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Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards
Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards.
With so many ways for webmasters marketing straight sites in the adult industry to network I started to look at the various alternatives available to those webmasters who market gay sites to network and, although there are a few different ones about, they still seem to be few and far between.So What Boards Are There For Gay Webmasters?
Presently, to my knowledge there are four dedicated gay boards that webmasters can utilize for networking purposes in the adult industry with several straight orientated resource sites having a gay board also these are as follows:The Gay Boards:
Rock Me Hard
Triple X Gay
Gay Webmaster Chat
Gay Wide WebmastersThe Straight Sites With Gay Boards:
Obviously my favorite is The Gay Board at Gay Wide Webmasters but i am slightly biased towards that seeing as its one that we own privately however, the other boards are almost certainly worth a visit in addition to the GWW community forums.
So what do these gay boards offer those marketing to the gay surfer that the straight boards cant? Simply put, it can offer you a place to network without fear of ridicule from your colleagues and peers in addition you will find that a lot of these gay boards have a wealth of information about the gay market being posted on them on an almost daily basis.
It is also worth mentioning however that just with the numerous straight orientated message boards, the gay boards do have their own individual feel to them, for example, Rock Me Hard is what I would personally classify as a ‘fun’ board and Shelmal does a great job keeping the spirit of the board going likewise, Gay Webmaster Chat is more a board geared towards webmasters who operate traffic sites such as TGP’s and Link Lists which becomes apparent after reading a few threads. Gay Wide Webmasters is more a board with a wide reach but, primarily, it is a business orientated gay webmaster community and Triple X Gay, because it is fairly new is still, imho, trying to identify the direction it wants to take but non the less, a lot of the forum members posting there also post on GWW.
The Gay Board – An Overview.
When all is said and done, no matter whether you are gay, straight, black, white or any other demographic, focusing your attention to one type of board can become counter productive after a while, I mean how often can you hear from the same people over and over again before being given the same information again and again? Diversify your posting activities to include some of the gay market community forums and at the same time, you will also diversify your business knowledge which, im sure you will agree, is good for everyone, especially you and your bank account.Article written by Lee
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Converting Chinese Adult Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work
Converting Chinese Adult Traffic – The Niche Paysites That Work.
To date we have looked at most of the types of country specific traffic available to webmasters every day and, more importantly, which niches they convert on. In this article we will finish up our look at the foreign traffic and how profitable it can be with the final main country on the net – China.Chinese Adult Surfers – Quick Analysis.
As with Japanese traffic, most webmasters seem to think that Chinese speaking adult surfers are pretty worthless when it comes to buying porn memberships and this is true – If you do not know what niches to offer your Chinese surfers that said, we found some interesting results given the three (3) month test we had on our Chinese traffic and, the results we observed might just make you change your mind about sending the Chinese surfers you get to your sites off to traffic trades.Chinese Porn Surfers – The Niches.
Because we knew relatively little about the Chinese traffic we had on our sites we decided that, rather send it to a specific language hub site we would send it to our main hub page and, allow the Chinese surfers to filter themselves through to the sites that interested them on their own, to our surprise, only 40% of the traffic we knew was Chinese chose to filter itself to a Chinese specific language hub site, the remainder, choosing to go through our main English hub site.Fetish.
Across all of the niches we offered the surfers, the Fetish niche was the one that converted most consistently month after month and, more than converted, actually retained members once they had signed up to the paysites.Gay.
Unlike the traffic we had that was Japanese a lot of the Chinese traffic that hit our site decided to visit the Gay niche paysites we had to offer them and, there was less than 10% difference between the Fetish and Gay signups we observed month after month. Quite a difference when compared to surfers from Japan and, a pleasant one at that.Amateur.
Specifically teen amateur niche sites or, at least sites that had amateur looking teen modes on the tours also did well on our Chinese traffic however, the conversion ratios for the recurring programs didn’t do as well as what we had expected with most memberships being cancelled within 2 months. Non the less, the Chinese surfers did join and most of them re-billed in excess of 1 month before leaving the site.Teen.
