You have forever tied the reputation and business of Justin.tv to porn. It doesn't matter if you host it or not, it doesn't matter if you warn users, you are forever associated with a market that millions of advertisers, investors, and users are adverse to. The TechCrunch porn article is already beginning to appear in search results - how long until any search for your website has articles about you and porn on it? And how long will casual users watch until they bounce?
It screams desperation because it isn't a business model, it's a stop-gap. The streaming video websites, including you, have yet to prove that you can make sustainable revenues that trump costs, which is the point of every business on the planet.
Once you realize that you've tarnished the reputation of Justin.tv forever and that it will create an artificial barrier to growth, it will be too late.
Over 30 million people come to the site or view JTV embeds every month. I don't think the community will disappear because of any one news story. We've had our fair share of bad press, but I'll be the first to say it's not the end of the world and that today's sensational news will be forgotten when the next story hits.
Lots of people inside the tech industry don't get it, but Justin.tv is bigger than Techcrunch, gets more pageviews than Digg, does about as many video streams per month as Hulu, and is largely used by people outside the tech sector who neither know nor care about the politics of Silicon Valley. Those people are gamers, music fans, and social networkers from all around the world; they like the site for what it is and for the service it provides, not for how it is portrayed in the media.
Lastly, this isn't a monetization method. If it was, we'd remove it from the site because it doesn't really make any money. What it does do is serve as a tarpit for users searching for content that doesn't have a place on our site. And ultimately we've found that in conjunction with our other community moderation tools, we've significantly reduced abuse incidences on the site. Which is a win for our community.
I think it is a fine strategy. WW.com does much the same thing, has been doing that for years and we think it is one of our better gimmicks, to get our 'abusers' to fund the site for your 'users'.
It functions as an escape valve for an element that you will attract anyway, no matter how much work you put into keeping things clean.
Your observation about the news is spot on, we once had a guy hang himself on camera before we caught on to what was happening, lots of bad press, angry letters from users and so on, within 5 days of the event things were back to normal. Still one of the most shocking experiences in my career.
>You have forever tied the reputation and business of Justin.tv to porn.
So sensational. What percentage of users are even aware of this feature?
>It screams desperation because it isn't a business model, it's a stop-gap.
That's a straw man argument. No one said it's a business model.
>Once you realize that you've tarnished the reputation of Justin.tv forever
Now that's hyperbole. While you're certainly entitled to your own opinion don't you think you're overreacting a little? What would your reaction be if they actually had porn on their site?
