...looking for a few impoverished noobs...

201, eat me woj.

yes, your testicles are indeed quite large -- and the sig as a whole is simply hypnotic -- something about the "oh-so-happy-BIG-balls-dance" and the girls "wow...wow..wow...wow...wow...wow..." --


2HP

Glad you like it.

I hate Yahoo.

Signed up as "gfy_texasdreams"

how nice of you

thank you --


2HP

I'm sure you figured it out, lol, but I joined as chasegfy, Tala. Thanks to everyone who is putting in some effort to help out.

I think I have everyone who's joined thus far. Check your emails.

Web Site Design Principles -- A visual design & architecture primer -- cont'd.



On the Web, ?where? EQUALS ?how?

Do you think Tiffany?s would build a store on this "road"...





I?m going to guess you answered ?No? ? for the obvious reason that a high-end Tiffany?s Shoppe with pink marble floors, $80,000 a year salespeople and a Champagne Dispenser in the restroom is probably not going to be able to cover its nut doing business at that location. And that seems as it should be ? insofar as it makes sense to us that there should be a ?match? between the type of business and the location.

But on the Web, obviously, that?s not the case ? there is no ?place? in the same sense ? but there ARE differences of circumstance. At bottom, what we would hope to determine by geography in the offline retail realm is simply the nature of the customer. On the Web, we can know a great deal about the customer, through a number of different methods ? but that?s not what I want to talk about next.

I think all this spy shit is actually robbing us of our instincts as marketers. We have accepted a layer of abstraction between our ?shops? and the ?street? for thinking that we don?t have to (or can?t worry) about that on the Web, and for a reliance on data-mining-based methods of traffic refinement, that are expensive as hell, but just subsidize putting us in a deeper hole with the so-called Click Scientists -- who are getting a little too fucking uppity, if you ask me. How much of all the absolute dollar and margin benefits of our conversion improvement learnings of the last 5 years have just gone RIGHT THURR?

The unfortunate condition I want to call out, though, is that, compared to what we could be doing to consider and reflect WHERE THE CUSTOMER IS COMING FROM, we?re acting like a bunch of 90-something retired Madison Avenue execs trying to come up with dog food jingles while the candy-striper fills our mouths with inspiration ? lol.

But seriously, what customer do you think of when you design a tour? Do you consider what you know about traffic acquisition methods to influence the design ? sure, everybody comes up with galleries for TGPs, but that?s not so much marketing having influence over the design as the necessities of the model dictating a format that is, in my opinion obsolete ? did y?all forget how much better it was when the accident of frustration factored more on behalf of the sponsor/submitter than the surfer?

I?m very impressed by what I see some guys in France and Italy doing in that regard. Okay ? tangent: If you don?t already agree with me that a number of over-zealous, short-sighted TGPs fucked the whole shit up WAY TOO SOON, I?ll convince ya ? but not here. For right now, just accept that the content glut that happened when video clips hit the scene, and everybody thought all that still shit was suddenly worthless ? either that, or they just said ?fuck it? and dumped it on the market to grab traffic YEARS before we had to ? but either way, that cost us A LOT.

It would be nice to get edge back with the application of some solid marketing science now ? most of y?all think just cuz you paid some designer a buck or two and it looks pretty that you got something -- no disrespect, I can?t say I have seen every site ? I am sure I?m not the only one here with a dotcom pHD ? but ? okay back to the original train?

...matching site design to traffic acquisition type, based on the idea that if you look at the street your customer is walking on, you should know what your storefront should look like.



I wanna paste something in I wrote a few weeks back? it was a good thread started by Polish Aristocrat:




The conversation came to the question (to paraphrase Lenny2):

?What makes the quality of traffic different on AdWords clicks versus organic results?"

My answer (which relates here, for there being a design implication if my assertion is correct)...




CONT'D -- (when i come back, we'll take a look at a basic e-comm site mock-up I put together as a "shell" - -cuz that makes the points I'll be making clearer)

2HP

2HousePlauge, when I'm looking for a product on google that I want to pay money for, I click on the ads before the organic links. This is because the businesses that have the money to place ads on google tend to have a better product than the SEO spam, link hell pages that come from organic. If I'm looking for a free product, I avoid the ads.

arrr sharupp you welsh bastard

Agreed -- reputability is a factor when the search is consciously pre-disposed to a purchase. I don't think I agree that being able to pay for AdWords clicks makes you reputable -- but I agree it could probably shake-out that way in the mind of the average surfer. Actually, knowing what we know about SEO methods, the greater finesse and skill required, it's probably the other way around in reality -- in this biz, easier to write checks than think.

