Adult webmaster conferences are great places to meet affiliates, network with people, and increase your business partners. Yea, right. Really, it’s about hot girls and parties! What you probably don’t realize is that some of the hottest women were the webmasters who are sure to bring about a new face of adult site marketing.

Internext was definitely a hot event - the connections I made were hot, the weather was quite hot and the parties were ragers. Oh, and did I mention the girls? Yea, the wet T shirt contest blew my mind and the bikini girls were all so hot you had to sit in the pool to look at them.

Even more impressive than the hotties at this event were women webmasters whos numbers are beginning to grow. Among them were Becky from HardcoreHotel.com, Zombie Girl from FetishPaysMe.com, Lindsay from PointerAdvertising.com, Shellee from SexyTeaser.com, Tanzyn of Septemberlee.com and Vittoria Erotica from VittoriaErotica.com. (If you are a female webmaster who is not listed here, please add your details in the comments of this post. I hope to get a big list going and publish it on a separate page, so add yours to the pile.) These are all amazingly intelligent, powerful and beautiful women, who I am proud to be working with. I am sure that these women will make their mark on this industry just as we have done with every other scene we have broken into. I am not saying that women on this side of the business is new, just noticing an up swell of new webmasters who are women, with fresh approaches and ideas outside of the norm for this business.

Now, lest you think it’s just me, a women, who thinks that we are making changes in porn, check out this quote from Wired Magazine’s sex and technology columnist, Regina Lynn: “The [adult] industry must follow the trends and produce new technology to keep up with the teenagers [as they become adults], and it must learn how to market to them. It also must market to women more.” That’s from an article by Bianca Fox published in the AVN Online publication for Internext. I happened to be having a conversation about just that at the bar at the Westin with Becky of HarcoreHotel.com so visit her site if you want to see the application of this advice. She worked with PointerAdvertising and Vittoria Erotica to create a site that appeals directly to the gamer in each of us, and makes a safe place for all your hardcore fantasies, but keeps them separate.

Another observation from this event came from getting to know more guys who pioneered the age of internet porn. It seems like a lot of people made bank and didn’t have to work as hard as a webmaster does today to make it. I heard lots of stories of how easy it was back then. Now, maybe these are fish tales, but I think everyone would agree that the challenges today are a bit greater today than 10 years ago. The fact that booth space on the expo floor was only half full and there used to be two rooms filled with vendors is evidence of something different.

One thing that they did not have to deal with was 2257. As I spoke to guys thinking of getting into the game and doing their research, a lot of them are taking a wait and see approach until after December when the proposed regulations are expected to become final. I think that’s a huge mistake because you can’t know when they will be final, so you set yourself up to postpone your success indefinitely. You can make a lot of money between now and then with blogs and affiliate programs that don’t require you to invest anything. The chances of being investigated as an affiliate are pretty slim, and it’s unclear if affiliates are even considered secondary content producers. If the person who shoots it and gets it to market is a primary content producer, and retail distributor like GameLink.com is a secondary content producer, aren’t affiliates of that program tertiary content producers?

It might be a bad time to start a teen membership site, but the threat of the new 2257 regulation as proposed last month actually provides business opportunities for the new webmaster to exploit. Since compliance with those rules could all but shut down TGP site owners, alternatives such as blogs and other systems that use feeds are even more attractive alternatives you can use to grab some of that traffic now.

If you are going to be a successful webmaster you must not only be able to weather change, but take advantage of it. From starting a business that offers solutions to 2257 compliance challenges, to innovating ways to make the required changes to sites, or

Also, the late adoption of of web 2.0 technologies for adult site marketing provides an incredible opportunity. Why not use this time to build traffic sources and email lists that you can trade, sell or monetize if you decide to get out of it.

GameLink.com made some great connections there with webmasters and new friends, including the crews of MayorsMoney.com, JuicyBucks.com, 12clicks, PornWeek.com, and Lady-sonia.com. Thanks to Mark and Flan at AdultChamber.com for sharing your booth space with us, and to sexy sexy Diamond of DiamonOnCam.com who also shared with them and us….I even got my booty on her members webcam show so that would be my official cam debut We are excited to work with all whom we met and partied with. See you at our next webmaster conference, (leave a comment here if you plan to attend) WYPD Mexico 2007!