Well I would work on my posting style. A thumbs up when two people had opposing views and were just having a discussion, it appears as you are being condescending and want the conversation to end there. If you truly didn't see that (which i doubt), atleast its a tip for the future. :1orglaugh

I would leave thumbs up's out of all discussions with opposing views :2 cents:

You think because i think youre insulted, that implies that they were supposed to be? :1orglaugh interesting logic. i figured you were insulted due to your condescending response and no further questions or comments even though it was a topic you cared enough about to post, and seemed to not share the same opinion so i expected you to discuss it more in detail

lets leave it at that though. if you want to talk more about the topic at hand, ill respond

i'm on vacation and have been replying on my phone all day. No sigs on my phone so i had no clue what you ran. Now that i've got on my comp i see your sites.

You are a very sensitive person I take it?? You two were having a good back and forth, and then you leap into your cycle mode. Even when explained you read far to much into it.

Anyway continue a good thread with good thoughts on all sides.

i'm on vacation and have been replying on my phone all day. No sigs on my phone so i had no clue what you ran. Hence why i asked twice. Now that i've got on my comp i see your sites.

Lol my replies were short because i was on my phone. Hate typing long shit on my phone. You just happened to be posting your thoughts when i was in no position to reply long form.

Thanks for the advice on how to post but to be fair i think my posting style has worked ok for the past 15 years. I think i'll stick with :thumbsup:thumbsup

Pseudonymous now that I see your sites (or the ones you sold). They look great. Do you feel you incorporate most of the ideas and feedback you share with others? Or do you find it harder to implement them yourself?

lol given its shap, i feel like alot of people are going to be the white knight riding in. All i asked was if he was insulted considering his post seemed like it, and whether or not i think thats what he meant by it , doesn't matter, i dont care. lol do you see my flaming him? somebody who is sensitive does not continue to discuss the facts at hand

I dont incorporate them all myself, due to resources, niche limitations and what makes the most sense financially. for example, does it make the most sense to spend your time on doing one thing perfect or a greater expansion of your brand (more sites?) given my sites ran at 90 percent of their capabilities, i didnt' care enough. Given solo's limitation (small market), a site can only reach a certain level, if youre near that level, you move on. however then you run out of time, running that many sites. At that point, you decide if you want to expand and try to find people who can help/you can train (which is harder than one might think in this industry) or you can get into a larger market where one site has a greater ceiling, one site can go alot further

Every site not ran by a large company will have areas it can improve on, its time/profit. Could i make the poses/ composition/ etc better, could i offer zips, could i make multiple tours/landing pages, you name it, the list goes on, everybody could. But it just doesn't make sense to most of the time

Whoa new domain! Dat compliance... :pimp

Agreed. I find it's far easier to give advice than to actually do it yourself.

I think your sites look nice but they are super soft. Given how knowledgeable you are about what sells and where there are gaps in the market why go solo?

It's true, on an iPhone you can't see signatures in the posts :2 cents::2 cents:

:winkwink: Clearly makes me look stupid for asking repeatedly for something that was there

He's always had a good eye for solo girls that sell and finds them. Also I'd venture its low overhead/risk and provides a pretty good return on investment given the risks. Lower ceiling of course.

They are super soft for many reasons, to give some insight to people wanting to get into solo.

More graphic girls make more, however a more graphic model who is hot and graphic is much more rare. A girl that isn't super hot can fail or do great, depending on alot of things. So there are many routes you can do, only work with more grahic girls and either have some failures and the odd one that succeeds or only work with the hot graphic girls and end up only launching a site every 1-3 years.

I focus on profit, not return on investment. I can launch 5-10 solo softcore girls if i wanted, and all would return an investmetn, sure i spend more, but i make more. Point is, it makes more sense to launch 5 softcore girls in a shorter period of time than 3 more graphic girls over a longer period of time

Quantity has almost always beat quality in this industry, i consider my choice of path "quantity", however given my ability as a producer and experience with marketing, i am able to maintain pretty good quality while doing so. EPC (epicpandacash), they focus on quality.

Reason I didn't go into hardcore is capital. I was forced into going into this with a small budget that only gave me enough to launch a single site, since then , all of the sites were launched on the profit of the existing sites, with no further outside investments

Now hardcore is an option

Sadly I am late to the party

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

That's all it's about. Who cares if the site looks pretty, looks shitty or looks boring?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Test, test, test. Whatever makes you the most coin, stop there. Rinse, repeat.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Would I rather have great content or massive amounts of traffic?

Agreed. MYFreeCams is perfect example

I disagree, there is little to no need for testing when you have an eye for content models and what sells. Testing is for people who haven't gone through testing or simply do not have the eye.

Some people have it, some dont. Some need to do alot more testing than others.

However when you get to become large enough, alot of testing has to happen because you can no longer be in charge of everything, you need to rely on workers and you cannot justify spending that much for somebody with that type of eye in every department/area of your business. So I guess with that side, you are right. However to reach that first level of success, i dont think much testing is needed

You may be late to the party but in 2001 when I was starting to build Twistys I was told I was late to the party. It's never too late if you have the right product.

