My prediction about the pay site business

Wow am I still reading on GFY?

Great post and thread
I did quote that part of your post, because I have said that too a couple of months ago. Most people here don't realize that. The people who are doing this are commiting real fraud and can end up in jail for a long time. "Just like in the normal world". Ripping of the surfers has its price....

Lol, are you kidding man? I'm sure you know as well as I do, your average pornstar spends all their time partying, snorting coke, and fucking. No way they are capable of running their own sites. The few that do run their own sites only do so because they have someone else doing all the work, usually the poor hubby.

I never blamed it on encoding - as I've stated two times already, even raw unencoded footage didn't look as great as I had hoped for. I blame it mostly on camera (1/3" matrix against 35mm on film or similar sized matrixes of high end digital cameras), and lower dynamic range (7 stops against 11 of high end digital cameras and 13-14 on film). And lower resolution of course - 1280x720 against 4K .

Don't know why I hoped our new camera will produce footage that will look close to high end production to begin with That was silly I guess.

I understand what you're saying about the the lightning though. Yes, that's part of the problem, but no lighting will give you the same results you get with 4K resolution, 1 inch matrix and 12 stops of dynamic range cameras.

I directed several shoots myself when we started shooting with the new HD camera couple of months ago, check this one for example:

http://media.ferrocash.com/video/ero...eland_g701.wmv
(no action, just girl changing several pairs of pantyhose of different colors to check how camera will handle different colors, textures, details etc)

To rule lights out of equation I lit the scene enough, and still image is not good enough imo to view at full HD. After downresing to about 900 pixels it looks fine but not at 1280. I've even intentionally overlit some other scenes to check if that will reduce grain, but no. Still a bit grainy and not crisp enough at full HD.

Again, maybe I'm just being overly critical.

Jesus dude... I clicked on that clip like 10 minutes ago, surfed all my myspace profiles and came back and it was only @ 45% buffered.

Listen man - Subject, lighting, format. In that order.

Translation to the oposite: Ugly overshot drugged out girl with bad skin, with 1/10th the light as an industrial film, with a consumer quality 1 chip HD camera = not worthy of HD. Or SD for that matter. No offense to your clip, it just came up after 10 minutes of buffering. She's a little muffin-top chunkster!!! Her boobs are good and she's actually kinda cute. Good casting.

I think your lighting is very good - nice an even and alot of Ambient which I love. But... it's still 1/10th the amount of light of a mainstream set. I like the mirror, I have one in my studio too - perfect for conserving and bouncing the light if you can keep the models from staring at themselves all day long. I'm guessing that you are at about 3.1 f-stop just think how good it would look @ f-8!!!

Hey EB - post an HD clip of some of that stuff I shot for you in Hawaii in 1440 X 1080i to show something with enough light worthy of HD. I was using two 4x4 gold reflectors in full sun and part-cloudy. If I was a mainstream shooter I would have used two 12 foot X 12 foot reflectors and a 10K on a high scaffold for fill depending on where the sun was. But, since I was tucked behind a rock and our lookout yelled "Nice Tushy!!!" whenever someone came strolling by... I did what I could.

Anyways... this is almost off subject here but - Talent, lighting, format, delivery and marketing. In that order. That's what I think will make or break a paysite these days. DRM sounds like the wave of the future too. But, I try not to think about all this too much - worry just gives me a headache. It will be safe to jerk off again I'm sure of it. Heck, I'm back up to 85% of my normal sales today. Every day thousands of girls turn 18 and looking to make a quick legal $100 Grand or more - and every day thousands of guys get sick of jerking off to the same old porno. My job is connect the 2, everything else is just entertainment.

They are absolutely partying their asses off. But there is no reason that you can't party, snort coke, and fuck...and not make a lot of money. I'm proof of that! LOL!

Seriously, I wasn't implying that they run their own sites. I was saying that IF someone with a creative direction, the skills, the knowledge, and the contacts took those girls and made sites for them with real focus and direction...and didn't have them shooting for every company every day, and protected the content from tubes and torrents, THEN money could be made.