As mentioned above, it would appear that Chinese porn surfers are looking for teen niches again though, the teen paysites we used featured amateur looking teens prominently on the pages so whether this was a choice on the surfers part to join the teen sites or, because we only offered amateur looking teen paysites isn’t known.Asian.
Unlike Japanese surfers, Chinese surfers also joined the Asian niches that were offered up to them and, surprisingly enough, we noticed more signups to English Asian sites than localized Chinese pay sites.Chinese Adult Surfers – The Results.
Overall we were very impressed with how the Chinese traffic we had flowing through our sites both acted and, converted on the sites that we offered them to join, especially since the Japanese traffic we had didn’t seem to like the gay niche sites yet Chinese traffic worked wonderfully on exactly the same gay niche pay sites.Across the board I think a revisit of Chinese traffic is needed with more options on our part when it comes to the teen and amateur niches especially just to see if the results we experienced thus far were unique or, are truly indicative of how the Chinese surfer navigates and joins pay sites.
Article written by Lee
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Adult Industry Standards – What Are They Exactly?
For some, the term ‘industry standards’ might seem like an oxymoron and, in such a wide spread global industry this might just be the case, the adult industry is not regulated in any way shape or form however, this term is thrown around with the best of them.
In this article we will take a quick look at some of the ‘standards’ which have been set and, for the most part, seem to be accepted across the online adult industry as a whole.
Industry Standards – The Basics.
‘Industry Standards’ are, in effect a set of guidelines or rules by which any person operating a business in a specific sector operate by. These may range fro charging a standard price for a product, operating in a certain way or something else. Most industries have their own set of specific ‘standards’ which are usually upheld regardless of whether they are actually written in law, as regulations, rules or, unwritten, unspoken standards.Adult Industry Standards – The List.
This is a list of the 4 most common ‘Adult Industry Standards’ that webmasters would seem to operate their businesses towards, these are not ‘official’ industry standards more general operational guideline which are accepted as the ‘norm’ in our industry.1) Adult Webmasters should use ‘legal’ content.
2) Adult Webmasters should abide by the rules of the sponsors they use.
3) Adult Webmasters should not promote ‘child pornography’ or imply the promotion of the same.
4) Adult Webmasters should operate their business within the scope of the law.Taking the above four items into account, there of course, other standards by which webmasters already self-regulate to some extent for example, you shouldn’t steal other webmasters work, content, bandwidth (through hotlinking), etc. However, other than the four primary ‘unwritten rules’ above there doesn’t appear to be any special ‘code of practice’ to which webmasters should or even, can adhere to.
Taking the above information one step further, lets take a quick look at the adult industry sponsors, almost all of them have a different variation of their Terms and Conditions however, implied or otherwise, most of them tend to stick within the confines of the details already mentioned above. This in itself can lead webmasters into some troubles for example, promotion of sites, most sponsors have unwritten rules about what webmasters can and cant do to promote sites, no spamming paysites, no misleading links but, again, there are no ‘set’ rules that any two sponsors seem to say in the exact same manner.
Adult Industry Standards – Self Regulation.
We all know by now (at least those of us whom have been doing this for a few months) that the adult industry is pretty much self regulated and, whilst this is almost certainly a good thing it can also lead to complications. For example, ‘Webmaster A’ does something to promote a site that they got permission to do whilst, ‘Webmaster B’ does the same thing without having permission. in this instance, more often than not ‘Webmaster B’ will the one who gets their name blackened in the industry. it would also seem that, whilst those webmasters who have a long standing in the industry are capable of getting away with certain things, others, who perhaps have seen things done, when they try the same they get ridiculed.Adult Industry Standards – Overview.
As ‘Adult Webmasters’ and, i would like to stress the ‘Adult’ part of that job title we have a lot of information thrown at us from the very first day of joining this industry, how we choose to use that information is up to us on an individual basis. That said, until the ‘standards’ are set on a level playing field i cant help wondering what effect, negative or positive our own style of self regulation is having on our associates and peers, does it help that we can go to message forums and call sponsors, hosts, other webmasters cheats? or, does this hinder our industry on a much wider scale?One thing is for certain, if i were a journalist writing a report on the adult industry as a whole, i don’t even think i could write about the actual ‘business’ side of things after all, we all run our businesses as we see fit and, at the same time, read the rule book that would at least, for the time being, suit us as individual business owners.