Oh of course, I try to tell everybody that. But raising enough for a blacked.com type site off a single solo site, yeah, its not the same as just coming in with capital into 2015. If you have the capital, getting in is easy at anytime if you do things right, making that type of capital post tube era from a small investment, much much harder

Agreed. Are you a photographer and web guy? Or Web guy with the eye and you find the photographer?

Both, hence why there is room for improvement with my sites. Its a tough balancing act when you get to that many paysites. Updating my sites and making promo when i finished a 12 hour shoot day (while in another country) is tough

Yep. So how do we get you to launch the next big thing?

:1orglaugh This isnt a thread to discuss me. I was simply giving you my two cents when it came to the original question.. And i only went further into my situation as it related to the original topic (time management) Why are you trying to lead the direction towards myself? I already gave my opinions on where most sites are lacking. Why would you care when or if i launch a successful new site? I love how passive aggressive you are. lol

How about posting some sites that you personally think should be doing 'alot' better, and I can post some. You named a few large companies who produced good content still but you didn't specify if you thought they should be doing alot better? I mean areas where they coudl optimize a few things isn't the same as being capable of doing alot better

Most people come to Shap for advice, he's very generous with it, you've effectively gone to sit on Father Christmas' lap, refused his presents and now you're acting confused as to why he's offering them to you

I think you are either too full of yourself (having such a good eye you don't need testing) or have worked in such a small niche (solo girls) that you are blinded as to the value of testing. The type of testing I am talking about is the ONLY way to improve conversions, period. No one knows everything, and often you can make a tiny change you think will not affect sales and see a positive (or negative) result. A-B testing is the only surefire way to know what is working and what isn't.

Small sites can benefit most from this sort of testing. Get a simple A-B script and split test small changes to Tours. It works wonders. That's why when people make suggestions I have either tried/tested them or am willing to before making a final judgment.

I am talking marketing/selling here, not content creation. An artist will know what to do onset but marketing/selling is FAR different than creating compelling content. A good salesman can sell snow to an eskimo.

I am not talking about a/b testing having no effect, i never said that it can't be a big part of marketing. I am suggesting a/b testing will not usually be the reason you reach a successful level or not if you have a great product (unless you happen to just be on that line), somebody with a lesser product, its going to be much more needed to profit. this is no different than in sports, somebody with less natural ability has to put in less effort and time. this is just how it is.

a/b testing is a bonus. content is king. you can succeed with great content and little marketing (and still maintain a higher ceiling), while on the other hand, you are extremely limited with a poor product and more often than not, will simply fail, even with alot of marketing experience

i was only disagreeing with the part that its all about testing. it is not. there has been plenty of successful sites to do well without a ton of a/b testing

I can literally give you a long list to back up my opinion, of websites that are ran by large companies that fail. Is it because they dont know a/b testing? Definitely not. most sites do not fail due to a/b testing

but i'd welcome to throw around some websites names and dig deeper into it, willing to listen to any reasonable argument

Content is clearly not king. Marketing meets traffic is king. The "reason" many sites from big companies fail is because of the traffic that big company has accumulated and is not using effectively.

See, that's the thing about "traffic". You need a lot of it - but not TOO much of it. Otherwise you reach saturation levels, which is what has happened to many big companies (the Brazzers and MoFos of the world). These companies have the resources to blast ad buys, traffic buys, social marketing, tubes, the entire gamut of traffic possibilities. And believe me, they BLAST IT. But when people see the same content, or same type of niches, suddenly everywhere they make quick judgments. Either they LOVE IT or HATE IT and that new "big" site dies (or succeeds) quickly. Building traffic step-by-step, once the norm in Adult, is now harder and harder to do.

So the smaller sites need more and the big sites have too much. LOL Sure the big boys A-B test but when you are promoting the next big thing on nearly every large adult traffic site on Earth you get your answers pretty quick. It would be interesting to hear how big a bath some big companies have taken on their next big paysite project. If they would tell, of course (they won't).

this whole portion of your post is supporting what i'm trying to explain to you. they have the money and marketing ability but because their saturation levels are high and they are not able to figure out that they cannot use the same sources for content, same method for creating content, etc and achieve similar success

its not even about marketing as a whole, nevermind a/b testing specifically.

and that last comment about they either love it or hate it, i hear alot of people say this type of thing, and in every case, its just because they dont realize why. Things are not a coincidence, there is a reason why people iwll not like something or why they will like it, its not a hit or miss thing.. its not luck

every site that has failed, there are specific reasons for this. every site thats succeded, there is a reason. and those things are more obvious to some than others. im generally speaking, not referring to you or me

this is why large companies continue to fail with websites

i can give you a list of websites ran by people who didn't have long history of marketing experience and did no a/b testing, how many can you name with lousy content that is big, that launched in modern era? think its safe to say content is the most important thing now. especially given the platform that is now the current standard of promotion

when people refer to content being king, its said to be king because its the most important thing, the most vital. not because its all you need.

