2008, its challenges, opportunities, personalities and powerhouses, have weighed heavily on my mind over the past two weeks; as we worked to bring together the December issue of XBIZ World magazine — and with it, our special Year in Review section.

As part of that process, I reviewed all the news we featured during the year; an enormous concentrated pile of data which revealed some interesting industry insights — while more brightly illuminating others. It wasn't like any of the information was new; it was being able to see it all within the context of the larger picture — in a way that cumulative daily data doses don't allow. The end result is a clearer view of where we are and where we're likely to be going, based upon where we've been.

But the past is done — and now I'm focused on the future. Let me give you a sneak peek:

Piracy and prosecutions; tube sites and 2257; the death of the DVD — these issues are nothing in comparison to the impact of the economy on adult entertainment operators. Sorry guys, but the old saying that "porn is a recession-proof industry" was only true in the good old days before we decided to give it all away for free.

Sure, folks still want to get off, but with lower levels of discretionary income, the search for free porn will intensify; driving subscription and PPV sales lower. And for those that thought they'd just make open member's areas and use an ad-based revenue model — have you run the numbers or sought any advertisers lately? Web-based advertising is measurable, and many companies are being smarter about placement — and cautious about spending.

While the little guy, including the solo operator and the smallest of shops, through drive, creativity, diligence and the ability to decisively turn their operations on a dime, will still be able to survive — and even thrive — by being flexible and adaptive; some larger, more cumbersome operations, especially those plagued by weak leadership, are doomed. And in this latter category, I place many adult webmaster affiliate programs.

Why? It goes back to the economy: with fewer prospects, all savvier about their choices and their entertainment expenses, it only makes sense that they will increasingly gravitate towards the brands. For example, how will you, as a marginally profitable affiliate program operator, hope to compete with a monster such as that recently created when Private Media, possessing one of the world's largest and highest quality content libraries, acquired adult giant Gamelink with its sophisticated delivery expertise and infrastructure?

Sure, I'll wait for an answer — but the clock is ticking and that's the problem…

It's like the evolution of Las Vegas, where with the exception of a few nostalgic holdouts, the old "mom and pop" operations were swallowed by the corporate mega-brands and the landscape was changed forever.

As an example of the type of smaller operator that I see having a real chance at survival, I talked to a guy yesterday that was quite pleased with himself for launching his first paysite — and for, even at this stage in the game, finding a brand new niche. And yes, he even launched a new affiliate program to promote the site and scored on the order of 150 niche-related domains to keep would-be competitors at arms-length. Some folks consider that to be crazy in today's economy and challenging market — but this guy is no noob — he is an experienced adult affiliate with a pretty wide range of products, knowledge and experience. And like a lot of other traditional affiliates, is developing products to better self-monetize his traffic flow. I think he'll do ok with this project and I hope that in a few months he'll lift the veil of secrecy and share some of his learning experiences with us.

But that takes a lot of talent and luck; and for many, it would be easier and smarter, to sell out.

"So," says the little guy, "I'll spend the next year making myself an irresistible target for acquisition and sell out!" That's a great idea, but the implications for those that remain are worsened by that trend; since it's an opportunity for shady operators to buy and build networks to dilute their chargeback ratios and then run abusive cross-sell programs — burning a lot of people that might have otherwise been paying customers for many of us.

I'll predict now that VISA will step in with an outright ban on pre-checked cross-sales in the near future; and for some of the companies that went on program buying sprees with this business model in mind, cash flow is going to plunge. But that reality will only speed up the abuse and increase the shadiness, I fear.

So what about the big guys? One need only look to a mega-brand like Playboy to see the difficulties faced by even the most well-known names in the business. But having said that, these companies have the resources to eventually "figure it out" and to remain viable in the process; with their continual consolidation and expertise-building giving the online adult industry something it's never really had before — a barrier to entry.

Or should I say "a barrier to profitability" — since it's not any harder to enter the biz today than it was a decade ago (and maybe a lot easier) — but it's certainly a lot harder to make a buck.

Of course there are many other factors impacting the adult entertainment business; and its woes and opportunities are not the result of any one issue, but a combination of all of them.

