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01-24-2014, 05:20 AM

I am not looking for justification on anything I do, not least the price I have paid for the recent acquisition of tube.xxx and tubes.xxx. But I do feel that an explaination as to why I have made this purchase will hopefully help you understand better.

I was part of the team that grew YouPorn from zero (Aug 2006) to 370m users a month (May 2011). We did not buy traffic, we launched the industries first content partner program, purchased $m's of dollars of licensed content and within months of our launch on 26th August 2006, we did not rely on user uploads. This is testament to the sheer lack of DMCA's we used to receive each month.

It was not by accident that we had an average page view per visitor of over 10, which was near 50% more than that of our competitors. It was our choice NOT to have pop unders on the site, even though the high 6 figure offers were on the table on a near weekly basis. We chose NOT to save 10's of $1,000's of dollars a month by throttling our bandwidth, so very rarely did our videos buffer, even in late 2006. We also discovered that instead of adding new banner spots to the site, that when we removed them, it had a very positive affect on page views. Having less banners on our site actually increased our ad revenue. Vendors would bid 2-3 times higher on our ad space than those on comparable tubes, because CTR on our banners were 2-3 times higher. You see, only a small percentage of users have a "click" in them post masturbation. Serving less, but more relevant, more appealing banners, helped us increase the CTR, thus increasing the demand and revenues.

We also listened to our users, and had a 3 strike rule. If we received 3 similar complaints about a product or banner for instance, the service would be removed, reviewed and adapted or replaced. Also, we only did 2 major changes on YouPorn in the time we had it. In 2007 we changed the logo and in 2008, we changed the framework to show 5 thumbnails in a row instead of 4. The YouPorn users didn't like us modifying the site, and they were very vocal about it. They were also very forward with their thoughts and ideas on how to make YouPorn even better.

We did not run video ads for a long time, and when we did, we pre approved each and every one. We were very protective over the user, and would not subject them to some of the nasty video banners that you see today.

As with the content partner program, we were industry first at launching many user experience enhancements. For instance, we created the "we recommend" algorithm. We could footprint a users activity, and after only 6 visits, we could categorize that user. This enabled us to know what the user liked, what he is likely to find appealing in the future, and deliver content on that data. For many users, the "we recommend" section was their first port of call. This also enabled us to serve banners that were relevant and appealing to that user. It also helped us identify the types of niche that we were lacking on content, and we would go and buy the rights to this type of content, to give to the users for free. If you can second guess what a user is going to like, and provide that for them, you have a happy, returning user, that will tell his friends about your site. With our algorithm, we were quite a few steps ahead of the user in that respect.

YouPorn was often described to as the peoples tube, it was a brand, a cult, a very loyal user base. Thats what Manwin bought from us in May 2011. Is it the same site today? No. Has YouPorn become "just another tube"? In my opinion, yes. Do I think it makes more money today that it did when we had it? Hell yeah!!! We were a team of 7, Manwin/MindGeek have 100's of staff, optimising even the smallest of revenue streams, of course they make more money.

So there you have a little piece of history on how the incredible team at YouPorn did what we did. Which leads me to why I have paid $500k and $250k for tube.xxx and tubes.xxx respectively. I am not looking to justify the price I paid. If I wanted to do that, I would answer the calls from my ex wife.

As my previous post alluded, I have reached the pinnacle point with my pay sites that now enables me to start my own tube site. It needs NO support from content partners, I will NOT buy traffic, I will NOT be selling advertising and I will NOT be accepting user uploads. But what I will be doing is creating a very unique, and in my opinion, the perfect tube site, based solely on my experience.

