XBiz has added a social networking element to its 8th annual awards show in February.
People’s Choice honors will go to the performers and companies that get enough fans to click on special XBiz links on their websites. The categories (“powered” by XFanz, the company’s fan portal) include Female Porn Star of the Year, Male Porn Star of the Year, Best New Starlet of the Year, Porn Studio of the Year, Porn Director of the Year, Feature Movie of the Year, Gonzo Movie of the Year, Porn Parody of the Year, Web Babe of the Year, and Porn Site of the Year, which I will win.
These categories are in addition to the adult-Internet-related awards chosen by XBiz staff.
People often ask me, “Grams, what is the difference between AVN and XBiz?”
The answer used to be clear: XBiz excelled in the realm of the adult Internet, where love of technology trumped porn fandom, and AVN dominated in print and face-to-face interaction (such as conventions). AVN long held an advantage due to its seniority and name recognition, but XBiz benefited from the older company’s complacency and bloatedness.
Aiming first at what he knew, webmaster Alec Helmy founded XBiz in 1996 to take on AVNOnline, then in a heat with a magazine called Klixxx to cater to the online adult world. XBiz.com was immediately a threat, as Helmy actually knew the comparatively underserved adult webmaster community, which didn’t have as many ties to the “video side” (as it is called) as you might think; like two hemispheres of the same nudity-oriented brain, porn’s online and tangible media worlds were culturally different, with introverts vs. extroverts, new media vs. old, and the types of guys who would venture out to feel the bracing air of adult bookstores vs. the kind who didn’t leave the warm CRT glow of their basements except for webmaster conventions.
Of course I exaggerate, but not much.
It is also reductive – but not much – to say that XBiz does AVN’s ideas better than AVN, but founders when coming up with ideas of its own.
As XBiz chipped away at AVN’s market share, it first capitalized on its essential otherness to the recognized giant; its ad prices were lower, its reporters were eager to hear the stories of elderly pornographers who had long ago worn out their welcomes at AVN, and its youth and AVN’s own example allowed it to avoid AVN’s pitfalls; it was a scaleable, streamlined, humble but hungry organization.
But, as Lao Tzu said, “How can one topple AVN without becoming AVN?”
Both the economic downturn and the basic porniness of the two organizations took their toll in 2008 and 2009, as each company shed staff and slashed salaries of existing employees.
There is no more telling a sign of AVN and XBiz displacing equal water in the same bathtub as when, after being told that money was tight, employees of both companies arrived at work this past summer to find expensive new cars in executive parking spaces.
(“I’m just saying,” one former XBizzer said.
“Are you surprised?” one former AVN staffer said.)
So AVN has scaled down and XBiz has stopped expanding. But it is impossible to say if the bottom or a stasis point has been reached in the fortunes of the two companies.
The only thing that is clear is that XBiz has incorporated a much more manageable video module into its Internet-flavored awards and it has one-upped the FAME Awards fan-favorite model by making it easier for performers to pimp themselves.
XBiz will hold its XBiz LA Conference at the Sofitel Hotel across from the Beverly Center from February 9-11, and its Awards will take place February 10 at Hollywood’s Avalon nightclub, five miles away. Yu can nominate this site by clicking on the image at right.
But now that XBiz at least shares the same woes as its aged competitor, what’s next for the adolescent company?
Three words: Black History Month.
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: 7-year itch; Porn Valley Signage- which is real?; Making money at the 2009 XBiz Summer Forum; Cui Boner or – AVN is like a Rolling Stone
See also: Voting Begins for First-Ever People’s Choice Awards Powered by XFANZ.com
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