"We bill the World"... looking good so far. But then you read on and when it comes down to the nitty gritty: "comes in 5 languages".
I apologize for singling out goodthinxxx because they aren't guilty of anything most of the others claiming international solutions are not equally guilty of. I just happened to check them out on the back of this post.
More pet peeves. Having told you how important the market is and how many millions of dollars they pay out each month, is it really too much to expect some foreign-language promo material, especially some basic text suggestions.
How about the operators with sites that have dozens of niches giving you at least a clue which of their sites tend to work best for which countries. I'm damn sure the majority of Italians don't have the same tastes as German surfers, most of whom in turn don't buy the same porn as the average US visitor.
Geo-redirection/targeting anyone?
Before someone points out that I can get my own translations done, hook up my own IP tracking software and spend the next year testing each market, I know that. I'm already working on it.
It just seems like incredibly bad business for companies that are serious about pulling webmasters into this arena, not to be providing these facilities. A few webmasters will have enough faith in the non-english market to tackle it properly (although if they did, how many would opt for a dialer-only solution?), but the vast majority will either go at it half-assed or not at all. Their loss for sure, but in total a much bigger loss for the companies that want their business.
It is very hard to escape the conclusion that with a very few exceptions - sexmoney.com being one that comes to mind - these "international" businesses are the exact same kind of high-cost dialer operations that thrived when CJ sites were at their peak. The only difference is their sites are now dressed up in more respectable clothes.