Claudia-Marie wasn't in the adult business at all...except for being with me. I had her shoot for Naughty America in Jan. of 2007 just to see if she could do it. The feedback from their members was through the roof and Mark and Laura wanted her to come back and shoot, shoot, shoot.

But I said no, no, no. And started shooting myself for her own site. We started out with everything I had learned all these years. Having run tgp's since 1998 (real ones, not scripts) I knew what sold and what didn't. So we didn't do any of that softcore bullshit. We went straight to work and competed against the big sites. I had no desire to start another solo girl "Look at me with a dildo for the thousandth time site".

It exploded. Made more money than even I though it could. I was sure that members would get bored with a single girl. Nope. Not when you present it correctly and make sure there is interraction with the girl and the customers. (And that's something that tubes, torrents, and unfortunately megas sites can't do)

In my humble opinion...those girls in Porn Vallery are the equivalent of the true "porn stars" back in the 1970's and 1980's. They are FAR better known than the girls who shoot only for the DVD companies. Nobody buys those anymore. It's all "net" baby.

These girls are seen by millions and millions of people everyday. They are money...but not the way things are now. Right now they are just useless...very hot, but useless for making money.

And as you are saying...they only see that quick $1500 and the next party to go to. I know how that can be. And it's a big time dead end street for them. Claudia-Marie has been in the biz for a little over a year. She doesn't strip. She doesn't hook. She shoots twice a month for her OWN site.

She drives a new corvette, lives in this million dollar house, and doesn't have to worry about money. Recurring billing is a beautiful thing. And yeah, I know the idea is to pay the bitches one time and send 'em on their way to the strip club so they never have a concept of real money.

Well, that could be done too. You could take one and put her under contract. Pay her to shoot 5 days a week and work her ass off. Pay her everytime for every shoot. Almost like a "Contract" girl. But you'd have to real good. And you would have to be able to come up with interesting storylines.

We use a lot of comedy and pure cheesiness. It seems to work great.

Point is, the girls are getting paid their $1500. Production costs are still there for these companies (production crew, location, male talent, 2257, food, drink, etc.) and it's no longer paying off.

A few years ago surfers didn't even realize what an affiliate program is. Now, thanks to the "Webmaster Click Here For $$$" links all over hosted galleries and tours...plus the complete and total STUPIDITY of giving away every secret of the business (what affiilate programs are, what x-sells are, etc. , etc. ) to surfers right here on GFY...well, the surfer now knows the game is afoot.

So as some have said in this thread...to beat the tubes and torrents you have first have something unique that people want. Then you have to protect it.

I can tell you that making sales for the big companies is getting harder and harder and harder to do. Surfers now know how things work. They used to join a site and just stay. They didn't know that the hot girl with the big tits and big round ass was also on 200 other sites fucking too. And now they know she can be found on 200 FREE full scenes on a tube. That's a tough sell. Especially when the surfer can't talk to her on the site he's paying for.

Interraction is a good thing. Can't be duplicated.

most internet users don't have the speed to stream 720 hd much less full 1080 hd

Right, that's why I encode in 3 bit rates: 3000kbps, 1200kbps, 500kbps.

Pick your poison. And jerk it till it squirts. And try not to get any cum on the monitor! Right Robbie?

By the way... nice fish in your Avatar - what kind is it?

thank's it's a Jack Crevalle

you talking HD or SD?

i asume SD if your largest bitrate is 3000?

kankerlang verhaal

Actually I don't think a lot of my content is worth protecting. When we started shooting for the content store market we were hindered by the amount we could afford to spend on a scene. So we produced cut price porn. Also we shot porn for general sale, if we made it very different and stylized it would not of sold as much. We went for the easy fast money.

The Retro porn site Astral Blue will be using a lot of the tips Robbie is passing on.

Actually I have a MC debit card, that I can load from my bank account. It works anywhere like a real MC. ATMs, POS, and online.

I've been promoting them for over a year now, and am still amazed at their system.

Take Porn-2.0, mix in some facebook, myspace, blogs, forums, live chat, along with some WoW. And to top it off Virtual Sex on a recurring model === $$$s.

Nice post.

One of the major reasons for this is our fault. We are to blame for the lack of talent available today.