I'm really looking forward to GotWebHost's goodgirl's SEO Traffic Acquistion Discussion on Tuesday -- I'm sure she'll shed much light.

To finish my response to your, post (thanks, btw), skinnywussy -- the point is: differences in traffic acquisition method (even when the click is coming from the same page!) DO divide customer streams into different types that should receive different marketing treatment.


2HP

Yay! We have made life simple.

http://www.lustlook.com

Welcome to Lustlook Academy. (HUGE thanks to Texas Dreams, who put it together for us to keep board and mailing list together in one easy spot. Thanks mang, you rock. )

2HP, of the three sites in your sig, none of them is functional. Do you promote any projects?

We are doing an upgrade, taking a little longer than expected.

He should be up soon

NOTE: Don't try to change themes on lustlook yet. that's being tweaked.

and it looks like only 1 is down as opposed to 3 . . . just for clarification

Thanks for the heads-up --

Hit me up -- love to chat about projects --

2HP

just created an account there!

2HP, where will you be posting tutorials? here on gfy, the teentropic board, yahoo group, or lustlook, just so i know where to stayed tuned to

thanks

i prefer teentropic board

I will make my posts here, as will others from the industry -- schedules and other info centralized here --

2HP

Just to be clear, were confrencing in http://www.lustlook.com

not yahoo.....

right? you people are jettin around the whole net....tickets are pricey now adays.....

in this thread? or new threads, if its just in this thread i will bookmark and check back every night

yes -- THIS THREAD --

2HP

Hey Jack,

Been trying to get ahold of you on ICQ...

Just have a couple questions

#30096880

2HP

Question. Why make a new forum? I could have made a category for the 2HP daily lessons and he or tala could just post them there.

Monday June 27th, 2005

I'm rather bummed. I just lost some work. And I don't think I'll be able to recover it -- It was the damnedest thing, too, I was on ICQ with an Impoverished Noob and this guy really had a lot of energy -- even through ICQ -- you know when you can feel a person "pushing", "tugging", "nipping" at ya even by way of IM, you've really got something there -- and, in spite of the fact that I was bizzy as fuck with this now-lost treasure I was writing, I engaged him and -- not un-roughly. But he hung in there. Finally, I tell him -- "Look, gimme 5 minutes, and I... I'll call ya on the phone. Yes, with my actual voice..." So he goes away, and during this time I create this Thing -- I guess you could call it a Document -- and it's loss was so terrible to me that I just held my face in my palm for about 3 minutes, before I could begin to try to figure out what happened to my computer. Like I said it was the damnedest thing. I actually BEGAN the post in another thread, but then I thought maybe it should be here, instead -- and I'm going to assume that at least some of you will understand me when I tell you it was nothing less than a moral crisis -- deciding which thread to post my already-written piece in.

It was reminiscent of this post

Let me give you just a bit of background on some of my writing idiosyncracies and superstitions -- you can Imagine that, for a guy like me, losing work is pretty fucking devastating -- so, in an effort to protect my writing from -- let's just call them "Losses I cannot reconcile immediately against a greater Necessity", I have developed all sorts of little, weird routines (enacted solely in the glow-filled triangle between mouse keyboard, and screen) that produce, at least in me, a feeling of invulnerability -- my headphones are on, just as they are now, and my fingers are moving with all the grace of Swans across the surface of a Lake, the muse is in full-seduction, and will have her way with me, then leave me spent... No, it's not the time to go letting anything run down the drain. You can imagine that my little rituals are filled with lots of fanatical flurries of Ctrl+S and Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, carried out in swift sequences that minimize the time spent traversing the abyss -- and by "traversing the abyss" I mean: DATA=CLPBRD, DOC1SAVE=0, DOC2SAVE=0 -- . So, picture this, okay -- I am RIGHT THERE, all stretched-out with one leg in Heaven and one leg in Hell (I won't tell you which way I was going, though -- ), having made up my mind about where to drop that BIG POST -- it doesn't get any clearer than that folks -- I am in the proverbial Moment de la Choix , packing the MOTHERFUCK SIDEARM, when...