Article written by Lee.
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Cascading Billing – Using Multiple Payment Processors For More Profit
‘Cascading Billing’ has been somewhat of a buzz word of late in the online industry however, there seems to be some confusion as to what this billing process actually involves or even does other than ‘process payments’ this is what we will take a look at in this brief article.
Cascading Billing – The Basics.
Simply put, Cascading Billing is a method to enable your surfers to buy membership to your site or, products utilizing multiple third party credit card processors and, other payment options. The process used, as its name suggests, is that of a ‘cascading’ feature meaning that, if you have multiple processors set up on your site and a surfers credit card is declined on your primary processor, the details will then be passed onto a secondary credit card processor where, they will either be accepted or declined and, if declined, the details can then be passed onto yet another credit card processor or, some alternate payment solution.Cascading Billing – The Benefits.
From the initial reaction this new payment process has received in the online community it would appear that this new solution actually does work and, work well. Many companies who are adopting the ‘Cascading Billing’ process are reporting an increase in sales, some reporting upto a 20% increase over the normal procedures they used. This increase in sales also enables affiliate programs to pass the new found benefits onto the webmasters themselves through raised payouts and better sign-up ratios.Cascading Billing – The Options.
As with any type of online payment processor or, payment system, you need to evaluate what your individual needs are and, using a cascading billing program is no different. With many solutions currently available and in development stages the choices for webmasters and program owners are growing and growing.However, that said, first and foremost you need to choose which processors or, billing solutions you will use to begin your cascading billing. In an ideal world, you should choose two of the more reputable third party payment processors as your primary and secondary processor in addition to a tertiary payment option or, perhaps even a custom dialer solution. Generally speaking, this will give you the best way to monetize your own and, your webmasters traffic.
Cascading Payment Solutions – Overview.
When all is said and done, cascading billing offers webmasters and online e-business owners ample opportunity to increase their profits through minimal outlay either by renting the scripting that will allow you to utilize the cascading billing option (costs from $300 a month) or, having such a solution custom coded which, you can have done from as little as US$5000. Either way i am certain we will start to see many more of the top online companies offering this type of payment solution in the near future and, with some of the larger online companies already adopting this method, it is sure to start happening soon.Article written by Lee
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Fighting Back Against Computer Viruses
Only 10 years ago, the only way that a virus could have infected your computer was through you physically putting a floppy disk into your hard drive and running the program file that initiated the virus however, today’s viruses have become more complex in how they operate and, can spread like wild fire if they are not recognized as a virus doing damage not only to your computer but that of your associates and peers.
So how do we minimize the risk of virus infection on our computers which, lets face it, for the Adult Webmaster are our livelihood and, need to be protected at all cost. This is what we will take a brief look at in this article, how to minimize the risk of getting a computer virus and, heaven forbid, how to deal with a virus if you actually have one on your machine already.
Computer Viruses – A Little History.
1981 – The first widely accepted computer virus is recognized. The ‘Elk Cloner’ virus was spread through floppy disks and, whilst by today’s standards, it was not a high risk virus it, non the less was still a virus, in fact, all this first virus did was to display a message on your computer screen.1991 – The ‘Tequila’ virus was the first recognized ‘polymorphic virus’ meaning, it was the first virus which actually altered its state once on your machine in order to remain undetected.
2001 – 2001 saw the spawn of several highly potent ‘worm’ orientated viruses from the ‘Gnuman’ virus, the ‘LogoLogic Worm’ and the famed (is that the right word?) ‘Nimda worm’. These ‘worms’ were the first of their kind to actually spread themselves across the World Wide Web through infecting users email clients (specifically Outlook Express) and sending itself to every email address the infected machine had in the address book.
Virus Infections – Prevention Better Than Cure.
