I have a hard time seeing how any of those would convert these days. They're alright but to get a surfer to take out his wallet the content has to be exceptional or micro niche oriented, that is ALSO not widely available on tubes.

SimonScans is one site I always thought should be much bigger for sure. Love the content.

Great post!

You got that right. They seem to go mostly unnoticed by the industry. But they are producing some of the best porn out there right now (and have been for the last few years).

I just looked at all the sites listed in the previous post, read Mutt's comments about the costs of producing good amateur content, and I note the speculations about what makes Ruseful's content so successful.

Here are my thoughts:

Most of that content is actually quite generic and not really that compelling. Unless the surfer connects specifically with a particular model, then they can find similar content on plenty of sites, notably tube sites - for free.

Good authentic amateur content is not about high production costs. I would put that type of stuff that Mutt gets with his photographer, which I personally love the quality - excellent models and great photography, in another class, but I would not call it amateur. Great amateur content is about the "x-factor" in the sincerity of the interaction. Period. You all don't know how many companies and programs I have watched go out of biz over the years trying to prove otherwise.

Ruseful studies trends. He does his homework. Tests. Finds what works. Then replicates effectively and consistently. He uses the tubes better than any program I know so saying "but it is all over the tubes" doesn't really apply when you set up the join funnels as smartly as he does.

good post.But in a nutshell what you have said , is the key is...Traffic. ;)

begin rambling thought...

He knows how to put those most eyes possible on it and maximise it. OCDly analyses ALL data. He is a master of traffic.

imho , it is the old adage.. Great product , gets 100k unique sells @ 1 in 100 , gets 1000 joins...Mediocre content...gets 500k unique sells at 1 in 250 gets 2000 joins....and additionally gets better known.You know which scenario I want.

Join ratios are great excuse to feel better about smaller wires.

And also..knowing your niche.

You may remember "heather" from the boards? Bit umm eccentric..rest her soul. When I had my real amateur wife site doing well , I pissed with her over her criticism regarding lighting make up photography quality etc. She could not understand that this site was supposed to be "real" amateur pics taken , say, at the end of a drunken date night with..the surfers did not want to see perfectly lit etc etc...that was a give away it was not "real" amateur porn.

I had the same problem with designers in 2000 putting women on our amateur pages with fake boobs...they did not get it..so know your niche.

And with the utmost respect, for years now when homegrown has cropped up in conversations I have always thought "that site should have been massive". Great great content imho..and good people.

/ramble

Nice read

Thanks! From someone with your experience and success no higher compliment could be paid. (Even with the sting of hearing and knowing we should be way bigger...:Oh crap)

We have had that fight for years, but the first major lesson I learned when we took over Homegrown was not to base decisions on what I personally liked, but what the customer feedback and response demanded.

True story... we had a bunch of submitted videos that we had no clue what to do with, or what to title it, and finally we said "fuck it" and put it out and called it like we saw it. The title was "Oversexed, over weight, and over 40" and what do you know? Turns out it was a top seller for us that year.

But... my brother always wanted the overly posed forced smile fake boob blonde trying to be the next Jenna on the covers (this goes all the way back to VHS era mind you) so I constantly had to battle for doing amateur as amateur and not trying to be just another ubiquitous pro-am.

To me, there is something much more rare and valuable about the "Saturday night and a 6 pack" mom and pop getting their freak on for one time only amateur than the new hot model that is going to shoot dozens of so-called amateur scenes for the next few months and show up on every site out there.

I couldn't agree more.

And it was no jab..all of us could have been a lot bigger. Hell.. I think back and realise the dumb choices I made lol.

We all left a lot of money on the table I bet :(

..ah well... as the wife says "yr big enough" ;) ;)

And always remember at the end of the day , we are all under achievers in the eyes of R-n. ;-))) I know..he has told me many times ;);)

Ryan Madison is shooting great stuff, he's middle aged now so the TeenFidelity stuff has that older man young gir..... um ... woman perversion that seems to be very popular, probably because a large % of porn buyers are 40 and over. He's a really good stunt cock, rails girls, weird positions.

Pierre Woodman still does the best casting videos.