Would you perform in front of a camera knowing your family will know what you are doing?

We have made more porn available for free for any girls kid brother, uncle, father, next door neighbor and everyone else that knows her than anyone. Girls now KNOW they are going to end up being found out. If they don't they are living in a different world to me. Today you can Google your name or your friends name and see what they are doing. Model directories who want the girls real name are a problem.

So most girls who do decide to show the world they can be butt fucked, double penetrated and generally abused do it for the money. They come in to the business with one aim. Make as much as possible by doing as many scenes as possible.

So we have a pool of fewer new girls to shoot for hardcore. We have loads of girls who have done 10 to 100 days available, but very few who have done nothing. Solo and girl on girl is not so tough, but not as easy as it was when people had to buy a video to see porn.

You're singing my song.

Most people see what a pro set up can do with a HD camera and think they can. Then discover they can't. Then tell you HD is the way to get sales.

The porn surfers still pay though and I'm getting sales and traffic increases across the board. I work my ass off though

Another awesome post. But a few gaps.

You have the effect then the cause. Do you expect a girl studying, working or just unemployed to turn up to be shot by us so we can tell her family she's a porn whore?

A model who thinks long term. Now that's a new one.

Or even a porn business who thinks long term.

This is the major reasons why very few models have sites of their own. Sponsors will not shell out the money it costs to keep them exclusive. Models will sign exclusive contracts, the problem is the model has a guaranteed $1500 a day from Bang Bros, Brazzers and a lot more the offers made for exclusive do not compete. I've had the top sponsors ask me to ask a girls to go exclusive. The offer they made is never enough. As you point out the girls can do loads of work at $1500 a day. Or even drop down to less. 50 x $1500 = $75,000. She might not earn that, but then she would not be one of the girls on every second site.

This problem could be solved very easily. But it would mean cutting the traffic budget and increasing the content budget.

Yes you can if you give affiliates 75% rev share and $100 sign up Sundays.

We made our bed and now we have to lie in it.

Just a thought. do you think some surfers have been turned off buying by seeing what we pay for traffic?

You missed one thing. You have to be willing to pay for it. This is the biggest problem with content. It's not that it can't be shot, it's that few will spend what it takes to shoot it. How many shooters do too many scenes in a day, shoot without decent lighting, make up, scenario setting because it's cheaper? Yes some do put more into content and it's awesome to your success.

As I pointed out it can be done, but it costs money to sit a girl in front of a webcam inside a members site. Not as much as it costs to turn up at a show, we have set our priorities. Turning up at a show, getting pissed, throwing a party so you can look like a pimpin dude and spending loads of money is way more important to most than having Interaction or an exclusive model.

High Definition. 1440 X 1080i. The 500kbps one is @ 640 X 480 because it looked like crap @ 1440 X 1080i.

I tried encoding @ 8000kbps and they wouldn't even play in my members area. Sux.

So you stream HD at 3mbps, right? Do you have any stats on what users select more often, 3mbps or 1.2mpbs? What player size do you use?

I think the problem is that 720 x 480 is 16:10 aspect ratio, whereas monitor resolutions traditionally work from a 4:3 (16:12) ratio, hence the "squishing effect" you noticed which has been eliminated by scaling it to 640 x 480 (16:12 aspect ratio, a.k.a. 4:3).

And now to wait the obligatory minute and a half for someone to come out of the woodwork and prove me wrong. Life: If you're not being kicked when you're down, you're probably dead.

Great post!

jesus... an intelligent business discussion on GFY where one can actually read and learn.

the end is near


(great thread)

Hey BV, the problem with streaming at high bit rates is one I spoke of earlier...it's not that surfers don't have the internet speed to stream at 3 mb a second, it's that the surfers computer takes the heavy load on their computer for a stream that size.

So if you were to watch one of my original streams that was encoded at a variable rate of 2 to 6 mb per second, and you were the average guy out there with a decent computer and a cable modem, you would be writing me complaining.

Why? Because you would probably have more than a few programs running in the background. (A lot of people have half their cpu running after they boot up and all the damn startup programs come on) and that wouldn't be enough to run the vids.