Given all this, I see great opportunities along with great challenges in the year ahead, but on the other side of 2009, I see a stronger, more professional and thriving industry — for those that can adapt to these changes. It may be a smaller industry, but I think it'll be a better one — I hope to see you there.

For web designers trying to create virtual properties that are all things to all people, an area of increasing challenge is to serve the needs of users that access these properties by using all manners of devices; from traditional home and laptop computers; to TV set-top boxes and other so-called "Internet appliances;" iPhones; PSPs and other mobile devices.

Faced with this myriad of platforms and diversity of display sizes (the viewport), the use of a predictable, fixed-width design is becoming increasingly problematic. However, the use of a purely fluid design that expands and contracts without limits, trying to fill the screen regardless of its size (or lack of size), is also problematic; leaving the frustrated web designer with a choice between two imperfect solutions.

Enter the hybrid web design, which incorporates the page-filling benefits of a 100 percent width fluid design, with the consistency of layout and predictability of appearance that fixed width designs are noted for. What the hybrid design does is allow webmasters to specify a minimum as well as a maximum website width; using predefined content block sizes to ensure a consistently predictable design.

A case in point is one of my old text-link only TGPs that I've been revamping to try and increase its incoming traffic and affiliate stream profitability. One step I've taken is that the site no longer accepts outside gallery submissions and now features softcore thumbs (not covered by 18 USC 2256 and thus not triggering a '2257 labeling requirement) that point to my sponsor's free-hosted photo galleries.

As part of this evolution, I re-imagined my TGP as a hybrid site that combines a TGP with an RSS-fed blog; plus elements of a review site; FPA and exit console combined. The site would retain its role as both a generator of incoming niche traffic — and exit destination for other sites to send targeted traffic to. All that was left was architecture.

During this rebuild, I took a different approach to designing the site; dropping my eternal insistence on building it with a 768px fixed width — and rather than simply upping it to 960px to better accommodate the majority of my visitors, I dropped the minimum design width through the floor; producing a hybrid fixed/fluid width XHTML/CSS-driven website designed for a 480px wide viewport that would perfectly suit Sony PSP and Apple iPhone users, along with MSN TV / set-top box and IPTV users.

But I didn't forget the masses of desktop users; especially those with widescreen displays that are not as often catered to as they may like. My W3C-compliant design stretches its thumb table to fill your viewport, so that it looks "full and beautiful" — not only on my PSP, but on my 1920x1200 desktop: Indeed, I have two such monitors and dragged the browser window across both for a 3840x1200 view of the site and it still looked great!

But to try and provide the most consistent user experience, you need to establish some limits: so I've capped the site's maximum width at 1680px; which provides room for the main content block plus as many thumbnail rows with up to 10 thumbs (120x180) across as I want — giving a nice, full display on most large screen monitors — but still offering a manageable size for a gracefully-degrading design.

As a webmaster with a bit of experience in testing and resolving cross-browser / platform compatibility issues, I have to say that once upon a time, the user experience of this site would have required multiple websites; each targeting a different screen size / browser / platform — as well as a lot of extra code — and I've not yet seen another site (adult or otherwise) that is as flexible at delivering a similar user experience to so many viewers at once, purely via CSS and a little scripting.

In many ways, I'm quite pleased with this new template and its overall approach; and once I finish fine-tuning it, I'll port it over to my other TGP to similarly update it as well.

And speaking of fine-tuning, the granularity of the display size can also be increased, so that the 480px "main block" could be composed of 240px sub-blocks, or even a 120px minimum width that would dramatically open up the mobile display options without sacrificing the attractiveness and usability of the site on a hi-resolution desktop display!

It all might sound pretty complicated or even downright confusing, but the visual effect and impact of the design is pretty cool — although you'll have to take my word for it, as I'm not going to spare you some development time by just handing you a link to copy…

At the end of the day, it could pay handsome dividends to accommodate all users with a readily adaptable, highly flexible and easily accessible design — regardless of how, when or where they try to access it. Taking a hybrid fixed/fluid design approach is the first step.

