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Originally posted by TAMPA_TOKER
Is the 900 biz still booming?
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Not like it was for the marketing entrepreneurs who had the early first allotment of 900 numbers. We're actually the ones who convinced AT&T to go into 900 when we were in the 976 biz and thought why not do this on a national scale instead of having to deal individually with every Bell regionally.
We had the first full page ad in Hustler for example and there weren't many others. Within a few years Hustler turned into the yellow pages for phone sex ads. So we started putting ads on literally every page to stay competitive. And then opened our own photo studio because we needed so many ads for all the magazines we were in.
When the Net came online the magazine's circulations all went downhill, the ad rates didn't, so the profit margins weren't as amazing as the first 7 years.
You can still make big money in 900 but mostly if you have your own major media distribution channel. Like if you own American Idol for example. Or like Jim Fiest who makes a killing because his betting numbers get on his TV show on the weekend and in his betting news magazine that he publishes.
Despite what most people think there was actually more money to be made in mainstream 900 because you could get on TV and in mainstream media with non-adult ads which we did.
So you can still make money but not like the goldrush days.
I still make money from phone sex. We also license out our audio content in digital MP3 format now.