Offshore Adult Sites Reaping Huge Profits in China

[BanFilth]

Offshore Adult Sites Reaping Huge Profits in China

http://www.xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=23726

BEIJING — Officials here have announced that Chinese-language offshore adult sites are making a huge profit, especially in comparison to local sites that do not offer variety of content or video.
Director of the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center (CIIRC) Li Jiaming said it would not be easy to shut down overseas sites. It is estimated that more than 60 percent of the adult Internet sites being viewed in China are hosted overseas and beyond the range of government controls. Though the site operators are often located in China, they are not easy to track down.

With more than 450,000 complaints about potentially illegal websites received by the CIIRC, half of those are related to pornography. The CIIRC has persuaded more than 4,000 domestic websites to ban links to the overseas porn sites, Li told local media.

Chinese Internet users pay to access the porn sites using Chinese online prepayment services similar to PayPal. The government is attempting to block sources of income to online content providers by asking China's online payment-system operators to review sales account applications more carefully.

Internet pornography is illegal in China and the announcement comes as part of an ongoing campaign by China’s Ministry of Public Security to censor Internet usage. Launched in April, the campaign uses elaborate filters and human monitoring to censor and control access to websites that the government deems sensitive or inappropriate.

It also comes on the heels of a Reuters article on China’s recent move to block access to the popular photo-hosting site Flickr.com after photos from the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre were found posted there.

[emjay]

With over 1.3 billion inhabitants, about one-fifth of the world's population, China is the world’s most populous nation and is experiencing exponential growth in practically all areas – including internet usage. Some 137m people, about 10% of the overall population, are already online, and this figure is expected to grow rapidly in the next few years – making it arguably the world’s most attractive market in the long term.

The sheer size and potential afforded by this vast market are simply too big to ignore. One study recently concluded that China is already the world’s largest consumer of (offline) porn.

When it comes to online, your entire business model will need to be adjusted to accommodate the unique characteristics of this market.

For starters, porn is technically illegal in China. The Chinese authorities do their best to censor the internet, a task which can never be realised due to its organic growth. To check if you have been blocked, go to www.greatfirewallofchina.org – if so, Chinese surfers are taken to a decidedly unsexy page of the “Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture”.

Despite a growing Internet-savvy middle class, online purchases in China have been slow to take off with traditional payment systems. Credit card-based payment systems that succeeded in North America and Europe have proven ineffective in China, where credit card usage remains low. Even more important than credit card penetration rates, is the issue of trust between buyers and sellers in a business environment where personal relationships and cash-based transactions have served as the traditional means of securing and settling a deal.

Furthermore, wages in China are low. A white collar Manager can expect to earn about $500 a month. Thus, selling a $29.90 monthly credit card subscription to him is futile on two counts : It is very unlikely he has one and even if he did, the subscription would represent an enormous proportion of his overall disposable income.

Clearly, cash is not suitable for web transactions. However, there is one payment device that practically all Chinese have access to – the phone. Indeed, cellphone penetration in China is beginning to rival those of more developed markets.

Since the payouts available via such billing are less, you simply give them less time. After all, a monthly subscription usually equates to about a cost of about a dollar a day. So give them (say) 24 hours access if they pay you this way.

Another important consideration is that of language. Only about a quarter of Chinese learn English at high school, so it is imperative that you communicate with your new prospective clients in a language they understand – theirs!

Your phone processor should be able to provide you with geo-ip tools that will enable you to easily accomplish this. If not, you should consider switching to one that does.

Then, and only then, can you start to make money “made in China”

[ScreaM]

^^^ Nice post emjay.

[Comrade]

wow, I wish I spoke chinese so that I could promote some of those sites!

[Dupont]

Very insightful article,

[emjay]

Originally Posted by ScreaM

^^^ Nice post emjay.

Thanks ScreaM ;-) For further info about making money in Asia, you can check out the podcast of our mainstream site here : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/01/prweb494800.htm

[cool1]

very interesting, a good thing to know, thanks

[alpha_male]

well online porn is famous everywhere but having 1/5 of worlds population china is counted before any one else.

[galvatron79]

I read somewhere a porn website operator got life in prison for his website. I think it was either in China or Japan.

[shimmy]

i'm blocked by the china firewall