When I first did it, I looked at all my vids that were encoded at that "high" variable rate. Worked fine on all my machines including my laptop. So when people wrote me complaining I was trying to troubleshoot with them about their internet connection, thinking that was the problem.

Then, one day, it happened to me! The vid started "stuttering" and buffering. I was in a panic and had my guy checking the server and we were looking at the flash server admin and then pinging and tracerouting back to the server and from the server...But everything seemed to be fine.

Then I realized that my antivirus was doing it weekly "full scan" And that was all it took to take away just enough resources from my computer to fuck the stream up.

That's why you have to carefully tweak out the settings and get down into the 1000 to 1500 kps range. The h264 compression is a world better than all of the compression files we used before.

It took me a couple of months of struggling and then wrapping my head around it. I couldn't stop thinking that the higher the bit rate, the better. But it honestly just doesn't need to be that high. And if you do encode that high to stream, you're going to have problems on the user side as I just described.

By the way, I went out last night. Worked my ass off all week and sat at home trick or treating with the kids on Halloween. So last night at 9:30 p.m. Pacific time I went out to the Red Rooster swingers club here in Vegas and fucked the living hell out a tall brunette with incredible legs and ass. She's a gym rat who concentrates on her legs...but I digress...

Between 9:30 p.m. when I left and 8:30 a.m. Pacific time when I got back home...I have had 7,106 unique hits to Claudia-Marie.Com Not big compared to the mega sites. But that's because affiliates are out there still throwing their traffic at the wrong places Out of that I had 18 joins, 3 VOD sales, and 31 rebills for a 1:338 ratio and $1,201.82 net profit.

So to get back to the original predictions about the paysite business: Yes, the subscription paysite model does still work. You just have to give them a reason to WANT to be in your members area. Not just some porn vids and pictures that they can and do see everywhere.

I'm pretty sure that BV, Barefootsies, tony404, and some of these other "small" guys are still rolling right along. And they always will. Even BlackVaginaFinder, who has pissed me off to no end with his disrespectful comments to me....he has found a niche and knows it inside and out and his customers get exactly what they want from him.

I think that the above mentioned people are going to need to start protecting their content a little more closely though. The tubes and torrents have just about played out all the stuff from Porn Valley. Niche guys may be next on the list.

If nothing else, at least hire removeyourcontent.com At least that can keep some semblance of sanity and sales to your sites by keeping your content to a minimum on tubes and torrents.

<spam> Any big tit affiliates that I don't have yet...if you want to make good money with a site that retains (and yes Vegas Ken, by protecting the content on a solo girl site you INCREASE retention because the members pretty much fall in love with the girl) then come on over and sign up at SoloSlutCash.Com and start promoting Claudia-Marie.Com </spam>

Another great post, Robbie.

Best Thread ever!

Respect!

Great Post Robbie!

Agreed.

Nice conversation going here. Just spent 30min on this thread

Well said

Been away for a week or so and good to see an interesting thread.

It is cheering to us as well as it says a lot of things we thought when starting our site a couple of years back. Why do people want to join a site when for month after month when they can download it all in the first day?

So we made the join fee high $20 but the rejoin cheap $10 for 3 months... or they could join for non recurring 3, 6, or 12 months so that they could leave the files on our site instead of having them on their home/work/priests computer.

Surprisingly a lot of people join for more than the cheapest rate.

On the quality / quantity debate ...the demand for updates and quantity has made a race for the bottom both on content and quality.

I think punters don't want 100s hours they want really hot girls shot really well.

High Definition cameras are modern and very good but there is no high definition on the internet, Hell there is no standard definition on the internet. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=511

Blu Ray is a compressed High Definition format and it needs 12 gig an hour. HD is a sales ploy - be honest.


We make less content but better, choose just the most beautiful girls, put them in a short erotic film, light it well, put some good music, say 5.1 sound...

where they going to get that on a tube site ?

they dont need to save to there hard drive with all the tube sites and free content

Simple supply and demand and the free supply is out of control

well said and we are chuggin along not breakin records but covering the bills so I cant complain.

