Internext 2018 Kicks Off in Vegas

LAS VEGAS—Graham Collie may have summed up the theme of the 2018 Internext Expo best on the first full day of activities Saturday afternoon at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. “A big focus of this year is education,” said Collie, the sales manager for the Montreal-based heavyweight TrafficJunky. “Educating people on market changes. Educating people on changes in legislation and educating people on where they can get their best bang for their buck.” TrafficJunky, along with sister companies AdultForce and AgeID, are the presenting sponsors of the 18th annual Internext Expo that warmed up quickly during the energetic Meet Market in Festival Hall of Hard Rock’s Paradise Tower. “Our objective here is to let everyone who’s buying traffic know there are two tiers of traffic—there’s everyone else’s and then there’s Pornhub traffic,” Collie said. “We’re an ad network, but we’re really an exclusive ad network because we’re not trying to take up every single person’s site. “Our main focus is on advertising our internal sites. It’s really about quality control and it’s insuring that everyone gets quality users that can help them convert.” David Cooke, who traveled from London to Vegas this weekend, is the Director for AgeId, which is Mindgeek’s wide-ranging age-verification solution designed to address one of this weekend’s most pressing topics—the looming UK Digital Economy Act that takes effect in April. “We are the most widely used solution, with all of the Mindgeek sites,” Cooke said. “What we want to get across is how many age verification methods we have. … We have a seamless experience, from advertisers to affiliates to website operators. Once a person is registered you can go everywhere with AgeID. You don’t have to re-enter passwords or re-enter details.” Studio 20 founder Mugur Frunzetti brought the largest team he’s ever taken to Internext this year. “This is always a good show for us and this year we have a much bigger presence than last year,” Frunzetti said. Based in Bucharest, Romania, Frunzetti brought several of the top models from his fast growing live cam franchise to Hard Rock, where three days of networking, seminars and parties will highlight the largest adult webmaster conference in North America. The affable entrepreneur, who launched Studio 20 in 2013 and now has franchise locations in Europe, South America and the United States, said that America represents the future of the brand. “It’s a different market in the US and we needed some time to get the LA studio running pretty well,” Frunzetti said. “Now we’re getting ready to expand and probably next year we’re going to open more places in the US. My plan is by 2020 the US might become the biggest market for us. Now I am exploring with my wife the idea of moving to the US. I think the US has a lot to offer the cam industry.” Frunzetti, who has a half dozen studios in Romania, brought seasoned models such as Ava Mystique, Madellene Ray and Sasha Red to the Meet Market, which this year was sponsored by Studio 20. Jimmy James, the vice president of ATK and founder of Huge Ape, made the trip to Internext “to network with new faces, meet new people and try to get new affiliates to promote our sites.” “There’s still a lot of business out there on the affiliate side, but also we have a lot of traffic from our pay-sites,” James told AVN. “We’ve never sold any of our traffic and it’s all organic traffic. This is the first time we’re really looking.” In March he'll move his Huge Ape headquarters into a sprawling new space in Irvine, Calif., where the offices will include amenities such as a foosball table, pool table, and several outdoor working spaces in an effort to improve the wellness of his staff. “I started Huge Ape around 12 years ago as an affiliate marketing team and we just expanded into management consulting and started various ventures, joint ventures and partnerships,” he said. “Employees have to like where they work. You want to keep happy people on track and recruit the right people, too.” Meanwhile German adult star Texas Patti and her partner—director Patrick Mirror Man—returned to Internext this year with new goals in mind. “For me it’s great to be here again,” said Texas Patti, who is the face of Germany's Beate Uhse TV. “It’s my second time. The first time I was here it was an adventure. We don’t know anyone and we don’t know what we have to do. The second time it’s not so stressful. We know the people. We know where we have to go. We know what’s going on here, the parties and what we have to go to. “And here the Internext is for Patrick and me to take a look around. It’s the same like the [European] Summit for us to meet new people and connect with other people for maybe productions or something like this, to produce also here in the United States.” Texas Patti, known for stars & stripes fashion statements, received three nominations for AVN Fan Awards this year, including Most Epic Ass. Elsewhere around the show floor, Jimmy “Wizzo” Foreman, the Houston-based independent publisher consultant for JuicyAds, has been coming to Internext since Day 1—literally. “I”ve been to all of them,” Wizzo said. “I started in ’97.” One of Internext's featured panelists at 11 a.m. Monday at the anticipated “Masters of Traffic” panel, Wizzo said he’s making the rounds “looking for people who want to buy traffic and to find other ways to work with people.” He’s also especially interested in the hot topics of age verification and cryptocurrency this year—both of which are themes of separate seminars on Sunday as the robust educational track gets underway. Meanwhile, Bako Kaye, the CEO of Etology, said he was looking for new publishers this week while he spreads the word about his firm's latest technical upgrades. “We’ve been working on the technology for three years,” Kaye said. “We built the technology in house to optimize and monetize traffic.” The porn content side also was represented by veteran studio owner Steven Grooby, the head of transgender powerhouse Grooby Productions and Grooby.com who made the trip to Vegas to “re-establish relationships and focus on 2018.” Without question, the tastiest part of this year’s Meet Market was what was happening at the ImLive/PussyCash booth, where two chefs made crepes for attendees who wanted a snack. “We’re cooking delicious, sexy live crepes,” said Pussycash exec Carole Wood. “Because it was so popular last year—everyone adored it—we had to do it again.” As the afternoon turned to evening, attendees prepared for the Internext and GayVN Welcome Party, sponsored by Paxum, Eroiy.io, Men.com and BCHomestead.com at the Paradise Penthouse. Pictured from left: Michelle, Candi & Texas Patti