If you're trying to make a living in online adult entertainment, or for that matter, in any facet of adult entertainment, you've probably noticed that times are getting tough for a lot of folks — and the situation for some operators will likely get worse.

But for some operators, things will get better...

Innovative operators focused on being long-term survivors, can take a broader view of their operations and then develop products and strategies that merge familiar territory with new ground; in an effort to diversify, stabilize and increase their revenue streams.

According to a recent XBIZ News report, SugarDVD and SugarVOD are adding cult classic mainstream titles to their library, including "Reefer Madness," "Night of the Living Dead," "Forbidden Zone," Sherlock Holmes titles featuring Basil Rathbone and classic footage of the Three Stooges and Abbott and Costello.

"We're working diligently to cover all our bases as far as content is concerned," Content Manager Justin Brand said. "We feel that these classic titles that everyone has seen or heard about will resonate greatly with our customer base."

And resonate it does. I myself am a classic film fan, and in fact have a collection of "Sherlock Holmes titles featuring Basil Rathbone." I grew up with The Three Stooges (including several New Year's Eve marathons in Boston), and have always enjoyed "Reefer Madness." Add in some classic Brit TV with "Dr. Who" and "Fawlty Towers" episodes and you've hit my demographic square-on.

But what has any of this to do with porn?

Nothing: but it has an awful lot to do with "adult entertainment" in its broadest sense — and more specifically with successfully maximizing the revenue-per-visitor of each and every viewer of your website — and in today's online adult entertainment arena, that will take a new level of creativity and moving beyond the old business models and practices.

It will also take an increasingly narrowly-focused, but broadly-applied, approach to developing and marketing micro-niche content: Narrowly-focused, in that we're not talking about "Teen" as a niche, for example, but "blonde teens with pink panties and red-spiked high-heel's popping balloons while smoking." Broadly-applied in that those that can profitably produce such content will need to also produce "blonde teens with pink panties and gold-spiked high-heel's popping balloons while smoking cigars," too.

The ultimate extension of all this however is the custom production market; where true "video on demand" is the name of the game.

This is an area in which the solo-girls (and guys) have an advantage; in that they are familiar with types of quick-turnaround, low-budget productions that can be profitably produced based upon member requests — and they enjoy the double benefit of being paid to produce the content, and in most cases, able to repurpose it for use on their websites.

Even established operators in the adult video arena see the evolving market conditions and the type of operator that may best navigate these sea changes.

Ernest Greene recently wrote in his XBIZ Column, Behind Every Director Is A Hard-on, that "More and more, especially in the gonzo and niche-market categories, the spoils go to the one-man operations in which a single individual with a strong sense of what needs making corrals the elements, runs the camera, does the cutting, designs the packaging, signs off on everything and builds a sturdy audience for future releases."

And that's what it all comes down to: "building a sturdy audience for future releases" — whether those releases involve DVDs or other video platforms; website updates and new micro-niche website offerings; or something entirely different — as long as your targeted market is anticipating what you'll offer them next — and are prepared to purchase it.

But getting your operation into that desirable position will require taking a broader view.

With the online adult entertainment industry constantly in a state of quick and persistent evolution, it is vital for operators to engage in continuing education to stay on top of the latest trends and information.

While the time, effort and dedication that this requires is a daunting task for full-timers; those who work in the industry on a part-time basis face even more of a challenge; as do those returning to the industry after an often prolonged absence (it's amazing what rising fuel prices will do to the Internet's website inventory).

Add to this collection of knowledge-seekers a continuing expansion into our ranks from the more traditional adult marketing channels such as video and print — and you have what I like to call "the new newbies."

These aren't what we often (or used to) think of as newbies — young, dumb, broke and dreaming of pussy and overnight millions; despite knowing nothing of this (or any other) business and having no money to invest or any sort of business plan beyond 'big pimpin.'

No. Some of these new newbies have been quite successfully working in adult for decades — but are now struggling to understand what running an affiliate program entails. Others have been dominating the online space; but faced with dwindling subscription sales are looking at physical distribution and wondering how to get their product on store shelves.

