Originally Posted by Shap (Post 17136803)

Some of those sites may want 5 min clips. I'm guessing the smart ones. The other guys won't. And reality is the guys who won't are making it harder on the others to compete for those surfers. You have to find a balance.

One of the beauties of GayTube is how many TRUE amateur videos we have. We have a TON of long video clips but we don't have very many STUDIO long video clips. I think that is a key. We provide a good product that is competitive and still leaves the customer hungry (and willing to pay) for more. Straight tubes don't have that advantage because amateurs aren't uploading to most of the straight tube sites the way they upload to GayTube.

Btw I'm not interested in being the Captain. One of the downfalls of porn is many owners use it as a means to get money and once they hit their target they are GONE! It's not exactly the most socially rewarding industry and for many entrepreneurs I believe that is one of the problems. Many of the true entrepreneurs use porn to load up the bankroll and then make a run at mainstream where they can be proud and get the public stroking to satisfy the next level itch (the level after financial security is achieved).

Originally Posted by MisterPeabody (Post 17136991)

Many excellent points here Shap, many. I like what you said about amateurs uploading - cause that's how I started out, as an amateur - and if the aforementioned tubes (other than YouPorn, which is awesome to us) would allow more AM content (that converts, of course) instead of all this endless studio crap (no offense BROgrams/content shooters) then perhaps the tide would turn a little. Some of the tubes - I won't mention them 'cause they ARE affiliates - have rejected this site to be on their tubes:

www.chubbyblondy.com/index1.html

Now here we have a 100% REAL amateur couple, from Tuscany, Italy. He works in the Chianti fields, picking fucking wine grapes, I kid you not, while she stays on the farm with the animals. he comes home and every night - EVERY single fucking NIGHT dammit - she 'fulfill his fantasy', and they tape it. i have hundreds of videos from them i can't even convert fast enough to put on their site. The more you watch their shit the more you like them - they have real italian style, and humor - and you fall in love with them. At least I did! They're absolutely wonderful ppl with low expectations as for success who just do this 'cause they love it/each other.

4 out of the 5 big tubes won't touch them. An Italian amateur who will show her face? That alone is gold. Nope. So that's a big problem, too, not just the length but the type of content.

And I can't really bitch about the 'leaders' or 'smart entrepeneurs' who want to 'use' porn to finance their mainstream dreams/goals because that's what I intend to do, too (eventually). Shit, I'm a fucking cartoon chatacter and shoot all my own stuff from the waist down because I don't ppl knowing who I am/what I do. As others have said, this is both a problem and a typical situation, given the nature of adult, the ease of entrance, low overhead, etc.

In the end, we ARE wild animals, and we're all gonna do what we, ourselves, feels is best. Good luck to us all. :)

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 17136227)

Whether it's in mainstream or adult there is a lot of NOISE online right now. Michael (mpahlca) and I have been talking about it a lot and we truly feel Content Aggregation is a huge market right now. I think both in adult and mainstream. If you can cancel out the noise and deliver what people are looking for you can see really strong growth.

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 17137035)

Btw your text description of the site was PHENOMENAL! I wanted to check it out right away. Your tour execution of delivering the story very poor imo. I didn't get the story from the tour. The text on the trailer is too quick and hard to read. Knowing the story i wanted to get a peek of it but the tour just didn't relay it well.

btw the trailer did not load well at all. I'm on a blazing connection and it took a good 45 seconds to start I almost left.

My suggestion would be to find some way to really emphasize the key points to the story. Don't rely on the traditional style of tour. I feel it really cheapens what appears to be a great amateur couple site. The network pass really cheapens it at the bottom. Why not have the tour on a wordpress layout and make it look like her blog.

Also why the chubbyblondy? Sounds like a fat american girl. Why not busty italian housewife or something like that. Not to mention most people don't spell blondy that way.

You really dig them and I think you have something good. If you re-package it I think you'll do really well.

Sorry got off topic.

Originally Posted by MisterPeabody (Post 17137445)

Thanks for the feedback! I did not design that tour but paid for a designer to do so. I'm going to re-design it in my own 'style' after we see how this design does for a few weeks (besides, I'm busy as shit til then anyway). But I agree with you - gotta spell the story out better.

The preview vid is a maddening thing for me because I don't know how to get Flash vids to load faster! I decrease file size, i lose quality, etc etc. (Any suggestions?)

Showing the network at the bottom 'adds value', in my experience, and many people join when they see they get 30+ websites along with their Membership. But I'm going to start A/B testing in a week or so, for many things, and testing whether sites do better as a part of the MRPW network or as 'stand-alone' sites is high on my list of things to Test. Maybe a better way to display the network?

Oh - and 'chubbyblondy' was their domain and their idea. LOL I would never, ever choose a name like that. But now we're kinda stuck with it, at the moment. Maybe the 'blondy' spelling will make it stand out more, who knows.

But I sincerely appreciate the time you took to check out the site, and for your observations! :)

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 17137480)

My pleasure. Do you own chubbyblondie.com? Could be a good typo for you.

