From canada.com: The talk in the Montreal hotel conference room was of lawyers, marketing and work-life balance. Then Malezia walked in wearing five-inch heels and little else. The 50 attendees, mostly men, quietly crowded around a corner of the room, where she modeled, titillated and exposed herself for videographer Colin Rowntree.
As he filmed, Rowntree offered pointers. Get your Web site name in the shot. Use aerial angles. Don't film as you're zooming - pause, zoom, then shoot. Two minutes later, Rowntree sat at a computer and demonstrated the art of making a Web movie. "You don't have to be very precise," said Rowntree, who runs a Massachusetts-based bondage and fetish site. "We're not going to Cannes with this."
Rowntree's hands-on training session was the most popular yesterday, Day 1 of Cybernet Expo. The three-day event has brought 500 Internet porn merchants and wanna-bes to Montreal, an industry hub. Most are from the United States, with some from as far away as Britain and France.
John Kopanas, a 25-year-old Montreal software engineer, paid the $205 admission charge to get some tips. He is planning his first site, one that combines online dating with explicit movies. "We're going to make fantasies a reality," said Kopanas, whose nascent company plans to bring together strangers with similar fantasies, film them having sex, then charge surfers to watch.
Engineering jobs were an option, Kopanas said, but "if you choose a job that you're not passionate about, it's not going to work out - not that I have a passion for porn." He was seeking an intense career in which he could explore his artistic side and develop marketing skills.
Wearing a skin-tight, sleeveless, black undershirt, Angel, one of the rare women in the audience, wouldn't give a last name to a reporter, but she handed over a business card. It featured a bare-breasted picture of herself, with a slogan: "Pull out a camera and I'll get naked."
"I'm a swinger and people have been taking pictures of me for years and putting them online," said Angel, a Toronto nurse with two kids. "Why should other people make money using my pictures? I want to do it myself and earn a living." Her rudimentary site, launched two months ago, features nine free pictures of Angel, some of which show her having sex. To get more, visitors must pay $24.95 U.S. a month.
"I may take a year's sabbatical to see how far I can take it," said Angel, a New Brunswick native. She was front and centre at the hour-long discussion for those new to the industry. Panel member Michael Plant, a Montreal Web designer who has built hundreds of adult sites for others, told Webmasters they have 30 seconds to grab surfers.
"Don't go trashy," he warned. "Give enough to arouse but don't give too much. Otherwise, the guy comes to the site, does what he has to do, then goes away."
Eric Matis, a porn entrepreneur since 1998, told conference-goers many new arrivals become obsessed with the business, working up to 17 hours a day.
"This is a job like anything else," he said. "There are other things in your life, like family and friends. Remember, personal lives are important." Even adult Webmasters should stop and smell the roses: "Take a step back and evaluate where we are in the business and our lives."
Webmasters were also warned to get a good lawyer and keep paperwork proving all models are over 18, a requirement for sites operating in the United States. "We're not trenchcoat- wearing anonymous people putting 14-year-old girls online - that's a tiny minority," said Jay Kopita, editor of an industry newsletter.
Still, "one of the best investments a Webmaster will make is hiring a lawyer. Even if content is legal, they can end up in jail."
Thanks to such legal hassles, as well as free content and an influx of players expecting easy cash, online porn is not the cash cow it once was, said Fay Sharp, the Indiana-based organizer of Cybernet Expo. "It's hard work; there's a lot of competition," Sharp said. But there are still business opportunities, Kopita added.
"Don't let anybody tell you there's no room for new players. We're still in our infancy. New people are going online every day around the world."
you
<<inline: 14585cd.jpg>>