Doubtless both camps need to evolve in these new directions in order to survive, but I can't help but think about the web guys saying "nobody joins anymore;" while the video guys shake their heads at web guys going offline and think "don't these guys understand that nobody buys DVDs anymore?"

I personally think there's enough wishful thinking and "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" mentality in the process to go around, but the true reality is that convergence is here and it's going to take some learning if operators are going to survive — because it won't be as simple as "hey, we could sell more videos if we had a website!" or "hey, we should put our web content on DVD!" or, "Let's go mobile!"

And then there are the retreads: folks that for one reason or another "left porn" and now for one reason or another have returned. You see them posting on the boards; old friends and familiar faces coming by to give it another go...

Maybe their sites are still up and after some period of neglect and declining profitability are in need of an overhaul; or maybe their sites are no longer online and either need to be rebuilt or replaced — in any case, what may have worked even one or two years ago may not work today, so these folks, despite whatever knowledge and experience they might have once had, are now among the new newbies.

As for me, I've been poking an old website and trying some new approaches, techniques and technologies. While old school webmastering can provide a solid foundation, there are an extended array of issues and minutiae to modern web presence creation that can drown a solo operator in a sea of data. Thank God for Google and the W3C — boons to us noobs...

Many operators are faced with satisfying impossible demands without having the proper resources available to them. Sometimes the difference between success and failure comes from "the missing ingredient" — that little tip, trick or tidbit of information that provided the key to solving a particular problem. Trust XBIZ to be your source for the hands-on information you need, and regardless of how long you've been a newbie, you'll be on the right road to profit.

Got a problem, business issue or confusing area of operation that's making you feel like a real newbie? Post your comments below and we'll try to address it at XBIZ!

I've just returned from the highly successful XBIZ Summer Forum in Las Vegas and I have to say that I have a renewed sense of optimism and enthusiasm for the future of the adult entertainment industry.

I had many enjoyable, enlightening (and occasionally naughty) conversations in Vegas; discussing the current state of the industry and its likely paths into the future, along with some of the challenges and opportunities that it entails — and I found many of the stories I heard inspiring.

What struck me most was the fierce determination of some of these players to not give in to the mounting pressures of today's marketplace and the escalating demands on both company and personal resources that can eat profitability — and destroy the very nature of the business that drew many of us to the industry in the first place.

These guys aren't just looking to be survivors; they have a plan for success and are using it: one old friend used the phrase "entrenchment" to describe his current operation — staying focused on core strengths and optimizing his infrastructure rather than starting new ventures.

This attitude of "riding out the storm" was expressed by a few folks; many of whom are now looking at renewing existing projects in an attempt to improve the profitability of their previous efforts while providing new opportunities for future sales.

Things aren't over for part-time operators and the lone webmaster / affiliate, either.

Personally, I just received an email notification of a $40 PPS sale that fell out of the sky from a TGP text link that I posted more than three years ago; so I know that there's still a few dollars left to be made in adult — And with today's rising gas prices, a few more dollars here and there can make a big difference at the end of the month; so expect to see some old faces returning to the biz — something that we already see happening on our message boards.

At the end of the day, competing today is all about creativity and refocusing proven techniques into much more profitable consumer-driven products — and for some of us this will mean "teaching an old dog new tricks..."

Stay tuned for more…

This month's Trend Watch will examine the increasing use of advanced analytics tools to develop a more robust understanding of the factors influencing adult business operations.

While a mainstay of the mainstream business world, such in-depth analysis within the adult industry has been typically limited to larger corporations that can devote many of the required resources, including staffing and infrastructure, to the task.

It has also been the province of some of the most tightly run "one man band" operations where data security and sharing access to competitive intelligence are less of an issue.

But it wasn't porn, per se, that got me thinking about this — it was a manhunt.

While delving deep into a Google Analytics report the other day, I heard a CNN story on a "secret war" being conducted in Iran, where U.S. special operations personnel are now spying on Iran's nuclear facilities; purportedly gaining intelligence prior to a preemptive strike against the country's WMD capabilities.