I'm not sure on the flash stuff i'm sure it's a simple fix ;)

Regarding the network of sites. I find it devaluing because you have a unique product. I feel the authenticity of the product was cheapened by the 30 network sites. You can mention it later on but it is way too in your face. If an Italian Couple has a website and they run it from their little farm how are they part of 30 site network? You know what I mean? Maybe introduce later on the tour as a bonus 'I've added my site to this great network to help all my members get more content.' Just a few ideas ;)

Originally Posted by MisterPeabody (Post 17137580)

This is exactly the reason for A/B testing. LOL I hope readers who have been debating whether they should go the A/B testing route will pick up on this and go for it. Moving the netwrk to the Join page? Test it! Make the thumbs smaller or bigger? test it! Try weaving it into the uniqueness of chubby blondy? Test it!

When I read (great) advice like yours, or receive it from other sources, I instantly want to try it! Yes yes!! EXACTLY what I need! And I've done this in the past and couldn't understand the results enough to know if I was doing something right or wrong. So now it's time to test test test. It's the only way (at this point) to tell the right way to go.

Thanks Shap! You must be the King of A/B testing so I'm sure you "get it" already. :)

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 17131851)

There are a number of reasons our industry isn't doing great. Here, in my opinion, is one of the bigger ones....

The barrier to entry has always been very low. That coupled with the nature of our business has allowed a number of unqualified people get into the industry. People that shouldn't be in business in the first place. They were able to make good money because it was easy to make money. Now that times are tough they are completely screwed. They never truly understood why they were successful or how to be successful. They are trying to re-create the past with no success and don't know where to turn. The old tricks aren't working and they've blown all the money they had and are now screwed.

Now more than ever it's easy to see who the real entrepreneurs and who got lucky.

What do you think?

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 17131851)

A Major Reason Our Industry is Suffering

Originally Posted by Roald (Post 17132118)

Weird cause I am sure that in the beginning I could get a free smutserver/kinghost/terra.es (damn they rocked) account put some bullshit gallery on it with a simple banner or textlink, submit it for free (no submit passes back then) and make a shit load of sales on a single gallery. Good times!

Thing is even though it might look easier now, with all the info out there and cheap bw etc etc, making the actual sale is not that easy anymore. And yes this is also due to the loads of free content out there BUT there is a big diffrence in todays internet. Back in the day people would get an AOL account and first thing they did was search for porn. These days the majority of people go online and first thing they do is setup a Facebook account, register for twitter, talk to friends on MSN, and at the end of the day when they might have a little bit of time left they look at some porn.

There is simply so much more to do these days on the internet than there was 10 years ago, so blaming it all on the free content out there is just not making sense imo. There are still affiliates (not talking sponsors) out there doing 100s of sales a day, and thats not because they are lucky (most of the times lol). Its because they know what they are doing.

Years ago the big TGP guys where king. They made shitloads of money however most never changed a thing, so now they are dying. Is it because they were lucky and had no clue what they did or did they make enough and stopped caring about it? Point is they are going down, others came in and took over. Blame the tubes all you want but in the end of the day they have all the traffic and still make a load of money.

Some of the old school guys always said why change a winning team, well if you don't adapt (there it is I said it) and change the way you market you willl not make it in todays world.

So yes there is a lot of free porn out there but there is also still a lot to be made.

Damn, this must be my longest post ever lol!!!

Originally Posted by SomeCreep (Post 17137664)

Two words: Tube sites.

And you know it.

Originally Posted by SomeCreep (Post 17137680)

Good post. All very accurate. The only thing you left out is that all of the biggest illegal tubes make it nearly impossible for legitimate players to compete with them.

The illegitimate players are gaining strength at the expense of the legitimate players. With that type of progression, in the end, both lose.

Originally Posted by will76 (Post 17136568)

not familiar with that one but when i got to pornbb.com it redirects to sexbook

Originally Posted by Argos88 (Post 17136529)

Shap, when you see a complete members AREA of Twisties, given away for free at sites like sharingmatrix, hotfile, pornbb or extreme-board, torrents, do you send a DMCA??

And do you get any response?? Do they take your stuff down??

and if they don't, what do you do?

Originally Posted by SZNY (Post 17136620)

I think most of the people here know what the exact problems are and everyone has it's own thoughts and opinions about it.

Since a 6 weeks or so (after a long absence because of too much work and getting my thing online) I'm reading and sometimes posting a bit on GFY but I see the same type of discussions as 12 months ago.

We should focus on solutions instead of repeating ourselves about problems what will not be easy (atleast for me).

1. How to stop decreasing revenues and get them back in balance (improvement of ratios, most tricky part)?
2. How and what does it take to improve your business model and to make it attractive again for consumers to join?
3. Who of colleague entrepreneurs might be interesting to join forces / collaborate?
4. In what kind of way can we have an innovating role compared with mainstream (also tricky part)?
5. What can we learn from mainstream and all these social/communicative exploitations (very important one)?
6. How to protect your valuable content?

Tubes and Torrents will stay and never disappear, even when some legal court somewhere in the world will give a ruling that it's illegal. I think with the type of extreme content you now-a-days can find on tubes the the imago of the online adult industry will be more worse.

Maybe there is some way to strike back in a collective way.