The last thing I saw before the monitor winked out was his ICQ window opening -- you struck me, my friend, you changed things more than you can know -- but I am not upset. In fact I am dying to speak to you, to find out who you are --

I am going outside for a smoke in 5 minutes -- calle me 51-2 5- 65 -- 5 minutes




2HP

I must have hit a nerve ;)

your number though ....its a little foggy....are the smilies 0's?

id try but i dont want it to be the wrong number and wake the president at 239 am PST ;)

I tossed together the LustLook site using PostNuke and phpBB as more of a total package. The Content Management System tends to be better for a collection of articles, plus it cross-references, indexes everything and makes it possible for individual searches, comments and ratings for each new topic. I had been thinking of doing something with the LL site for kind of like a Blog on steroids to cover webmaster news/info/design/programming things, it just seemed like a good time to kickstart it with this. I'll keep it updated, and probably start throwing in a number of other features as time goes on.

Much obliged. I'm sure it would have been appreciated -- but I was forced to wake him anyway --



2HP

goody goody gum drops..... coffee anyone? :food-smil

thanks, i already have one -mocha latte.

Web Site Design Principles -- A visual design & architecture primer





It is a sweet, sweet thing to serve necessity with impulse --
Thse are fractals?


Actually, these are portions of the Mandelbrot Set, which, until just a moment ago, was getting all my attention and was holding my ability to write hostage to itself.

So, what did I do? I came up with a way to write about Mandelbrot (or, rather, about an attribute all fractals share) and serve the necessity of this topic.

One of the defining characteristics of fractals is that they repeat the same basic pattern, both regressively and progressively ? much like the basic trunk-and-branch structure of a tree pervades its entire form ? from main trunk, to roots, to the veins of the leaves.

This relates to our discussion, because I intend to explain a design principle of potentially great complexity by way of a very simple iteration. The idea being that in the least complexity, the concept is most visible, and may then, for being understood in essence first, be applied in very elaborate schemes.

But before I describe this design principle, let us remind ourselves of the context. We are discussing Web sites where things are sold. We are discussing ways in which to improve on their design ? and, make them sell better.

The scope of study suggested by the title of this discussion is vast. I could write about anything -- from the subtle effects of color palette choice, to the relationship between page-object placement and user action. But
I am trying to focus on what I think are the most relevant design issues to our kinds of Web sites, and to those topics that I think one may do justice to, even in cursory overview. In this case, as I mentioned above, I also want to involve fractals somehow ? lol.

I?ll touch upon an observation I already made above, once more ? a little thought and a little good design sense (within the site) can deliver most of the improvements to site conversion performance we are now too often seeking in an assortment of expensive, 3rd party up-stream ?targeting? methodologies or the use of cookies and IP-sensitivity within our sites.

As regards targeting, all of that is well and good, but all the clickstream data in the world won?t reverse the effects of a bad site design. I think we lose our way a little bit, and assume that a high-tech solution you have to pay for everyday (per click, yet!) is necessarily better than having gotten it right, design-wise, in the first place.

I think the best thing in the world you can do for your site is simply make it easy for your prospective customers to find the items that interest them. Sounds simple, no? Instead, in Adult, the average site design acts as if grabbing a handful of darts and throwing them at the wall were smart ? it?s just that those porn darts stick so damned well, we never cry for the big pile left un-stuck on the floor.

The Adult Web is still choked by pop-up ads, which are now making use of ever-more aggressive methods of data harvesting and ?contextual? ad delivery. It?s ironic that we are (literally, we are) giving up the juicy margins we?ve worked so hard for over the years , just so these guys who don?t know our business, and have no interest in helping can make bank on our backs. I sometimes wonder what the global effect to online revenue would be iif -- just for 24 hrs. this choke was removed.

The objective of all this expensive technology is simply to match the right visitors to the right ads or purchase opportunities. This can be done in a number of different ways, but all involve comparing data (which has been either given voluntarily by the visitor or ascertained via cookies, or some other behavior tracking mechanism) and the data in a centralized archive. "Matches" are made on the basis of statistical probability, but are, therefore, never better than good guesses.

There is another way to achieve "targeting" -- via design, that may seem old-fashioned by comparison. It is based on the principle that "choices tell" -- and that users will make the choices, at any given moment, that reflect their most important intererest and therefore whatever it is that that they are most interested in buying / most ready to buy or be sold your site...

front page, please.

Okay gang, I have a question: I've gotten some emails wondering WTF is going on. Do you want to keep using the yahoo group and board already set up, or should we transfer to Lust Look?

Either way is dandy with me. We've all been putting work into this to make it work, so if wanted, we could all use all three: the board at teentropic, the yahoo group and lustlook.

Let me know.

