Content management systems (CMS) have come a long way since their roots as photo library maintenance tools, to encompass sophisticated presentational schemes uniquely tailored to the needs of adult websites. While CMS once focused on a handful of formats, the rise of mobile devices, each of which may have specific display capabilities (such as iOS’ lack of Flash support), requires multiple formats, bitrates and other custom tweaks.
Fortunately, a selection of solutions exists for bringing adult sites into the mobile age.
Delivering adult digital content to today’s wide range of featureand Smartphones, tablets and more traditional platforms, is eased by using a robust CMS.
According to the company, Mansion Productions’ powerhouse Members Area System — MAS for short — (www.mansionproductions.com/mas/) is state-of-the-art software that was designed to automate the creation and support of adult pay sites via a convenient online interface. It also allows mobile pay sites to be set up without any special add-ons.
“A mobile site (whether a tour, a members’ area or both) is implemented in a similar fashion as is any other site,” Mansion Productions’ Ross told XBIZ. “But it uses a different pack of templates — either completely different or just scaled-down versions of the main site, sharing the same content.”
Ross says that the average webmaster with a basic knowledge of HTML should be able to configure the mobile site’s templates to show only content files that are optimized for mobile devices; but if a client requires it, Mansion Productions’ experienced support team is able to help with design and implementation.
“The benefit of building the mobile site as a standalone site in the CMS is that each site can offer exclusive designs and features, while following the theme and the features displayed on the main desktop site,” Ross explained. “This level of flexibility cannot be achieved by using a standard module or a third party service that renders content using common templates for all clients, using only a different logo and color scheme.”
MAS offers built-in tools for dynamically resizing hires images to lower resolutions, if needed; while its video transcoding module can encode clips to mobilefriendly bitrates and resolutions, making the process of mobile content preparation easy.
Another handy feature allows webmasters to automatically redirect mobile devices based on their reported user-agent — sending visitors to the appropriate website version simply by inserting a provided piece of code into the site’s header file.
“In our opinion, serving mobile content is of the ultimate importance today,” Ross stated, adding, “Most of our clients are either offering a complete mobile friendly version of their websites, or at least they have a streaming and downloadable video option that is optimized for mobile devices.”
Ross says that while mobile optimization was initially only seen for Smartphones, there are an increasing number of customers who provide different versions for phones as well as for tablets, in addition to the full desktop versions of their sites.
One deployment differentiator is the type of video being used. “FLV was the most common video format just a couple years ago, but with Apple’s decision that ‘iDevices’ will not support Flash, almost all pay site owners switched over to H.264 MPEG-4,” Ross told XBIZ. “Requests to upgrade embedded video players (e.g. JW Player, although not part of MAS) to a newer version that defaults to HTML5 mode on mobile devices; and a movement back from using the rtmp:// streaming protocol (another technology not supported by the iPhone and iPad) to HTTP pseudo-streaming, are becoming more frequent.”
Ross also notes the trend in pay site redesigns (especially members’ areas) to make them more touchscreen friendly; boasting bigger buttons, lots of free space around links and other elements, and simplified navigation.
“All site owners who care about maximizing revenues should take steps to make their content easily accessible to the mobile crowd,” Ross concluded. “This is a market that is not to be missed and the need to serve it is still growing; even as today’s top-of-the-line mobile devices and their fast Internet connections allow for vastly improved access to the standard desktop versions of sites and content.”
Elevated X (www.elevatedx.com) CEO AJ Hall agrees, telling XBIZ that the use of mobile phones has become so commonplace, that if a site isn’t mobile compatible now, then it is already a couple of years behind the times…
“For a growing number of consumers, a large amount of shopping and entertainment is happening through mobile devices. This will only increase with time,” Hall stated. “This change in behavior and our online habits brings with it a new set of expectations — we almost automatically assume that any website we like will be viewable on our phone, and we’re disappointed when it’s not.”
The Elevated X CMS will generate sites that provide customers with the same high quality viewing experience on an iPad as they receive on their Mac or PC, using built-in iPad detection to deliver the proper video format, straight to the user’s tablet.
Hall says that mobilizing will help keep adult businesses competitive and thriving —and that many site owners are surprised to find that once they announce mobile versions of their websites, there is an increase in their number of mobile visitors. Hall also notes that giving customers what they want and what they expect means making smart use of new technology; and that staying current is important for online businesses.
“A site that’s up to date with current trends, methods and technology has a standard version that works on a PC and Mac and is able to serve embedded video via HTML5 for iPad users,” Hall explains. “An up-todate site also has a separate version with mobile-compatible content and a presentation specifically designed for mobile devices, primarily the most popular Smartphones.”
Elevated X will automatically convert videos into Flash, MOV, MPG, and WMV; with h.264 for iPad, plus 3GP and MP4 for iPod, iPhone, Droid and other mobile devices — as well as produce screen captures, cut video clips and more — all with a single click; making it easy to provide content across the most popular formats.
It also allows webmasters to easily target Apple’s advanced Retina displays.
“Modern consumers want to choose how they access a site, be it on their computer, tablet or mobile phone,” Hall concluded. “Giving them more choices means more sales.”
More choice is what adult video provider AdultCentro (AC) is all about; boasting an advanced content service that can be used with CMS’ including Elevated X and MAS, or configured as a standalone offer.
“Today more then ever, it is incredibly important to be mobile-ready, as traffic momentum is shifting from desktops to mobile, with incredible velocity,” AdultCentro CEO Stan D’Aman told XBIZ. “If this trend stays true, in a few short years the majority of the traffic will be mobile rather than PC-based.”
On the forefront of the leased adult mobile content trend, AdultCentro has supported mobile options from the launch of its groundbreaking platform, but despite this, D’Aman says, “it is amazing that so many website owners still do not make their websites mobile, and leave so much on the table.”
AdultCentro offers fully mobile-compatible content for leasing through AC Publisher (publisher.adultcentro.com/tour_mobile), among services including content licensing for mobile specific rights — both on-deck and over-the-top (Internet) — available through the AC Marketplace (market.adultcentro.com).
“Creating a mobile website for handsets and the iPad during the process of creating a regular website takes literally one click, as you just check a box which creates a mobile version of the same website you created for the web,” D’Aman explains. “Webmasters can of course create just a mobile website, using either AC Publisher’s leased content — or with the webmasters’ own content, using AC Cloud (cloud.adultcentro.com).”
D’Aman also gave XBIZ a glimpse into the future, where AdultCentro’s premier billing platform, CentroBill.com, will integrate mobile specific billing in multiple regions — with easy signup and account creation — leveraging billing flexibility as an integrated part of the whole AC system and eliminating any excuses for not going mobile.
While many other options exist, including the use of a mainstream-oriented CMS, or the popular WordPress platform, or other freely available Open Source tools; the targeted feature sets, robust scalability, mission-critical stability and support offered by dedicated adult-oriented CMS make them invaluable: and the more grandiose your planned empire, the more vital they are to its success.
Take a good look at these offerings and choose the best fit for your operation — they each provide excellent content management solutions for mobile adult websites.