So, what will I do with tube.xxx and tubes.xxx? First, let me explain the issues that the tubes face today:

Last year, on the YouPorn blog, they asked users "How can we make YouPorn better?" 2 of every 3 posts was "Please remove the disgusting video banners". Unfortunately, for a user, these video banners have the biggest CTR you will find and make the most money for the tube. For me personally, I HATE it when I am looking at a very sensual video on a tube, for the NTV A and B banners to have very rough or violent sex video banners playing. I guess I am part of the 66% of tube users that also detest these banners. Take on board their comments about im ads, audio on pop unders and other annoying revenue generating methods that have crept onto the tubes, and that 66% increases to 75-80%. Those are users that are unhappy with their experience. Every tube does the same as the next, so that is why tubes are not seeing the loyalty that we did at YouPorn. Remove those traits, and suddenly you have a tube that will give those users the experience they deserve, and trust me, there are millions of them, each and every day. They won't all find tube.xxx or tubes.xxx on the first day of their launch, and I am in no hurry for them to do so. But when they do find them, history (and data) tells me they will stick around.

The first to launch will be tube.xxx. This tube will only consist of my own brands content. Brands such as FakeTaxi.com, MassageRooms.com, FakeAgent.com, mom.xxx, StrapOn.xxx, which are some of the strongest brands not only on the tubes, but the industry as a whole.

Why will tube.xxx work? An existing tube user has been exposed to all of my brands. And I built each of my brands from within the tube environment, by joining the content partnership programs of them all. Each day, my tube edited videos from each brand are amongst the highest viewed and highest rated videos on every major tube. It is estimated that we have on average, 8-10m video views a day across the tubes. From this exposure, we have around 15m visitors to my pay sites per month. I'll let you do the math on possible sales ratios and the revenues I generate on that traffic.

On tubes.xxx I will launch a carbon copy of tube.xxx but open this up to a few select pay site networks, those that allowed me to work with them over the years, helping them build their brands, as I did, within the tubes. Working with editors of these companies helping them edit the best possible tube edit from their full length videos. Making sure that they only put out the best possible representation of their brand with each video. So, on tubes.xxx you will have, not only my highest rated content, but content of other highest rated websites on the tubes. Its about quality, and not quantity. Of course, there are strict caveats to being invited to participate.

People often questioned (but thanked) me for sharing with them my knowledge of the tubes and my proven business model in monetizing them. I did this, not only because I am a nice guy, but knowing that one day, I will create an exclusive, invitation only tube site that will be unrivalled in the industry.

I?ll also give you an insight into the revenues I make and why the sale prices stated in the press releases are in fact true, and achievable for my company.

I soft launched FakeHospital.com on Sunday 19th Jan 2014. Today, Friday 24th Jan 2014, I have over 700 members. On immediate revenue, another 6 days and I would have received back 100% of my outlay on the site. Looking at lifetime member value, I made my initial investment back in the first 3 days. The first tube clip hit yesterday, on YouPorn, it had over 1/2m views in the first 24 hours, already the highest viewed clip of the week and had a CTR of 2.34% on the banner. There were 62,701 unique visitors to the FakeHospital.com yesterday alone. This site alone will pay for tube.xxx and tubes.xxx by autumn 2014.

We also saw the same impressive results when we launched FakeTaxi.com, but this site took a little longer for me to break even, 16 days in fact on instant revenues. MassageRooms.com took me 21 days.

Every minute of my time spent with YouPorn, I was planning for my pay site network, planning the sites I would launch, and the day I launch tube.xxx, will make all those endless hours of watching porn and staring at data worthwhile.

I launched my first pay site in September 2011 and reinvested every penny into new sites. 2 years and 4 months later, I have grown from 1 site to 17, from a staff of 4, to over 80 today. I don't have a fetish for hiring staff, but I do have a blue print for what?s needed to support each new site and I do not sway from that.

I'll be the first to admit, its happened a lot quicker than I originally planned.

So, to answer all the questions:

Did I really pay the prices mentioned in the statements issued by ICM? Yes, but most on a payment plan schedule that is offered to each and everyone of you.

Am I happy with the purchase of tube.xxx and tubes.xxx? I set my heart on these domains in 2011, so I couldn?t be happier, really.

Have I over paid for them? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and to me, so is value. I am very comfortable with the prices I have paid.

Would I have paid more? Absolutely, and ICM knew that, but they are as excited as me to see these domains launch.