So we now have a little background on the main viruses over the last 20 years we will take a look at the ways in which we can prevent viral infections on our computers after all, as the subtitle for this paragraph says, a prevention is far better than having to find a cure.Here are a few simple ways you can help to prevent the spread and infection of computer viruses.
1) Install a good anti-virus software package on ALL of your computers, Norton and, Mcafee, both have some good products to aid you in preventing viral infections of your PC. Also, you should ensure the software package you do install has updated virus definitions, a new virus is created almost every week so you need to ensure your software keeps up-to-date on the latest infections.
2) Scan any and all email attachments you receive, irrespective of whether you know the sender or not, anything that you get sent in an email should be scanned, as mentioned above, there are complex viruses that can ‘send’ themselves from other peoples email address book, what happens if you are on the address book of an infected users computer? Can you afford not to be online?
3) Ensure that, once you have an Anti virus program installed on your machine that you have it setup to start each and every time that your computer boots, the first thing that should be loading on your machine is an anti-virus program, you only have one chance to prevent infection.
4) Avoid downloading .exe and .com files to your desktop unless, you know the person you are downloading the files from and, even then, before you launch or open the files ensure you scan them independently.
Virus Prevention – Overview.
Hopefully this article will have given you some insight into how you can protect both your computer and the computers of your associates and peers from computer viruses and, hopefully, by following the guidelines within this article your time spent online will be productive and virus free. One thing you should remember however is that no matter how hard we all try to remain virus free, someone will create a new program that ultimately, could infect our machines no matter how hard we try.Article written by Lee
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Saving Time Online – Shortcut Keys
The one thing that i have started to do just lately is use shortcut keys. These are actually very easy to get used to and, will save you a lot of effort over a period of time.
Below you will find a list of the more common shortcut keys in both Windows and Internet Explorer.
Even if you get used to using one or two of these shortcut keys you will notice the time you start save over a week, hell, i don’t even type the whole domain into my IE address bar anymore!
Here are the shortcuts for Windows along with the description of what they do:
Alt + F – File menu options in current program.
Alt + E – Edit options in current program
F1 – Universal Help.
Ctrl + A – Select all text.
Ctrl + X – Cut selected item.
Shift + Del – Cut selected item.
Ctrl + C – Copy selected item.
Ctrl + Ins – Copy selected item
Ctrl + V – Paste
Shift + Ins – Paste
Home – Goes to beginning of current line.
Ctrl + Home – Goes to beginning of document.
End – Goes to end of current line.
Ctrl + End – Goes to end of document.
Shift + Home – Highlights from current position to beginning of line.
Shift + End – Highlights from current position to end of line.
Ctrl + Left – Moves one word to the left at a time.
Ctrl + Right – Moves one word to the right at a time.
Ctrl + Backspace – Delete word to the left of cursor.
Ctrl + Del – Delete word to the right of cursor.
Alt + Tab – Switch between open applications.
Alt + Shift + Tab – Switch backwards between open applications.
Ctrl + Esc – Bring Up start button.
Alt + Esc – Switch Between open applications on taskbar.
F2 – Renames selected Icon
F3 – Starts find from desktop
F4 – Opens the drive selection when browsing.
F5 – Refresh Contents
Alt + F4 – Closes Current open program.
Ctrl + F4 – Closes Window in Program
Alt + Enter – Opens properties window of Selected icon or program.
Shift + F10 – Simulates right click on selected item.
Shift + Del – Delete programs/files without throwing into the recycle bin.
Holding Shift – Boot safe mode or by pass system files.
Holding Shift – When putting in an audio cd will prevent CD Player from playing.The following list are shortcut keys when using Internet Explorer:
Alt + Left – Back a page.
Alt + Right – Forward a page.
F5 – Refresh current page / frame.
Esc – Stop page or download from loading.
Ctrl + Enter – Quickly complete an address.
Ctrl + N – Open New browser window.
Ctrl + P – Print current page / frame.Hopefully this list of shortcut keys will get you saving some time even if its just a few minutes a day. After all, we all know the one thing webmasters need more of is time.
