It's just a sign that our industry has evolved into a new type of marketer.
In the past we had front men. They'd take the glory and do deals behind closed doors and at the conventions. Like a sales rep for a business.
These days company's realize that sales reps usually get canned after a few months once they tap out of their contact list. Making cold calls was a weakness of the Internet marketer of the past.
Now that the chat board community grew as did the total number of webmasters fighting to get a bone, paying for chat board reps get better returns then hiring a sales rep. Sites sell themselves if you can get them to click the link. Look at how many webmasters are using boards these days to get their news. News related adult webmaster sites can't keep up with the pace of the chat board breaking the news.
So hats off to people like Lars and ARS for recognizing a market place that's hot. And big props to Lensman for providing the sig whores and the sponsors another way to do business.
The nice part for people like Sleazydream is that it's just extra money. Bigger players being endorsed, like an sports star or actor.
I do believe there are down sides of sig marketing. The paying on number of posts is a little silly, only when the posting sig whore lessens the value of the dialog with fluff. Makes it kind of old and boring.
Everything considered, it's just the new generation of webmaster marketing. Perception is reality. Most people believe what they read on the boards. So planting the sig whore to inject views and thoughts, stirring up controversy just to sign up more webmasters is here to stay for a while. Get used to it.
Don't player hate them for it, you made them popular and you created their value.
