My famous dinners. ok, I guess they are famous because of the good time everyone attending has. Our dinners usually consist of less than 15 people, all of them tops in our industry. The venues have always been fantastic (in a gay way) such as Picasso, Delmonicos, Le Cirque, and Smith&Wollenski's
People polite enough to accept our invitation have been a who's who of the industry. Besides the people already mentioned in this thread, we've had Lensman, Ron Cadwell, Tony Morgan, Botto Brothers, JB, Mike Strouse, Shemp, Gary Kremen, Chris Mallick, Punker Barbie, Three Kisses Marie, KK, Brad Shaw, Lars, Python Aly, Loryn, Butterflied, Pornkings Carol, Jen, and Lisa, Cory, and really a host of others (again, I'll be crucified for forgetting names) but who wouldn't have a good time in that company.
As far as whether its an attempt to buy friends, can you hit these people up and see if its working?
How do you forget me three posts after photos of us hanging out in Vegas?
That was a great night in Phoenix! I remember Kourush was mixing up the 80s music (and more) and the Red Bull Vodkas had me in quite the happy dancing place. I don't so much mind if everyone else thinks I am a dork when I am enjoying myself
Brad
Dude, you were like John Travolta's retarded younger brother.
I'm not a dinosaur, I'm a crocodile. I've seen dinosaurs come and go and I'm left unimpressed.
28. Why do trolls get to you on GFY so much? Ego problems?
They don't get to me, however, I do think its important to slap down trolls when they raise their collective ugly heads to spew bullshit.
You have trash like the now banned "rich" who used to run around calling me a thief (even though he never used my programs supposedly) then coming back as "mr.soul" and calling me a thief and referencing "all the other people who agree" like "rich"
These losers build their own consensus with multiple accounts and if left unchecked or unchallenged, you wake up one day with an archive of threads calling you a cheater when its really the work of a couple of former theives who are out to get their pound of flesh for me catching them stealing.
Then you have people like pimpdog who hate me for my popularity and fear my return to adult. Most people can see through his lame "you shave" nonsense but I still enjoy slapping him down.
Then there's the political threads. It really worries me that all these kids firmly believe the shit they spew about conspiracies. I don't mind them but I do worry about them. I see it as an inability to think logically.
As far as having an ego problem. you think I have one? I host a page full of photochops of myself, 90% of which are not flattering.
I'm not a dinosaur, I'm a crocodile. I've seen dinosaurs come and go and I'm left unimpressed.
29. If you could start over today in 1996 or so - what would you do differently?
I'd have bought more of the domains that were just out there for the taking, I'd have had us put a better effort into building and running an adult program seperate from our click brokerage, I'd have hit mainstream sooner And I'd have developed a TGP to keep in my back pocket for traffic.
Oh, and I would have asked Lensman for a piece of the action when he first opened GFY.
Originally posted by SleazyDream
If you started from nothing today how would you start knowing what you know?
It is impossible to know what I know starting today. Thats what makes me such a valuable commodity. Are there things I don't know? Sure but my knowledge base is so big, I can figure out what I don't know.
If you're asking me how I would go about starting from scratch today, I'd say learn the TGP game, learn how to siphon off traffic to send to your own freesite, and at the same time, learn SEO.
As someone new, you really need to develope low cost traffic sources. Everything else is secondary imo.
You could also see if you could land a job remotely with someone to expand your knowledge while laying the groundwork for your own business.
I'm not a dinosaur, I'm a crocodile. I've seen dinosaurs come and go and I'm left unimpressed.
30. FTC making it too hard for you to make money in mainstream anymore? That why you're looking at adult again?
No, actually I'm forcasting a second crash in mainstream and I have an opportunity to jump back into adult.
We've always been a company that strikes where the iron is hot and moves on when the iron is cold.
Look at our history, we move from free sites to click brokering blindlinks to click brokering buttons and textlinks, to mainstream blindlinks, to brokering searches, to brokering popups, to inhouse sales of cellphones, to banner ad networks, and now back to adult.
