The moral of Monty Python's Parrot Sketch.

[Paul Markham]

It's not hard to see, yet few here see a "dead parrot: when someone is selling them.



The moral is simple. Don't buy something on what a glib salesman, conman or someone throwing mud at the wall tells you. And more importantly don't believe his bullshit when it doesn't work.

A few years back, Barry was trying to sell me the benefits of opening a webcam studio. Now why would a successful live cam operator want me. Who is thought to be broke, failed and doesn't know squat, open a webcam studio for him or with him?

Was he just another snake oil salesman selling a elixir that's a big gamble of it working. OR letting me into a pot of gold?

Pot of gold option tells me there would be no shortage of cam studios. Or models.

Big gamble option. Then why is he asking me who will do nothing but fuck up and cause him problems?

Truth is he's just slinging mud at the wall hopig something will stick. While asking people to invest time and a lot of money into a something he won't invest anythig other than a promise of traffic. IF IT WORKS TO HIS BENEFIT.

I used to get lots of them offering me "partnerships" which amounted to us giving them loads of content for a slice after costs. They would tell us how great our content was, how well they could sell it, how much we would make and how easy it would be. A few times in the beginning I let them. Photorama, Scarlett content, Steve Easton, John Copeland all brokered my content and made us money. All contacts from offline porn.

Online guys I did the same with came back with the same excuses, your content doesn't sell. So why can I and these guys sell it. And more importantly, why did you tell me it would? Just another guy selling dead parrot.

And Barry's by no means the only "dead parrot" salesman here. We get them all the time telling us this is best year ever and you should send them traffic.

Tube guys telling us they have tons of traffic and sponsors should but an advert or give them more videos. Marketing guys telling us they can do wonders for our sites.

So the next time someone offers you a pot of gold. Ask yourself, is it a snake oil salesman selling me a dead parrot?

Odds are it is.

[Paul Markham]

I was reminded of this scene watching others trying to sell the idea of Gamification to sell more porn.

"This porn is crap, bereft of life, no good, it made my hard on pass on and you should sack the maker."

"Ah yes but lovely gamification."