01-24-2014, 05:20 AM
Ruseful Guest Posts: n/a	I am not looking for justification on anything I do, not least the price I have paid for the recent acquisition of tube.xxx and tubes.xxx. But I do feel that an explaination as to why I have made this purchase will hopefully help you understand better. I was part of the team that grew YouPorn from zero (Aug 2006) to 370m users a month (May 2011). We did not buy traffic, we launched the industries first content partner program, purchased $m's of dollars of licensed content and within months of our launch on 26th August 2006, we did not rely on user uploads. This is testament to the sheer lack of DMCA's we used to receive each month. It was not by accident that we had an average page view per visitor of over 10, which was near 50% more than that of our competitors. It was our choice NOT to have pop unders on the site, even though the high 6 figure offers were on the table on a near weekly basis. We chose NOT to save 10's of $1,000's of dollars a month by throttling our bandwidth, so very rarely did our videos buffer, even in late 2006. We also discovered that instead of adding new banner spots to the site, that when we removed them, it had a very positive affect on page views. Having less banners on our site actually increased our ad revenue. Vendors would bid 2-3 times higher on our ad space than those on comparable tubes, because CTR on our banners were 2-3 times higher. You see, only a small percentage of users have a "click" in them post masturbation. Serving less, but more relevant, more appealing banners, helped us increase the CTR, thus increasing the demand and revenues. We also listened to our users, and had a 3 strike rule. If we received 3 similar complaints about a product or banner for instance, the service would be removed, reviewed and adapted or replaced. Also, we only did 2 major changes on YouPorn in the time we had it. In 2007 we changed the logo and in 2008, we changed the framework to show 5 thumbnails in a row instead of 4. The YouPorn users didn't like us modifying the site, and they were very vocal about it. They were also very forward with their thoughts and ideas on how to make YouPorn even better. We did not run video ads for a long time, and when we did, we pre approved each and every one. We were very protective over the user, and would not subject them to some of the nasty video banners that you see today. As with the content partner program, we were industry first at launching many user experience enhancements. For instance, we created the "we recommend" algorithm. We could footprint a users activity, and after only 6 visits, we could categorize that user. This enabled us to know what the user liked, what he is likely to find appealing in the future, and deliver content on that data. For many users, the "we recommend" section was their first port of call. This also enabled us to serve banners that were relevant and appealing to that user. It also helped us identify the types of niche that we were lacking on content, and we would go and buy the rights to this type of content, to give to the users for free. If you can second guess what a user is going to like, and provide that for them, you have a happy, returning user, that will tell his friends about your site. With our algorithm, we were quite a few steps ahead of the user in that respect. YouPorn was often described to as the peoples tube, it was a brand, a cult, a very loyal user base. Thats what Manwin bought from us in May 2011. Is it the same site today? No. Has YouPorn become "just another tube"? In my opinion, yes. Do I think it makes more money today that it did when we had it? Hell yeah!!! We were a team of 7, Manwin/MindGeek have 100's of staff, optimising even the smallest of revenue streams, of course they make more money. So there you have a little piece of history on how the incredible team at YouPorn did what we did. Which leads me to why I have paid $500k and $250k for tube.xxx and tubes.xxx respectively. I am not looking to justify the price I paid. If I wanted to do that, I would answer the calls from my ex wife. As my previous post alluded, I have reached the pinnacle point with my pay sites that now enables me to start my own tube site. It needs NO support from content partners, I will NOT buy traffic, I will NOT be selling advertising and I will NOT be accepting user uploads. But what I will be doing is creating a very unique, and in my opinion, the perfect tube site, based solely on my experience. So, what will I do with tube.xxx and tubes.xxx? First, let me explain the issues that the tubes face today: Last year, on the YouPorn blog, they asked users "How can we make YouPorn better?" 