Thanks

Email sent

1 hour a day = 2k month?

For some reason I don't buy that. There's no way a newbie can make $2k profit from 1 hour/day work.

But I'll bite... Sign me up...

I don't see what's so confusing.

I like having everything in one loaction, but I am still popping into the other things set up to see what's going on. I don't think it takes up THAT much time or energy.

I cant wait til tomorrow, Im really anticipating what Goodgirl has to say....

nails gripping the edge of my seat riveted

I am your clay....mold me

Once you understand that good Web site design is about providing the User with choices that are understandable, and whose consequences are both predictable, instructive and rewarding, it becomes a simple matter to apply those principles to driving sales.

Always assume that the user will proceed continuously from a starting point towards that which is most interesting or attractive to them.

The most basic navigational structure is the Linear Sequence, illustrated below:


In this arrangement, the User is presented with only one path (both forwards and backwards) and, because there are no Divisive Choices presented, is of limited effectiveness in driving sales. A Divisive Choice is a navigational opportunity that will separate traffic into two or more categories about which some information may be established based on that choice -- for example a doorway that is labeled "restrooms" will tell us something about the people who go through it, and then subsequent doorways labeled "men" and "women" will INCREASE the amount of information that is known about the user on a particular location/page as they go deeper. Well designed sites that make good use of this principle can accumulate extraordinarily deep targetting information, without the need for cookies or questionnaires.

The below diagram show a structure that begins to offer more Divisive Choices, but is too "shallow". Users are forced into a linear structure that does not provide Divisive Choices and therefore does not provide tagetting information.



The diagram below shows a site structure that is troubled in a different way. Here, the problem is too much choice, presented in a way that neither rewards the user by bringing them closer to what they want, nor provides the operator of the Site with valuable sales opportunities arising from the creation of self-targetted locations within the site.


Ideally, what you want is to direct the User through a sequence of choices that will tell you who they are, what they want, and when the best moment to offer them a purchase opportunity is. The diagram below shows a balanced (not too shallow, not too deep) site structure, with an appropriate number of Divisive Choices and an excellent likelihood of creating high-value self-targetted User locations where purchase opportunities may be presented with the highest possible likelihood of success.


When this design principle is applied correctly in the context of an e-commerce site, you have the best possible outcome of happy Users who are finding what they want, quickly, efficiently and with minimal difficulty, and a site that is converting as many Users as WOULD buy (if they find what they want) into buyers, and also as many as MIGHT buy (for providing the right Divisive Choices at the right time).

I know you can only appreciate the power of this simple principle so much by looking at flat diagrams. So, I created a simple Web Site (with just one Divisive Choice) so you can navigate inside it as if you were a User yourselves, and have a deeper sense of the value of good design, both to User and Merchant.

TAKE A LOOK:

2HP

Thanks for the lessons so far teach....

do you wanna pick up the conversation we were having again sometime? i hope i dont seem to needy or whatever.... just curious to hear from some more experienced players on the field and collaborate a good game plan.

You're welcome -- my light is ON --

2HP

erm...what was decided with regards to the location of discussion groups ,etc? I joined yahoo,went to teentropic now to lustlook and I can tell you it`s getting pretty confusing.
I have to agree though that articles are better published in some sort of CMS (mambo is my fav,the *nukes are very inconsistent with regard to new releases and security issues) than a forum.A combination of both is the best IMHO.

Out of loyalty to the site and to the people who made ALL of this possible, GFY will remain at the heart of the Impoverished Noobs movement.

This means that my posts and the posts of other Persons of Achievement in the Adult Industry who'll be contributing their wisdom, experience and guidance over the next few days and weeks will happen right here, in this thread, on GFY.

In keeping with the democratizing aims of Impoverished Noobs, and consistent with the spirit of sharing, openness and inclusion at its heart, I encourage anyone and everyone to either link to the thread or to copy any of the information I have posted here.

As regards, any other *official* Impoverised Noobs destinations, I will make an announcement within the next 24 hours.

Meanwhile, please recognize that a temporary state of confusion for the availability of too many resources is not necessarily a bad thing --

As it is now, you have a number of ways to connect with each other and to begin to do what I would consider most important -- get to know each other, join forces, become encouraged, and feed on the energy of the moment -- !

Thank You!


2HP

Hey, had to skip class tonight....went to the titty bar with Ziggy Kokopelli

an experience to be had

Anyone know him?

Tuesday, June 28th, 2005



REMINDER -- This evening there will be a Special Guest Discussion:

2HP