So then how do you explain all those diamonds that Mandy Blake was wearing at The Atlanta Forum? "chuggin along" ??? Mandy is the prettiest BBW on the web. Don't poormouth us Tony. I know you have a small fortune stashed away.

Ill throw an idea out to you guys that will def help curb password trading.

Im aware of strongbox etc but not everyone uses it and many host on windows boxes etc.

Any 3rd party biller you use and obviously when you use your own merchant account you get postback data, customer name etc.

When someone logs in to your members ares show a link that displays their signup info, name address etc. I doubt people will go around posting their user and pass knowing that everyone who logs in can see their "original" info they gave when joining, and we all know how for some reason when joining porn people give their real info even if their email is a .mil or .edu (same people would use BS info if they where joining to view nytimes online)

most passwords are hacked or compromised from other htpassword files and brute forced and tried on all sites, not posted by the real member

the best way to curb unauthorized user/passes is to of course use proxypass or strongbox, but most importantly don't let the member choose his own password, let the script generate it.

Interesting idea, thanks.

But wouldn't that possibly discourage people from joining next time?

have you checked message boards recently? tons and tons of sites where people talk about user and passes and people asking for PM's to trade stuff, I run a ppv site if brute force and shit was the case id be in serious trouble as people would be using up others peoples minutes or getting new minutes etc

Tons of people trade or give out their info to others like its ok to do

They join dating sites dont they and cam sites and ppv sites that store their info

No they wont, it seems funny because for years we been using the same system in membership sites, pay, get user pass, login and thats it

P.S. you got some quality sites there never really checked them out might have to get some traffic going

That's some pretty interesting and unusual stuff you have there. Would love to check your flicks.

Guy de Maupassant, do Jesus. I felt like those folks who posted "am I still reading GFY?" in this thread

How do you find this new EX1 toy? Why did you choose it over Pani's HVX200/HPX170?

Well that's true to an extent. But still "internet HD" is still way better than "internet SD" because of higher resolution and better compression, and worth switching.

Take this for what you think it's worth.

I opened up BOSBucks this year. Some of you would not believe me if I told you how many sales a day I do. I would also bet that those that don't are the same who go on about how the paysite model is dead, and that tubes, password sites, etc. is the problem.

I've always been taught to think outside of the box, and that was made more evident by my mentors in this industry. This thread has been excellent with sharing info. I plan to pick Robbie's brain more next time I see him. But some of you, Jesus Christ, blaming how video is shot, bigger harddrives, faster connections, I mean Fuck. How about taking that time complaining about it, and spend it finding other sources of traffic? Of making more money?

I just don't get it.

What exactly dont you get, that every business on this planet needs to change the way the operate from time to time in order to keep up with times?

Running after more traffic without tweaking your site and understanding what can hurt or make conversions better is STUPID!

Congrats on your program, I been updating my sites for many years about 10 sites with weekly updates on each spending a ton of money shooting stuff, im not basing my posts on 3 signups a day and being in this business 2 months, I been around I promote all types of sites have traffic from every possible source, my point being I speak from experience numbers and other data never lie!

I made it pretty clear what I don't get in this thread, I don't think I need to repeat it again.

I'm also pretty sure I know what I"m doing, as I"ve been running a 75PPS promo for the last 3 months, you don't do that if you don't know how to "tweak" your sites for conversions.

I've bought nothing but off the shelf content, and as one friend from an established program told me, I hit numbers that took them 3 years to get too. I've started shooting exclusive content, and will be protecting it. But to go on about hard drive size, or what format a movie is shot in, that to me makes absolutely no sense, because if it was true, I wouldn't be in business. I'm not saying tubes don't hurt us, that's about all I can agree on. We already know that's an issue, so why are you complaining about the surfer who will never buy? My point is, there's new surfers coming on every day, create and tailor your sites to them.

Well, I feel a little better already. Just 10 minutes ago I canceled an idiot who's username/password I spotted on what looks like a Russian password trading forum.

tweaking your site?