And I do believe we are on an extremely short list of adult programs who, when closing their doors (blindlinks and rawlikesushi), gave a month's notice so webmasters could get their links down and paid everyone in full rather than sneak off into the night.
I'm not a dinosaur, I'm a crocodile. I've seen dinosaurs come and go and I'm left unimpressed.
31. What shows do you attend? Why did you continue to attend certain shows even though you were out of adult?
I generally always went to vegas though I did skip last year. We were never huge travelers but I think that will change with the launch of the program. I'm going to LA in november and that might start the travel circuit for me.
In the past, I've always tried to at least go to Vegas and Miami though I've also been to montreal a couple times, vegas in november and august a couple times, Phoenix, toronto, and a few others.
I still go because I have a lot of friends in the biz that I enjoy seeing. I also never really considered myself completely out of adult.
Quite frankly, I was made for adult and look forward to coming back full force.
Oh, and something I forgot to mention when answering the "how does mojo feel about your antics" question, My style does not fit mainstream like it does adult. I was quickly banned from every mainstream chat board I posted on. In mainstream they are WAY WAY more protective of their thieves than adult ever was.
I'm not a dinosaur, I'm a crocodile. I've seen dinosaurs come and go and I'm left unimpressed.
Ha, another good story.
Yeah, back before we knew him, he showed up at our door out of the blue. The receptionist calls back to my office and says,"theres someone here to see 12clicks"
well, no one just shows up to see 12clicks at our office. I was a bit freaked so I told her to put him in our conferance room. I then told one of our sales guys to go to talk to him see what he wants, and get rid of him.
Only later did I realize who he was, what he did, and how much I liked him.
He's only one of 3 people who ever came to the office. ok, 4. I forgot about Nina Knows Best.
Great story! LocalG told it a little different tho.
If you're asking me how I would go about starting from scratch today, I'd say learn the TGP game, learn how to siphon off traffic to send to your own freesite, and at the same time, learn SEO.
As someone new, you really need to develope low cost traffic sources. Everything else is secondary imo.
Very wise. I don't care what you're promoting. If you can't harvest and drive traffic getting started can be really expensive. Skills pay the bills, not magic.
This ambush is huge.
I never met 12 clicks, but i stood next to him in phoneix the year before last at the video arcade place. I was going to introduce myself but I got the vibe he didn't feel like chatting me with me much. No hard feelings though and much respect to an industry pioneer.
cheers
Duke
How old are you kids? Are they interested in business/entreprenuership(sp) or do you think they will pursue careers in the professions?
Sorry if thse question were already asked, I didn't notice them.
What's your educational background and how important has formal schooling been in who you are and how you run your business.
I'm 42. I don't admit to having parents or children. There's some things that are just not chat board fodder. However, any children of mine would not be allowed to work in this biz. While I think its a perfect biz for me, I would hope to produce lawyers, doctors, and indian chiefs.
As far as education, I graduated highschool but did not go to college. I scored a 1210 on my SATs which wasn't a bad score back then. I had an offer from a college football coach to come play for them but they were too hoity toity to give out athletic scholarships. I applied to my girlfriend's college fully expecting to get in. They never got my transcripts and therefore turned me down. I got a job planning on going to school the following sememster and it just never happened.
I did used to write term papers for one of my girl friends but that was as close as I got.
Besides my stint as a young hot bartender and my apprentice years in construction, I've never worked for anyone. I've always been an entreprenuer.
I *do* however think education is important which is one of the main reasons I wanted a library in my home. While I do have a couple of shelves of light reading, most of my library consists of history and other important writings.
I'm not a dinosaur, I'm a crocodile. I've seen dinosaurs come and go and I'm left unimpressed.
And I do believe we are on an extremely short list of adult programs who, when closing their doors (blindlinks and rawlikesushi), gave a month's notice so webmasters could get their links down and paid everyone in full rather than sneak off into the night.
How do you forget me three posts after photos of us hanging out in Vegas?
oh stop! you sat at my right hand in Delmonico's. I said I'd end up not listing everyone and catch hell for it.
Elli, Lindsey, Sheri Santiago, Hooper.