Originally Posted by pornjudge (Post 17137908)

you don't need a degree to sale porn lol... dont tell me your making like you made 5 years ago? porn is on the decline... does not matter how good you are;)

Originally Posted by MisterPeabody (Post 17137761)

Illegal tubes that scrape entire mem areas, or off other tubes and change aff codes, etc etc are a huge problem, as are pirates (torrents) et al. In fact, just about every (excellent) point made in this thread is a factor; taken together and it's devastating.

I like Ruff's idea of 'disabling' a .jpg or Flash file the instant it leaves your server as a way of protection. Someone tries to download something - poof! The image 'self-destructs' or disintegrates, or pixelates, something. Run every bit through a server 'filter' where you have total control and....I dunno. I'm not a programmer (obviously). But c'mon designers/programmers/smart people! Think of something like in Mission: Impossible. 'This jpg will self-destruct in five...four...three.."

Originally Posted by Relentless (Post 17137245)

That's the exact focus of Microsoft's 100 Million dollar ad campaign and strategy for Bing.

They aren't trying to claim it's a better search engine than Google... because it isn't. They are claiming it's a less 'noisy' search engine that lets you find specific niche information without wading through all the other somewhat relevant noise.

Social Networks are another way to eliminate noise essentially. Closed networks where some people bring information in for others. Your old aunt doesn't have to read chain letters on email any more, she can just go to facebook and get the information you and your internet savvy friends bring to her groups.

I Agree with you 100% on this... it will be HUGE business, and to some extent it already is now...

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 17137591)

I try. I'm lucky Mpahlca keeps me in line. I get too many ideas and want them all implemented immediately. But doing that makes it impossible to know what is a positive change and what is a negative change lol

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 17136952)

The issue is the people that join the group usually lose out. It's sad but true. Nobody is willing to give up a dollar today for a better tomorrow.

Originally Posted by LickMyBalls (Post 17137807)

Fuck cams... They support all these thieves. Take your lecture elsewhere cam man.

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 17131851)

There are a number of reasons our industry isn't doing great. Here, in my opinion, is one of the bigger ones....

The barrier to entry has always been very low. That coupled with the nature of our business has allowed a number of unqualified people get into the industry. People that shouldn't be in business in the first place. They were able to make good money because it was easy to make money. Now that times are tough they are completely screwed. They never truly understood why they were successful or how to be successful. They are trying to re-create the past with no success and don't know where to turn. The old tricks aren't working and they've blown all the money they had and are now screwed.

Now more than ever it's easy to see who the real entrepreneurs and who got lucky.

What do you think?

Originally Posted by SmokeyTheBear (Post 17139335)

I think the reason is very simple. When money was good nobody was giving away full length videos, now they are, the money is drying up. pretty simple.

Originally Posted by CyberAge-Dave (Post 17139650)

Poor Shap,

He started this thread and hasn't had a chance to get off his computer.

Major props to you buddy for answering everyone and for a great turnout on a business thread.

Originally Posted by plsureking (Post 17138197)

eh, another hour of reading this thread
and you guys are all still playing the BLAME GAME

wrong approach.

Originally Posted by will76 (Post 17139878)

identifying what the problems are is the first step to finding a solution. Pointing out what the problems are does not = blame game.

Making excuses is when people point to the problems as to why they are not successful. What people are doing here is pointing out the problems so they can in turn find a why to innovative and fix or work around them.

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 17139676)

LOL Actually I bought a new computer so I have to transfer all my stuff over and I have a bunch of email and paperwork to handle before I leave for the Bahamas tomorrow. This thread has been my escape from it all this week :winkwink:

Thanks Man! Btw I look forward to the day we finally meet.

Originally Posted by will76 (Post 17139878)

identifying what the problems are is the first step to finding a solution. Pointing out what the problems are does not = blame game.

Making excuses is when people point to the problems as to why they are not successful. What people are doing here is pointing out the problems so they can in turn find a why to innovative and fix or work around them.

Originally Posted by plsureking (Post 17140140)

are you fatfoo's brother?

people have been pointing out "what the problems are" for the last year.

just because Shap was ordered to make this thread to rehash a year-old problem doesn't mean it is new. let him go golf while we find the solution.

porn is boring. that is the only problem.

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 17140303)

I wasn't ordered to do anything. That was a joke man :thumbsup

Originally Posted by plsureking (Post 17140354)

lol ya i want people to start pushing forward is all. been hearing about tubes killing the industry for a year. now its time to take it to the next level. porn always leads the way. this is no exception. mainstream is suffering too. we have the answers.

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 17140415)

10000% agree. One problem imop is the people with the means and brains to innovate are lacking the drive and fire they once had. They've made a lot of money and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow isn't as big right now :disgust

Originally Posted by plsureking (Post 17140354)

lol ya i want people to start pushing forward is all. been hearing about tubes killing the industry for a year. now its time to take it to the next level. porn always leads the way. this is no exception. mainstream is suffering too. we have the answers.

Originally Posted by Damage! (Post 17140628)

Is the porn industry dying ... or is it changing?
Smith-Corona thought the Typewriter Industry was dying, Hewitt-Packard thought it was changing.