I mean seriously you brag about 75 pps as if your a straight no BS member site that charges 24 - 29 bucks to join, you can load your site with junk and pay 75 pps here is your site to sum it up to those who dont want to visit:

You prommise on this page http://join.boxofsmut.com/signup/sig...DowOjE1&step=2

"100% FREE MEMBERSHIP"

Then you have them enter their credit card info and if they dont cancel within 2 days and dont uncheck the boxes they get billed about $90, I mean you call this knowing how to tweak a site? You brag how you pay 75 pps?

Terms and Conditions: You are joining as a trial member at a cost of $0.00 for 2 days. Unless cancelled, this will convert into a FULL membership for $39.95, rebilling every 30 days. You may cancel at any time.

Join Flat Out Porn for FREE! Tons of hardcore movies with tons of pictures, and video feeds, games and more! Hardcore movies in every niche you can think of! If not canceled within the 3 day trial period, subscription will automatically renew at $26.62 per month, until you decide to cancel. Your credit card will be billed as YAHECS.COM.
Join More Daily Porn for FREE! DVD movies at your fingertips, with almost every possible type of Porn filmed! If not canceled within the 1 day trial period, subscription will automatically renew at $23.32 per month, until you decide to cancel. Your credit card will be billed as YAHECS.COM 8662768151.

ruh roh!

......way past my bedtime anyway

Valid points.

But exactly because "for years we been using the same system in membership sites" I'm afraid of drastic changes. It's not that easy to change ways that worked perfectly for nearly full decade.

Times are tough and require rapid changes, true, but still, before making any changes, I always have our programmer to setup a switch in our admin panel to restore everything back in one click if something went wrong. Sure that adds more work and costs in terms of man hours, but having retreat plan is the only way for me to feel secure. Do not like to bet everything on one card and burn bridges.

Thanks. If there's anything you need my help with, hit me up.

I also pay $30PPS for No Cross Sales or Consoles to all of my affiates, which has the same content, and quite a few of them send traffic too.

I'm sure you thought you found a reason to blame why I'm successful and you aren't and bitching about hard drive space.

I mean seriously get real im here talking about legit sites with real content that have real concerns (I spend over 30k a week in updates and been doing so for many years) and you are bringing your BS tours here that tell a surfer its free and bill him 90 bucks I mean come on, and figuring out ways to make sites work better means im not successful?

So you come here yelling how we would all be shocked on the numbers you do blah blah blah and you pay 75 pps.

If you would take the time to read what was written rather then jumping and repeating the word hard drive over and over again as if thats what this thread is all about maybe you would learn something and youd be able to run a legit site and invest real money in content and get a few signups here and there (and be able to use good well respected billers).

Well when you want more content, shot with more expensive cameras and don't pay anymore what do people expect? Too many buy exclusive on price and really get something non exclusive. OK different sofa/girl combination but the rest is all the same.

Ray and Strongbox are the top s in my books. These password traders in my experience are the ones auto downloading and trying to grab the whole site. And probably the ones uploading to P2P, Tubes and anything else.

For those who bother to read my posts, this is my opinion.

We need to change who we sell to. In the main we sell to ourselves to get traffic and what pleases us does not always please members. Traffic and surfers are important, just not as important as members are today. So we need to look at what they want and not what we can get out of them or get away with when giving to them.

It's the members area that pays the money that makes all this possible. Without it there is no money and no traffic worth having. So we need to identify what people will buy and why they buy. Then concentrate on that before anything else.

Members want content that turns them on. They are not new to buying or viewing porn, the more niche the porn the more the buyer will be into it. He knows the little points that make a good niche scene a great one and missing them makes them a crap one. If you don't he does know the niche.

He wants to buy with his credit card with confidence. These guys are not impulse buyers and not one off buyers either. They buy porn on a regular basis. One site disappointing him off he will forgive, half the sites on the Net doing it and he will decide to be a lot more cautious. We need these guys to buy month in and month out. They spend $300 and upwards a year, everyone we lose to Tubes is another $300 off our industries turn over. Think of that now in terms of the way Tube sites traffic has exploded.

Now think of him as your customer, your paymaster and your friend. He's the guy who comes into your shop and buys so you can pay the rent and feed your family. Most of all he's the guy you really need.

And yes there are sites doing exactly this, just not enough obviously. Other wise we would not be losing so many members to Tube sites.