There, I named some more and still didn't cover everyone!
I'm not a dinosaur, I'm a crocodile. I've seen dinosaurs come and go and I'm left unimpressed.
Do you think my spelling is getting better ??????????
O'man did I just ask for it or what
hahahaha, its been so long I've forgotten about that. Yeah, you're spelling has really gotten a lot better. I used to need an interpreter for your posts.
I'm not a dinosaur, I'm a crocodile. I've seen dinosaurs come and go and I'm left unimpressed.
32. How did Serge and Yishai get the beter of you in business?
Our relationship with Yishai was completely professional. We didn't actually have much interaction with him.
We had a dispute with Serge when we decided to stop sending him traffic. He never sent the last check. Not a very big deal really and so long ago it doesn't really matter.
Hell, Worldcom didn't send us our last check either and that one was for 1.5 million dollars.
kinda puts Serge's check in perspective.
Besides, Serge was instrumental in giving us our start. It's all water under the bridge.
I'm not a dinosaur, I'm a crocodile. I've seen dinosaurs come and go and I'm left unimpressed.
hmmmm, this will take me a long time to answer.
who do I look up to?
obviously Mojo. He's like a gentleman farmer of the internet. I don't think he's ever had an enemy even when *we've* had enemies. As I've said before, he's brilliant. Other people see that and want to be around him because of it. Being his idiot sidekick has opened many door for me.
Another guy, is Ken Lawson. honest as the day is long. I used to say back in the day, "Ken is so honest, I'd trust him with my naked wife." and its true. hell of a guy. (of course, he never thought much of me, haha)
Ron Cadwell is another guy who has my full respect. Much like Mojo, he's brilliant. Always entertaining and interesting at our dinners, always someone I look up to. When we used to worry about processors, I ALWAYS said, as long as one of the processors is run by Ron Cadwell, this business is in good hands. Another guy I'd trust completely.
Uh, I don't think I can do a paragraph for each guy I respect in this business so let me list them.
Lars, Rich Botto, Lensman, Brad Shaw, Zimm, Kjell, John Bennett, David Vander Pole (or however that dutch bastard spells it), Steve Lightspeed, Marc De, Kevin from Top Bucks, boy there's really too many to name and I'll piss some guys off by forgetting them.
but I make special room for Sweet T. Tony has always always been good to us. A good friend, generous, etc. He really at times led us noobs around vegas by the hand. I',m sure it meant nothing to him but it meant everything to us. Even when we weren't doing business with him he was always great.
Thanks T.
People I look down on?
shit, again I know you hope I name names so let me think.
Well, the obvious is pimpdog. How on earth do
people do business with him. He's an immature woman hater who has no business here. Our business is dependent on woman!!!! This asshole attacks them for no reason. If you're in this business and doing business with him, you're an idiot. You can choose from so many sponsors and you choose him? its quite frankly irrisponsible.
hmmmm, who else? a good number of nameless people from the AWI board. So many thieves over there that I used to call it the "traffic cheaters board"
all the anon people on GFY of course. Very few people are truely anon, they've just burnt through thier other usernames.
then there's chat board trolls like m00d, webby, mr.soul, confucy, peaches, and several others who pretend to be in this business just so they can spew their nonsense.
Where is Confucy, lord was it fun to see some of you guys get on him/her or it ;-)
This ambush is huge.
I never met 12 clicks, but i stood next to him in phoneix the year before last at the video arcade place. I was going to introduce myself but I got the vibe he didn't feel like chatting me with me much. No hard feelings though and much respect to an industry pioneer.
cheers
Duke
hmmmm, I could have been busy trying to juggle Cory and Tassy at the same time.
Dude, I may look like a dick but I'll always make time to chat with you.
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I'm not a dinosaur, I'm a crocodile. I've seen dinosaurs come and go and I'm left unimpressed.
Fuck that looks like me at Lisa's wedding. I think i have never danced like I did then.... Good times I tell ya
Good times it was...but, I'm really not sure we can call what you were doing "dancing" LOL You better be nice to me or I swear I'll break out the JMan impersonating MJ
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