Article written by Lee
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The Negative Marketing Technique
Negative marketing is a wonderful thing in its own right however, negative marketing can, surprisingly enough have a NEGATIVE effect on your sales.
How many times have you seen a site that has, about half way down the page some text telling the surfer no to click on anything because ‘these are only counters’?
Counters in themselves can be VERY useful tools to the adult webmaster however, counters are given to us for free because of one simple reason, the graphics used on them are made in such a way that they will actually draw clicks from your traffic.
Most of the time however, these counters that take your hits are helping you much more than you know, from giving you addition traffic, valuable surfer stats and many other things.
Now, the same is also true for banner exchanges as is for counters, they are a useful addition to the variety of tools available for adult webmasters however, many webmasters, as mentioned above tell the surfer NOT to click on them, something i just never seemed to be able to get my head around. As you reading this post kind of proves, tell someone not to do something and you can guarantee they WILL do it
However, as i started off this quick article saying, Negative marketing is a good thing, after all, you have now got the proof to tell you that it works why not put this to use on your site?
For example, rather than telling a surfer…
‘Click Here For The Hottest Porn Site On The Web’
Tell them…
‘DO NOT CLICK HERE’
Wonder what they will do
Article written by Lee
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The Successful Marketing Approach
In today’s volatile and competitive marketplace, the strategic manager must possess a sophisticated perspective regarding creating and maintaining the overall image of the organization.
In order to accomplish this goal, marketing must play a key role, regardless of the company’s size.
To be truly effective, a company must be up-to-date with it’s marketing ‘psyche’. In bygone times, companies concentrated on items it was able to produce, not on customer needs and wants. This type of outdated thinking will most likely lead to a rather short lifespan.
Today, marketing is a holistic approach that is often more complex than first thought.
What Is Marketing?
It is a process through which an organization identifies a need and then provides a means of filling or satisfying that need.
Customers are more informed and savvy than in the past and they expect more – in the quality of both products and service. Today’s customer is not willing to merely sit passively by and consume – he wants a voice and relationship with the companies with whom he chooses to conduct business.
Marketing is not deciding where and how to advertise. This is only one component of the process. Effective managers make sure they have a well-defined and mapped out strategy that deals with the entire lifecycle of the process. The most successful companies have a keenly honed customer-centric marketing model.
This model outlines a process that allows the company to determine the needs and wants of a “target market” and deliver this while instilling in the customer the belief their company’s ‘satisfaction solution’ is better value than the competition’s.
The first step in a marketing strategy involves the identification of unmet needs within a market and delivering/developing products and/or services to meet those needs.
Define Your Market First.
Is it a business-to-consumer company, a business-to-business company, or both? Regardless of the target(s) a company must be able to clearly identify a common need amongst a large portion of this market, as well as that portions propensity and ability to buy that product or service.
Once the target market has been identified it is time to do some analysis. The depth, complexity and related cost should remain proportionate to the ratio of overall business this product or service is anticipated to generate.
Analyze Internally.
What will be involved in creating this product or service? Is there access to all of the necessary components? How much volume can be handled? Are their efficient distribution channels? What will it cost to make or provide this? The next phase is an external analysis that looks at specific trends within the target market. With this information in hand, a company is then able to make an informed decision as to whether or not it is feasible to proceed. Now that the target market has been identified and the operational side has been flushed out, a strategy can be addressed. How a company decides to communicate its message should be in correlation to its overall marketing strategy. Whether the most effective method of conveying you message to the target audience is through traditional advertising channels, the Internet or more innovative activities, it should be apparent from the prior analysis. The final phase of a marketing strategy should examine the component of customer relationship management: What processes are in place to service our customers? How do we ensure a positive resolution of customer complaints? What performance measurements will be used to determine how well clients are being serviced? And, most importantly: How will customer relationships be maintained so they will do business with us again and again? By developing a comprehensive strategy that spans the entire lifecycle of new to repeat client, a company will find it is able to effectively address the present needs and wants of it’s target markets, as well as being able to incorporate new areas as they develop. Article written by Lee
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JavaScript Know How
JavaScript can be one of the most useful additions to any web page. It comes packaged as standard in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and, Netscape Navigator and allows webmasters to perform field validations, mouse-over’s, pop ups and a whole entourage of other nifty little features on our sites.