"Big deal," I thought to myself: there's nothing new about spying and every country has intelligence gathering assets that contribute their individual bits of information into the big picture that is only revealed by analysts who can connect the dots.

The thought reminded me of "The Death Star" — as it was known by those that were involved with it — a three-dimensional, global, graphical representation of the links between Saddam Hussein and his known associates; with the former Iraqi leader at the center of the sphere and every tie to him located somewhere on the chart. The closer the connection to Hussein, the closer the data point to the center, which was as you might have guessed, the bull's eye.

It was as serious a graph as you'll ever come across…

Data was fed into The Death Star by countless sources around the world: from basic street-level intelligence gathered in Baghdad and elsewhere within Iraq, to tips from foreign agencies; and it was then chewed upon by banks of computers and analysts united in a common goal — to kill or capture the world's most wanted man.

Without The Death Star, processing this much material in a meaningful way would have been a far more daunting task than it already was; but through the advanced visualization of complex datasets, Hussein's hunters were able to gain insights and conclusions they might not otherwise have come to in regards to the leader on the lam's whereabouts.

While I'm not suggesting that adult operators are engaged in such a literal life-or-death struggle, or that they have the resources to duplicate the combined efforts of the free world's most innovative thinkers; but that we all can benefit from drilling more deeply into the data that we have, or can acquire, and visualize it in more meaningful ways.

One easy example of this is the aforementioned Google Analytics, which provide a vast number of ways in which website performance data can be visualized and evaluated; such as the goal funnel visualizations which I find do a great job of "bringing home" the impact of design changes on a website's traffic flow.

Sure, knowing whether 90 percent or 70 percent of a page's traffic makes it through the next link is easy enough to see as a simple text representation; but graphically showing the sizes, percentages, paths and other aspects of traffic flow, can unite a viewer's "left and right brain" to deliver a more creative and comprehensive view of the data — and the more complicated that dataset, the more beneficial advanced visualization is.

Of course, it is the depth and breadth of the underlying information that makes the data useful, so gathering it in the first place is the foundation to any program of analysis and this collection of information comes in increasingly useful and accessible ways.

For example, many operators study the search engine keywords that lead surfers to their site, but do they as diligently study what visitors that actually use their site are seeking?

Personally, I'll be installing an internal search engine on one of my text link-based TGPs — not just because I want to make it easier for my site's visitors to get off on the free porn they desire, but because I want to analyze the search logs to see what they were after, in hopes that it will help me to fine-tune my approach by making more relevant offers.

While the resulting dataset from this effort will likely never be displayed as more than a long list of search terms, it will provide many more dots for me to connect and give more insight to other datasets that I am evaluating — developing a fuller picture of where the site is today — and where it is likely to go in the future.

Regardless of the size of your operation, the gathering of information and the advanced visualization of datasets is a vital component of continued growth and a necessary step in your efforts to "connect the dots" — and the development of the technology behind these processes is a trend worth watching.

There is a limit to what one man or woman can do by themselves: Across many fields of endeavor, the efforts of the collective are needed in order to achieve the desired results — and the larger and more complex the undertaking, the more people are needed to succeed.

A case point is an event that occurred on May 25, when after a 423 million mile journey away from Earth, NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission entered an exciting new phase; with its lander spacecraft gently touching down on the surface of the red planet.

I watched the event unfold live on the Science Channel — scanning the telemetry that signaled each successful step throughout the lander's process of entering the Martian atmosphere; deploying its parachute and then finally its retro-rockets, as the spindly craft settled to the ground in preparation for its mission of drilling deep into the alien planet in search of water — the foundation of life here on earth — and possibly elsewhere, too.

This is very big stuff which represents a decade of commitment on the part of the many scientists, engineers, flight officers and support staff that were responsible for making it happen — and as I watched the professional, tense faces in the "Star Trek"-like control room periodically flash looks of relief and even elation as the mission milestones rolled by like clockwork, then witnessed the joy of the 800 team members and their families that were gathered to share in this long-awaited day; I realized that the outcome could have easily been quite different.