I remember the first time i saw porn site (back in 1998) i was looking at Veronika Zemanova for hours :-)

As an affiliate who pushes mostly amateur stuff there isn't much I see that is great or even good content.

The last good site I remember was Money Talks, which was fantastic for its time but wouldn't do well if it was conceived and launched these days.

It's been years since I've been excited about anything new.

Great thread guys.... makes me think back to when i had this:

Succes is never a coincidence... failure neither...

in my sig...

I think Nubile Films is the gold standard at the moment. Hottest girls with a wider range of niche in that they are glamour, lesbian, ffm and hardcore.

I do not remember Brazzers ever doing well for affiliates. imo.

On topic: I always thought Viv Thomas had amazing content. Ruseful(?) blew up Lesbea which is close in style and type so you would think they have the same potential. And having said this, maybe they are huge and I don't know it.

Then another site that has amazing content, but soft, is "In the Crack." I know they had a run but that is a site with tons of great stuff.

I'm starting to like The Porn Nerd.

:)

Carry on..interesting read ...

:)

What a GREAT quote!

You've made many bold comments here indicating how nobody here is doing it right and how you know how to do it better. So logically the next question is how do we get you in the space/place where you've created that next big thing. In my opinion that's an interesting discussion. Dare I say that is an even more interesting conversation than a debate to whether metart content is great or not.

imho Kelly Madison and her husband are making the best content right now at PornFidelity and TeenFidelity. The best.

I agree. Viv and In The Crack are both great examples imo. They don't have mass appeal to a hardcore market. But they are high quality content that really caters to their market well and isn't overly marketed.

I think that is maybe where I went wrong with my original post. I didn't mean Great content as Great content is very subjective. But good content that caters to a specific niche but hasn't been properly marketed. Using a past question by Arock as an example. The femdom niche doesn't need to be filmed by the most talented photographer/videographer in the world. But the content itself needs to have the right elements to reach the niche and really sell and satisfy the customer base.

Amazing how long and how far they've taken that site/business.

He's one of the best posters on the site! :2 cents:

Content is king.
Traffic is queen.

In our time serving the kingdom of Homegrownia we have seen our Queen rule, be deposed, get divorced, lose her head, bare several offspring, have affairs, and be prone to fickleness and folly as much as she has been faithful and constant. Luckily for us and the great and loyal subjects we call our fans, our King has stood strong and ruled with a very steady hand and a loving heart.

I would say that we could be doing way better than we are doing but we are doing way better than many others because our ability to adapt to change has been a factor in keeping us solvent and relevant.

The once and future Homegrown shall always and forevermore endure and prosper.

Long Live Homegrown!

Shap, we will be happy to roll out the red carpet if you ever want to discuss the affairs of State or any other diplomatic and mercantile opportunities...

Thanks!

I know this isn't your "Want Constructive Feedback?" - thread...
But if you have time and will to look at my sites (see sig) i'm interested in what you have to say about them.

Thanks...

Wil do :)

Why so combative?

Also the girls of today of that standard know a porn career, doing softcore porn, is a weeks work, with nothing else. They're best off keeping to straight "glamour" work. Leaving the field open for those with Russian girls who won't get the chance.

Also the tour is kind of flat.

I haven't seen the train of a thread derail so slowly and surely over such a small bump of misunderstanding since the heydey of the AmateurMasters.com board era. :2 cents:

FarL!!! How are you doing?

Howdy!

Still moving and groovin', duckin' and weaving... bumpin' and grinding... :winkwink:

I think Homegrown fits the bill of the original post btw. We continue to have some of the best retention I know of in the industry. Have more authentic, exclusive amateur truly user submitted content than any site out there. A great brand that does well across all channels, on and offline, but I know we should have way more members, more traffic, more whale affiliates, etc., than we do currently. We test. We revise. We adapt and we even innovate every now and again when we get lucky.

But I know we could be doing a lot better.

We have outlasted many others but I know we should be way bigger than we are and it chafes at the very fiber of my soul that we are not pulling way bigger numbers than we are. I am happy to discuss it with you and everyone else in the thread or off the board if it intrigues you at all enough to carry on the conversation.

brazzers ????????

Actually logically the next question would be, how do you propose people do it better, why do you think this site has failed, why is this one a success, finding out what makes me have such a strong opinion on something that you disagree with to see the other side. Only asking when you can make room for the next big thing sounds condescending. perhaps ill use your method in further conversations on here and show you the results ;)

I want to deeper into this conversation regarding what is quality and why some are missing the easy steps that allow a company to grow in 2015, however you seem to not respond to anything regarding the topic at hand and you seem to be listening and not giving your own personal input.

Ill attempt to anyway..

How many sites have been successful in the past 5 years? Grew to become large (to be more specific). I assume you think its just hard to reach that level and the ones doing it have something others dont? Are they lucky? Whats your opinion on what separates them? well lets compare ones that have fallen short vs ones that have reached success. We could compare the differences.

If you think people have been doing it right, which is what you implied when you suggested my remarks as bold, then i would be interested in some lists from you so I can show you that its not exactly a bold remark