2 of every 3 posts was "Please remove the disgusting video banners". Unfortunately, for a user, these video banners have the biggest CTR you will find and make the most money for the tube. For me personally, I HATE it when I am looking at a very sensual video on a tube, for the NTV A and B banners to have very rough or violent sex video banners playing. I guess I am part of the 66% of tube users that also detest these banners. Take on board their comments about im ads, audio on pop unders and other annoying revenue generating methods that have crept onto the tubes, and that 66% increases to 75-80%. Those are users that are unhappy with their experience. Every tube does the same as the next, so that is why tubes are not seeing the loyalty that we did at YouPorn. Remove those traits, and suddenly you have a tube that will give those users the experience they deserve, and trust me, there are millions of them, each and every day. They won't all find tube.xxx or tubes.xxx on the first day of their launch, and I am in no hurry for them to do so. But when they do find them, history (and data) tells me they will stick around. The first to launch will be tube.xxx. This tube will only consist of my own brands content. Brands such as FakeTaxi.com, MassageRooms.com, FakeAgent.com, mom.xxx, StrapOn.xxx, which are some of the strongest brands not only on the tubes, but the industry as a whole. Why will tube.xxx work? An existing tube user has been exposed to all of my brands. And I built each of my brands from within the tube environment, by joining the content partnership programs of them all. Each day, my tube edited videos from each brand are amongst the highest viewed and highest rated videos on every major tube. It is estimated that we have on average, 8-10m video views a day across the tubes. From this exposure, we have around 15m visitors to my pay sites per month. I'll let you do the math on possible sales ratios and the revenues I generate on that traffic. On tubes.xxx I will launch a carbon copy of tube.xxx but open this up to a few select pay site networks, those that allowed me to work with them over the years, helping them build their brands, as I did, within the tubes. Working with editors of these companies helping them edit the best possible tube edit from their full length videos. Making sure that they only put out the best possible representation of their brand with each video. So, on tubes.xxx you will have, not only my highest rated content, but content of other highest rated websites on the tubes. Its about quality, and not quantity. Of course, there are strict caveats to being invited to participate. People often questioned (but thanked) me for sharing with them my knowledge of the tubes and my proven business model in monetizing them. I did this, not only because I am a nice guy, but knowing that one day, I will create an exclusive, invitation only tube site that will be unrivalled in the industry. I?ll also give you an insight into the revenues I make and why the sale prices stated in the press releases are in fact true, and achievable for my company. I soft launched FakeHospital.com on Sunday 19th Jan 2014. Today, Friday 24th Jan 2014, I have over 700 members. On immediate revenue, another 6 days and I would have received back 100% of my outlay on the site. Looking at lifetime member value, I made my initial investment back in the first 3 days. The first tube clip hit yesterday, on YouPorn, it had over 1/2m views in the first 24 hours, already the highest viewed clip of the week and had a CTR of 2.34% on the banner. There were 62,701 unique visitors to the FakeHospital.com yesterday alone. This site alone will pay for tube.xxx and tubes.xxx by autumn 2014. We also saw the same impressive results when we launched FakeTaxi.com, but this site took a little longer for me to break even, 16 days in fact on instant revenues. MassageRooms.com took me 21 days. Every minute of my time spent with YouPorn, I was planning for my pay site network, planning the sites I would launch, and the day I launch tube.xxx, will make all those endless hours of watching porn and staring at data worthwhile. I launched my first pay site in September 2011 and reinvested every penny into new sites. 2 years and 4 months later, I have grown from 1 site to 17, from a staff of 4, to over 80 today. I don't have a fetish for hiring staff, but I do have a blue print for what?s needed to support each new site and I do not sway from that. I'll be the first to admit, its happened a lot quicker than I originally planned. So, to answer all the questions: Did I really pay the prices mentioned in the statements issued by ICM? Yes, but most on a payment plan schedule that is offered to each and everyone of you. Am I happy with the purchase of tube.xxx and tubes.xxx? I set my heart on these domains in 2011, so I couldn?t be happier, really. Have I over paid for them? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and to me, so is value. I am very comfortable with the prices I have paid. Would I have paid more? Absolutely, and ICM knew that, but they are as excited as me to see these domains launch.