Rather than joy and the celebration of a huge achievement in their multi-billion dollar enterprise; sadness and disappointment could have easily reigned, as a flaming dream came crashing to the ground.

All it would have taken for this outcome to have prevailed is for just one person to have let the team down by not doing his or her best to address the inevitable problems that come with all great undertakings.

But that's not what happened here: everyone involved came together and worked towards a common goal — struggling against seemingly insurmountable odds and conquering one obstacle after another until a success was achieved that all citizens of humanity can be extremely proud of.

Of course, you expect rocket scientists to be smart enough to do the right thing; but what about pornographers? Are we all smart enough to do the right thing and work with each other towards a common goal?

As I look at our terrestrial landscape, I see our enemies rejoicing in their recent victories against Karen Fletcher and her "Red Rose" text-only website; Max Hardcore's defeat and other high-profile trials that are still underway; as prosecutors and politicians smell blood in the water and move in to feed.

Some operators (whether they financially support these groups or not) feel that leaving the protection of our industry to the various organizations that seek to accomplish this goal is adequate to ensure our longevity.

Indeed, the efforts that ASACP has expended in Washington lobbying on our behalf and producing Public Service Announcements featuring Stormy Daniels that promote the use of the industry-developed RTA website label that prevents children from accessing adult websites, is having a major positive effect on legislators and other entities.

But sometimes it takes more than an ad — it takes action; and not just on the part of an organization, but on the part of the collective, working together towards a common goal.

This is one of those times; as the DOJ is now proposing to change '2257 once again, this time amending the "record-keeping, labeling, and inspection requirements to implement provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 that require producers of depictions of simulated sexually explicit conduct to maintain records documenting that performers in those depictions are at least 18 years of age. The rule also implements provisions of the Adam Walsh Act that create a certification regime for the exemption of producers, in certain circumstances, from those requirements and from similar requirements for producers of visual depictions of the lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a person."

While you'll need to discuss how these changes may impact your operation with your own attorney, you do have the opportunity to let your feelings on the subject be known to the Justice Department — which does read, consider and address these comments.

You can submit your relevant comments online by visiting www.regulations.gov and entering "Docket No. CRM 105" in the "comment or submission" search box — you have until August 5th to do your part and work towards a common goal.

Together, we can accomplish great things.

Recently, Washington Post military correspondent Tom Ricks reported on the problem of a "porno virus" being spread by both American and Iraqi military personnel that have obtained and are now trading illegally copied DVDs – a situation which I briefly expanded upon in an XBIZ News story entitled "Is Bootleg Porn Threatening National Security?"

When covering malicious software attacks of any kind, it's important to strike a balance between covering the facts of the story without revealing details that might be useful to budding hackers — and this piece was no exception — and while I don't want to give bad ideas to the wrong people, it's important that these threats be identified so that they can be addressed and resolved.

Having said that, there's an additional dimension to the story that I'd like to share with you here, which deals with the issue of content piracy, as I reprint below the comment I left about Ricks' piece on the Washington Post website:

"This is an example of the widespread and diverse nature of the problems resulting from the illegal duplication and dissemination of copyrighted intellectual property — in this case, adult entertainment.

While the financial impact of piracy and content theft on the legitimate adult entertainment industry is conservatively estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars annually, the security threat posed by the rampant trade in unauthorized DVDs and the malicious payloads these bootleg materials may carry, such as Trojans, key loggers and other malware that could gain access to, and transmit to its creators, sensitive information with direct military value, is incalculable.

The price of copyright violation and content theft can indeed be greater than a simple financial loss for the material's producers. In this case, it can cost lives.

This isn't a "porn" issue; it's one of theft and national security.

When America's fighting soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are not allowed to purchase legitimate, licensed adult entertainment materials on-base, this situation is bound to occur — and the consequences might be disastrous."

###

While the industry struggles with the impact of piracy on our bottom lines, it's important for us to remember that there are other, far more important costs to this digital scourage.

It's no secret that some of America's largest corporations profit directly from adult entertainment offerings, including those made through hotel pay-per-view services – despite ongoing public protests from various faith-based organizations and special interest groups.

