Well I checked this after a while and this thread definitely delivers more than I ever thought it will..
Ok here is the basic experience from three years ago:
We worked with the following sponsors - Privatefeeds (Livebucks), Flirt4free (VideoSecrets), Homesexnetwork / TriCams (damn I forgot who runs them but I suppose Kevsh has them in his sig) and Directsex
The best money maker was
Directsex, I picked the best models and learned them how to communicate, was even typing instead of them to show them how to deal with the customers.
For example a guy from Bufallo logs in so what you'll do - you tell him some refference to Sabres and that it's the New York State etc. etc.) so I learned the girls the map of US, worked with them on their English, gave them hints in real time, went through the transcripts to show them where they made a mistake, even sample typed for them.
The point was to create a difference in communication, because you can hardly compete with the other girls in dildo and body skills.. so we have bult up a decent amount of return visitors and as per format (you pay less but doe every minute you are logged in and communicate) - Directsex worked the best for us and I was the big coach.
It was only 24 studios / hosts online 24/7 at one time on DS at that time, so it was definitely more quality than quantity driven and demands were quite high.
The other side was that one of their guys who "cared" about the studios was an incredible jerk who was honing his Euro Trash complex syndroma (he was originally from Czech hired by a US company) by beeing incredibly loudmouth and supperarrogant anytime there was any issue with the models (their rules are strict but that's totally ok - it's about money).
As for the technical stuff their support was always very proffesional and video quality the best.
Homesexnetwork / tricams - lot of hosts, lots of variability, less revenue -
a classic premium type of a chat, the photos that were picked were important and nice looking chicks without so much communicative skills could still make a bank with them.
The problem was that you as a studio can set an online price for minute therefore what happened quite often was that some of the studios from a country with even less costs "dumped" the price for minute to attract jerk savy surfers and messed the business for everyone.
The revenues in average per minute of broadcasting were lower than from DS but still the models, if they were really cool and had their clients already (always important factor personality goes a long way), could make comparable money per shift as with DS.
The technical setup was simple and bug free.
Private Feeds - a premium type of livechat but about twice more expensive than homesexnetwork (I guess they charged like 5 - 6 $ / minute) - the models had to look really well to earn money, but if that worked the money weren't that bad..
Not comparable with DS but a really good looking model was able to make her shift worth it. Usually they were just irritated by the mere amount of free guys and very low "conversion" to private chats, for most of them this was quite tough to cope with.
But otherwise thecompany was easy to deal with, the support was cool, the broadcasting soft had some bugs but nothing major, can't say anything bad.
Video Secrets
To tell upfront, we never had luck with video secrets, it's nothing against the guys, we just didn't had the types of models... as I remember with video secrets you have to have the microphone on and audio is a standard - this was something our models in general couldn't cope with on a regular basis, they were ok to type but they felt embarassed to talk.
I know other studios that made a bank with VS but we didn't.
So that was my experience in short. In a way I suppose if someone went the way of less models / high quality / more traffic it could be benefitial for everyone involved including the studio and customer, yet putting online thousands of hosts and throw in traffic is what is making the most bank for the site owner I suppose..
Btw.: Anyone have experience with
www.livecamnetwork.com ?
I was always a big fan of the video system from the 2much.net guys..