properly. This series will talk about blogs.

If you are just delving into the world of blogs, or just want a better understand of blogs and their evolution since they began in 1997, please click here.

There are a lot of applications out there that allow you to bring your presence into the Blogosphere, which one is best to use? Well, that up to you, use whatever you like, but there are pros and cons to each one.

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We have all downloaded and used free templates for skinning our Wordpress blogs, heck, my original design was a fantastic them called “The Wind Cries Mary.”

When you download free templates, all of them have links in the footer. Sometimes, these links are visible and located directly under the designer’s name and sometimes they are black on black and your can’t see them. Go into your blog and click Design>Theme Editor. In the theme editor, click on Footer.PHP. If you look very carefully, will find them there. Packing the footer with links is known as link stuffing and is considered a spam technique.

Link stuffing can get your into major trouble. Googles terms say NO F*UCKING SPAM. And they mean it. Tons of non-relevant links in the footer could violate Google’s terms of use and get your site banned and you would not even know it.

Since Wordpress is an OpenSource application and most components are entirely free, you are responsible for what you download. You need to make sure your components are SEO friendly.

Can you remove these footers? Sometimes, but sometimes they are encrypted and you are better off buying a template and customizing it.

The adult industry has spawned modern SEO/SEM techniques.

Why? Money.

Yes, Yes, the infamous acronym “C.R.E.A.M.”

History, porn has always found innovative ways to create innovative sustainable revenue streams. Adult marketers aggressively applied every (from traditional to black hat) technique imaginable in order to beat search engines and successfully applied it to every niche in which there is money.
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Ever since I heard the podcast on iTunes for Managing The Gray’s research on PlayBoy’s use of SecondLife, I was hooked. PlayBoy amazes me with their willingness to incorporate social applications into their marketing and advertising strategies. This makes them an industry leader and trend setter. The Wii Fit on You Tube is no exception.

In 12 hours, it has 300,00 hits and sparked video commentary on the “thing all guys should buy their girlfriend.”

The formula is simple: Viral Video Marketing + Simple Sex Appeal = Consumer Sales

Most adult bloggers use Wordpress as a publishing platform. One of the beauties of Wordpress is its incredible way to not only manage blog content, but facilitate your own SEO as well. The plugin I most recommend for anyone is HeadSpace, it’s wonderful plugin that makes SEO consistent.

For those ready for more than the basic SEO, Yoast, offers a more in-depth, comprehensive, how-to guide to Wordpress SEO.

If your a visual learner, and have an hour and nine minutes, I recommend the following video.

And if you hate Matt Cutts or don’t have an hour and nine minutes, here is another favorite, it’s only six minutes:

As I tweeted about Twitter today, a wonderful film maker that I twitter stalk made a post. I click the linked feverishly, as his finds are like the treasure in cracker jack boxes.

The question is - “Is YouTube singling out filmmakers?”

I have posted a new podcast discussing the term “Adult”. What exactly constitutes the term “adult”? How do you define it and what does it encompass?

Have a listen and I welcome feedback, I am going in a new direction and want to address issues related to adult marketing and online strategies. This is test one. Podcast