Typically targeting the lonely business traveler or other guest looking for a way to unwind at the end of the day, these premium adult video services, though historically profitable, may be facing increasingly hard times – and an increasingly uncertain future.

Indeed, many of the same market forces that are impacting both the physical and virtual distribution channels are also affecting the consumption of in-room erotica; much to the detriment of profits and chagrin of corporate defenders who may no longer have a very compelling reason to ignore the cries of the enemies of free speech and consumer choice.

While accurate figures are hard to come by as adult PPV figures are rarely broken out of overall "guest services" on publicly available financial reports, anecdotal evidence of a downward usage trend can be found in a "Question of the Day" that was recently posed by technology website Gizmodo which asked its readers "Hotel Porn Or Bring-It-Yourself Porn?"

According to the Gizmodo website, "…in this day and age, with iPods and portable media players and laptops and portable hard drives, what kind of person still orders hotel porn? It's expensive, slightly embarrassing ('Ma'am, I have never even heard of Dirt Pipe Milkshakes'), and unhygienic (think of who touched those remotes before you). So we pose the question to you, our faithful readers. Do you enjoy hotel porn, or do you bring a sack lunch?"

At the time of this writing, 407 respondents accounting for 10.6 percent of the vote stated that they preferred to view hotel erotica, while 3440 respondents accounting for around 89.4 percent of the vote preferred to bring their own porn on the road with them.

There were also over 85 comments, many of which expressed similar sentiments, such as this example posted by "AZTriGuy" who is not a fan of the hotel's watered-down fare: "First off, with this day and age of YouPorn and others, who even needs to pay for porn these days? That and the hotel stuff is always somewhat censored and expensive as hell."

The widespread availability of in-room Wi-Fi or wired broadband access and its resultant doorway to the mountains of free porn on the Internet was frequently cited as a reason why hotel services were being eschewed.

While certainly not a scientific sample, there were a decent number of responses, with this data being compiled within around 24 hours of the poll going live.

The bottom line is simple: fewer people are seeing the need to pay for porn; whether it's at home or on the road – and it's no longer just "the little guys" that are being hurt...

I want to tell you a little story about the huge menace posed by the relentless advance of technology and the demands of 'keeping up' that it poses on smaller operators without the benefit of IT departments and other timely, qualified, on-site assistance.

Yep, I'm having computer problems again and I want it to serve as a lesson to you all…

You see, my lovely wife Dawn just bought a fancy new widescreen Dell laptop running Windows Vista and I'm giving her a hand in transferring the files from her old laptop on to the new one. The problem is that I tried to take the "easy" way out.

Vista supports a feature known as Windows Easy Transfer, which according to its website, "helps you to easily move the files and settings stored on your PC running Windows 2000, Windows XP, or even Windows Vista to a new PC running Windows Vista. Windows Easy Transfer will automatically transfer things like: user accounts; files and folders; e-mail messages, settings, and contacts; photos, music, and videos; Windows settings; program data files and settings; Internet settings … let Windows Easy Transfer do the work for you."

It sounded good and I went to BestBuy to pick up an "Easy Transfer cable" – a special connector that uses a USB port – and easily connected the two laptops together.

Perhaps I should have known better and investigated the advanced options more closely, but the on-screen prompts had recommended that I stick with the default settings and transfer everything – all I needed to do was push the button – Heck, Microsoft knows more about its software than I do, so I pushed the button like it said.

Yeah, I know; be careful what you ask for…

I won't get into the litany of problems I created for the new laptop (and my network), but suffice it to say I went looking for the "undo" option, only to find out that there isn't one – and worse yet, I wasn't able to successfully return to any previous restores point on the new box in an effort to return it to its original configuration.

I'm now slowly working through the issues and making sure my sweetie is able to work with her new system as efficiently as she did with her old one – and I seriously regret having used the "Easy Transfer" process.

Googling for solutions reveals that I'm not alone in this, so if you find yourself needing to transfer your old files to your new Vista box and thinking "how can I make this all go easier?" – I know an option you should be very careful about trying!