XBiz Awards: short and full of snacks

The 4th annual XBiz Awards were held last night at the Key Club on the Sunset Strip.

Recognizing excellence in things like affiliate programs, mobile content, and billing solutions, the awards often appeared to have been beamed from another planet where everyone had a goatee and the trophy escorts looked a little taller than the honorees.

Awards host Jim Henley began screaming at the audience early, exhorting us to make some noise for third-party solutions providers, and the handful of studio representatives in attendance shuffled awkwardly, wondering what a third party solutions provider was and why that man kept yelling.

But it did not look like a pretend awards show like AVN often does. It had better snacks than the AVN awards often do, and they were freely passed around. There were free drinks. And more people paid attention than at the XRCO Awards. Like the XRCO’s, Jenna Jameson was awarded yet another honor not for her girl-on-girl proficiency but for her business acumen. It is interesting to watch the transition happening.

I syndicate part of this blog on XBiz, but I do not work in the XBiz offices on the corner of Wilshire and Highland, nor was I involved in the nominating process. So I asked a couple of XBiz staffers about how a company goes about being nominated for and getting an XBiz Award. “It’s all on the up and up,” one said. “The judging is impartial,” another said.

“I asked you the process; I didn’t ask if it was illegal.”

Like the Internet, most of the presenters realized quickly what worked and what didn’t, and adjusted accordingly. It was a short show with 18 awards and a few more special recognition trophies. As a prelude to the big Las Vegas adult convention in January, it was educational: don’t wear a suit coat to Las Vegas – it gets really hot.

Many presenters spoke as if they were typing on message boards – slightly hostile. Mike Lensman of GFY.com mentioned his company’s affiliation with Playboy just “in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last four months.”

The standard uniform for guys was a suit with an open collar for shorter men and a Hawaiian shirt for the huskier fellows. Non-porn women wore after-work bachelorette party attire. There were few porn stars in attendance, but as most honorees talked about making money, it was clear that the content was peripheral.

The Best-Dressed award, as usual, went to Halcyon Styn and Tassie, who alone in the room represented a vision of the web that was undeniably positive. And they’re making money, too, so they prove the alternative is possible.

In the spirit of the evening, I kept jumping into Lurk Ford‘s shots so I could help monetize his click-throughs.

There is something desperately self-congratulatory in the fabric of all adult biz awards shows, but there were also a number of true believers present last night who were able to convey their feelings earnestly. I also liked the various iBill jokes.

And I can never get enough of white guys in pimp outfits saying things like, “Looks like there’s a lot of playaz in this piece.”