MPL Studios is a good example. I'm sure they do ok but i don't see them on many sites. My gut tells me the upside for them is huge.

:thumbsup:thumbsup

I hadn't looked at the sites earlier but saw simonscans so i agreed. Looking at the list now Simon scans could do better. Maybe Candy Girls and nip activity too. As someone else mentioned these sites need much more than traffic. These are great examples of sites where throwing more traffic at them is NOT the answer. These sites need a time machine to bring them into 2015.

Sums up my thoughts exactly ....

Now, where to find good programs like that.

Easy as ""One for you, one for me, two for you, one-two for me" for R_n to say...

:winkwink:

The only ones I know besides Homegrown said goodbye to affiliates long, long ago. :2 cents:

what Porn Nerds needs, I think, and what other programs needs, is one mega site, where people can join that site and get access to all the sites at one site

there is one fetish network (don't remember which one) which has great content, and they have 4 different mega sites for each niche, but i think they would be better off in combining those 4 mega sites into multi-niche mega site, so more for everyone

Actually one of my biggest selling points to both surfers and affiliates is that when someone joins any site in my now 88 site network they get access to every website. With so many sites (and tons of Bonus content) the rebills are fantastic. It takes fucking time to go through all those sites and features. LOL I don't believe in lowering prices, I believe in adding value instead (more bang for the buck).

But my business model is WAY different than almost anyone's I have met. My philosophy regarding porn surfers/members is a bit different, too. I WISH I could shoot great content like Twistys, Ruseful or Homegrown. I WISH I had vibrant, weekly updated Tours and MAs.....but then I stop myself, think of the expense of shooting, updating, etc, crunch the numbers and discover (like Nickatilynx so wisely pointed out) that the ONLY number that counts for anything is the amount of money you put in your bank account. I am not convinced that endlessly shooting even great content, constantly updating and having tons of user interactivity leads to more revenue or rebills. In fact, I think it puts most companies in a hole that eventually consumes them. The pressure to keep 'feeding the beast" can be enormous.

The wonder of Homegrown (MUCH respect!) is how they have survived amidst all this change and are still shooting amazing content! I think Homegrown may be the exception that proves the rule. :)

Porn Nerd, Thanks for the compliment! Much respect to you and what you have done and I agree with your assessment of cost vs return on content.

However, need to point out, we don't shoot content at all. These days about 90% of our content is user submissions and we typically do not accept "studio" amateur content. We have a couple "producers" that turn in scenes if and when we need something specific for a dvd title or for cable/sat, but everything else is pretty much swinger home video type stuff, tripods or handheld, the real deal amateur.

These days I get hit up almost daily by "producers" saying they can shoot "amateur" scenes for us and I take one look at their samples and I think many here would say it is great content but I know it won't work for us at all. If there is a cameraman then most of our audience will call bullshit on it being amateur, unless it is obviously the hubby or whatever and gets in on the action too.

We do buy "filler content" that is pro-am but we have to be very clear with the members what it is or they get pissed.

:thumbsup Biggest problem I have trying to buy content. Amateur is very very different from homemade.

Truly, kudos - that is a great way to differentiate it.

It is a problem not just for buying but for selling too because most webmasters, dvd distributors, cable licensees, etc. think "amateur" means something that looks way too professional in our customer's eyes.

Definitely. I strictly considered the content that is actually available from within the members area. Their tours, design, etc was kept out of the equation.

In my opinion some of those sites are just as great as Backroom Casting Couch for example, but for various reasons (presentation maybe) are not enjoying the same attention.

Probably the people who make JAVHD's content should be credited. The site producers are not the content producers. The people behind the amazing Caribbeancompr, Heyzo and 48 other amazing Japanese sites are responsible. JAVBUCKS licenses the materials after they have played out for DTI's traffic which is mostly Japanese.

JAVHD could do much better if they used better translators and writers for their sites. What kills them is they go on the cheap in these areas so ratios have been very poor as of the past few years. If they restructured and began producing content they might do better as well. Not with Western producers but remain with Japanese producers who know the styles and the market.

Shap, would be great to hear your thoughts on onlytease.com - we do well, but I know with more targetted traffic we could do even better :)

Any thoughts?