In this article we will show you how to:
– Display the browser name and version number
– Change the text in the status bar of the browser
– Use an input box to get text from the user
– Use a message box to display text to the user
– Change the title of the browser windowBefore that, however, we need to know how to setup our web page so that it can run the JavaScript. JavaScript code is inserted between opening and closing script tags: <script> and </script>, like this:
<script language=”JavaScript”>
–> JavaScript code goes here <–
</script>
These script tags can be placed anywhere on the page, however, it’s common practice to place them between the <head>and </head> tags. A basic HTML page that contains some JavaScript looks like this:
<html>
<head>
<title> My Test Page </title>
<script language=”JavaScript”>function testfunc()
{
var x = 1;
}</script>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Hello</h1>
</body>
</html>For the examples in this article, you should use the basic document format I have just shown you, inserting the JavaScript code between the <script> and </script>tags. When you load the page in your browser, the JavaScript code will be executed automatically.
Displaying the browsers name and version number.
The “navigator” object in JavaScript contains the details of the user’s browser, including its name and version number. They can be displayed in a browser using the document.write function:document.write(“Your browser is: ” + navigator.appName);
document.write(“<br>Its version is: ” + navigator.appVersion);I run Windows 2000 and Internet Explorer version 6, so the output from the code above looks like this in my browser window:
Your browser is: Microsoft Internet Explorer
Its version is: 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0b; Windows NT 5.0)Changing the text in the status bar of the browser.
To change the text in the status bar of a browser window, just change the “status” member of the “window” object, which represents the entire browser window:window.status = “This is some text”;
Using an input box to get text from the user.
Just like in traditional windows applications, you can use an input box to get some text input from the user. The “prompt” function is all you need:var name = prompt(“What is your name?”);
document.write(“Hello ” + name);The prompt function accepts just one argument (the title of the input box), and returns the value entered into the text box. In the example above, you get the users name and store it in the “name” variable. You then use the “document.write” function to output their name into the browser window.
Using a message box to display text to the user.
You can display a message box containing an OK button. These are great when you want to let the user know what is happening during their time on a particular page. You can use a message box to display the “name” variable from our previous example:var name = prompt(“What is your name?”);
alert(“Your name is: ” + name);The “alert” function takes one argument, which is the text to display inside of the message box.
Changing the title of the browser window.
To change the title of a web browser’s window, simply modify the “document.title” variable, like this:document.title = “My new title”;
One bad thing about the “document.title” variable is that it can only be manipulated in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Netscape’s implementation of JavaScript doesn’t allow for modification.
In Closing.
As you can see from the examples in this article, JavaScript is a powerful scripting language that can be used to enhance a visitor’s experience with our site. However, you shouldn’t use JavaScript too much because in some cases it can annoy visitors and send them packing before your site even loads!Article Written By Lee
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SMS Marketing To MMS Marketing – WAP Billing Solutions
MMS Billing (Multimedia Message Billing) is going to be one of the next huge leaps forward for the online industry’s, with more and more surfers firing up their cell phones to visit our sites and properties we need to start looking at the ways in which we can ultimately bill these types of customer and this is where MMS Billing comes into play.
MMS Billing – What Is It?
MMS Billing is a method of charging surfers using cell phones for access to your sites and services. Much like how the SMS Billing model works however, rather than solely billing for text or images, you can utilize MMS Billing on a wide range of rich media applications including movies, sound and, flash applications.MMS Billing – What Are The Costs?
The costs for MMS Billing can vary greatly depending on your MMS Billing provider however, as a rough guideline, you can expect to pay anywhere between $0.10 and $0.50 per purchase through the MMS Billing method.MMS Billing – An Overview.
MMS Billing is still in its infancy across the internet however, with more and more sites becoming WAP enabled and, more and more surfers turning their cell phones on to browse our websites this billing model will soon grow to what the current SMS Billing model is today.Article written by Lee
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