how the sex industry changed the internet as we know today

What has my mother and the online sex industry have in common?

well in short they are both pioneers.... of course in very different contexts.....

When I told my mother that we are doing a topic on the online adult industry, words like "oh lord", "that's disgraceful" and "what will they teach yous next"and when I told her that she had something in common with the topic I had to calm her down with a glass of water(as she doesn't drink-pioneer) and explain that the online adult industry are pioneers as well and she wouldn't have her VHS to tape corrie or be able to watch Brad Pitt on the DVD Player without their product innovations. The following facts show that without the business and technology aspects created by this industry, the world wide web would never of grown so big.

• Easy-to-use payment systems, sign-ups, fee -based subscriptions and online security

The next time my mum does her grocery shopping on Tesco online she will notice the easy and quick the process of the conversion-based performance systems is, allowing Tesco to serve their customers through secure e-business models without them ever leaving the home. All of these technology innovations were developed by the adult online industry due to the fact that most of these entrepreneurs concentrate on profit ,cost cutting innovations and serving the customer's desires. The adult sites learned to use the minimum amount of technology to deliver their product. Thus what follows is the more mainstream websites adapting the same business models to reduce their customers acquisition costs. For example Oxendales,Ticketmaster and The Irish Times. The e-business payment systems that are so common today would still be in the early stages of developing,security and highly unstable.

• Annoying Spam

The adult online industry perfected the spam culture turning it into a profitable business through the following ways: advertising,banner ads,ads associated with words,traffic for cash ads and pay per click ads as well as performance based advertising and pop-up and pop-unders console advertising windows that I have to say are so annoying but highly effective marketing and mouse-trappings. The adult industry would go to great lengths to keep their customers and potential customers on their site for a long a possible by distracting them with new offers. This business model is used quite a lot with the more mainstream website as they realize that their competition is only a click away and its better to have the customers stay on their site than leave so upon crossing the entry and exit of a website a visitor will undoubtedly find it difficult to leave due to the site taking control of the visitor's browsers to deliver ads to replace each one the user has closed. For example Yahoo! ,Excite and Alta Vista.

• Streaming Videos

Forget YouTube, TV Shack and OV guide with their video streaming even though mum hasn't a clue of what those are, in fact she thinks that bebo(which she calls eBay) is the entire Internet and people can see her through the web cam unless its facing the wall!!!!anyway these X-rated sites were perfecting the techniques of streaming videos as well as other things has brought about businesses using this method giving their customers the latest information and entertainment. The adult online industry was the first to use streaming that did not require a browser plug -in which brought about the Adobe bought flash video and RTE real player. To think that global breaking news wouldn't be as current as it is now with out this product innovation from this industry.

• Live Chats,Web cam/video conferencing

This era of the Internet has brought a more interactive and humanistic approach to online businesses, like before this all stemmed from the online adult industry. They broke down the barriers and limitations of watching adult videos to actually being able to chat and interact using the most up-to-date technology. This drove the development of real-time chat, web based videoconferencing and live Web cams, thus in turn created a huge profit for this industry. Upon this spark other industries adapted this to suit their needs and the most recent technology developed is the VOIP(voice over Internet protocol) examples Skype and MSN.

• Web Analysis software and optimization
  

The adult online industry should be praised where praise is due, as the businesses all joined together and aimed each to build massive site traffic by sharing top sites links, linking customers to generate traffic and were the first to develop an affiliate revenue-sharing model among themselves, resulting in the industry being highly profitably and successful rivaling others. The adult sites are the pioneers of a multimedia site,Geo- location software and adult check age verification systems so....

......Like it or not the online adult industry is big and here to stay and it will continue to shape the non porn people lives and technologies for the future PS. My mum still isn't convinced ah well cant win every debate.