Cheers Paul

Bring him onboard, that will make a dream team :thumbsup

Will check it out! We still have to get together in London :thumbsup

Onlytease has very good content but I honestly believe the name hurts the brand. Its a restrictive name and a huge part of flirting or teasing is not knowing if that's all that will happen. I'd be very interested to see a clone of that content on a domain like Flirt.xxx or another more open sounding brand name. To me OnlyTease sounds like 'that's all she does' and it weakens the fantasy.

Just my 2cents (offered in a very constructive way so please don't go psycho in your reply as I'm actually trying to be helpful).

Interesting post....

Interesting thought. You may be right.

Ive been gone for a while, but one thing will never change huh GET TRAFFIC....You GET SALES

Ah ok, user submitted mostly. Well even MORE kudos to you then because that means your eye for choosing REAL "amateur" content is stellar. :)

Funny, when I was filming my own (totally shitty, poorly lit and shaky cam) scenes I was killing it. LOL I would do it again but I just don't want my five inches of fun on the Internet anymore. :D


EXCELLENT point! (And I have OnlyTease.com in my Members Area so I'm an affiliate of theirs.) This is what I mean when I say "tell a good story and the content almost doesn't matter." If the content is presented in a way that communicates what the surfer expects (and is hoping for) then you have a much better chance of selling to that person. So names/branding is perhaps THE most important aspect of story telling. It's where everything flows from.

Give me a good domain name and a coherant storyline and I feel I can sell anything.

It always starts with traffic. No doubt about that. But I'll tell you what it was a lot easier to get traffic to Twistys when we converted at 1:750 vs 1:2000. That is where it gets tricky. More traffic = more sales but without decent converting content and tools in place getting more traffic is increasingly harder and more expensive to acquire.

Ya for real... a nice splash entry page will fool any surfer to signup...but then they signup and theres like 200 pics and 50 vids oops haha shit long as I get the sign up im cool.....but paysites never was my thing, I hate to deal with chargebacks and updating content...ill leave paysites up to the big tycoons.....that's time I could be using to promote my other sites

For the people who like to say 'traffic is all that matters'..... Everything you do IS traffic. It's a misnomer to suggest something done is not about getting traffic. A great domain/brand gets you traffic. Quality affiliates get you traffic. Niche leading content gets you traffic. Buying traffic gets you traffic. For fucks-sake, I can't think of much I do in a day that doesn't in some way tie into acquiring more traffic B2C or more traffic and connections B2B.

Yes you will always earn more with good traffic and bad content than with no traffic and the best content... but the best content will on its own almost bring in additional traffic, and the best branding will as well. Take a look at Ruseful and it is obvious that the content is what drove much of the tube traffic to his sites. How much traffic did he get by creating niche leading content? If you ask him he will tell you 'almost all of it.' Meanwhile another client of mine with a huge site and massive traffic is about to rebrand itself as perhaps the best 4 letter domain in the history of adult. Why would they do that if they already have massive traffic? Because doing it will lead to them getting even more traffic.

Saying just focus on traffic is a platitude, but 'focus on traffic' really means focus on branding, content, relationships, networking, media buying, domaining, PR, SEO, Social, Mobile, VR, Emailing, and all the rest... because at the end of the day that all leads to more traffic.

you getting those ratios from "cheap free loading gallery surfers" who don't want to spend a dime? or you pushin than junk traffic to prime link spots with good quality return traffic?

To be honest I got those ratios straight out of thin air :1orglaugh was just using them to illustrate a point.

Not hard really. If there is a camera person getting excellent angles all the time then it probably is not homemade. We can also tell straight off by the initial inquiry - "I am a producer that shoots amateur content" tends to be a dead giveaway... :winkwink:

Whereas... "We are a couple that loves sex and wants to sell our home videos" usually, not always, but more often than not, tends to be the real deal.

You of course could see for yourself how your authentic homemade stuff did so I know you know the difference. Five inches of fun can still outperform even the monster cock stuff when it comes to true amateur.:thumbsup

Yeah true but it's much easier to just say 'traffic'. :)

Please don't inspire me to pick up a camera again! LOL My girlfriend would not be happy, and she doesn't want to be on camera. :)

Quote of the day :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

:thumbsup