Originally Posted by TheSquealer (Post 19935863)

You're correct. We are all messed up. We are all incorrectly "assuming" as you've repeatedly stated. We all "misunderstand" you as you've repeatedly stated. You are the only one who see's anything with clarity. You are the only one who "understands" for a wide variety of reasons you've outlined.

Got it finally.
:)

Originally Posted by TheSquealer (Post 19935899)

haha.. .a quasi apology where you can't resist again trying to beat the point home that everyone "assumed" incorrectly which "caused" you to act a certain way. Is it possible that you have made your view piercingly clear and we just disagree with it? I thought that's all there was to this exchange.

Thanks,... i guess

:)

Originally Posted by EddyTheDog (Post 19925977)

OK - That's total BS - That's why 'wow'...

You asked.....

Do you think that Twistys' customers have been treated well?..

Come on Shap - You know that they have been fucked as well as I do - If not then again - WOW.....

Originally Posted by Adam_M (Post 19935716)

Was the keynote Gary V? Sounds like him from your remarks and I love that guy.

So much has changed in this and every other online business over the past 7 years. As in most any industry the first years are full of fast money and little to no rules, over time things settle get more competitive and mature. In the early days I remember a guy sitting at the bar at Internext talking about how easy it was, submit a gallery to thehun and BOOM 20 to 30 sale, my first thought was that we best get in quick because easy money never lasts.

I think customers service and quality produce will stand the test of time no mater what happens in ours or any other industry and that has been my primary focus for the past 3 or 4 years. I think that mentality has paid off with 2013 being one of my best ever and I am really looking forward to what 2014 brings with some exciting new projects.

As far as SEO goes it is a lot like the other parts on the online business, more rules, less cowboys and coming back again to a quality product. Google knows exactly what's happening on your site and if you think you can trick them with a bunch of inbound links and scam tactics then I would think again because it has no future.

Nice to hear from you Shap and shoot me and Email or IM some time so we can talk.

Happy New Year to all

Originally Posted by Ramster (Post 19936479)

Really? Twistys members get more exclusive content than they did when Shap sold. Manwin spends more on content then when Shap owned them, I KNOW, I worked for Shap and for Manwin now. Guys like you talk out of your ass and you have NO idea what the heck you're talking about, it's laughable.

Now I will add this, just late December Manwin did reduce the content updates, but for the first 2.5 YEARS they left everything the same.

Originally Posted by The Porn Nerd (Post 19935723)

When you Join 'Teen Cum Guzzlers' to relieve that sex drive then yes.

Originally Posted by xxxjay (Post 19973334)

I have more sales to my programs that I've had since 2008, I've just been doing it quietly because there's a not a lot going on here.

See sig.

Originally Posted by TheMaster (Post 19973854)

off topic: would be interesting to see those sponsor conversion stats you used to publish years ago, to see what happened throughout the years

for me there was a giant shift for paysites in 2013, programs converting at 30% of what they did all the years before or worse, the other day I noticed Mofos dropped to 7% of what it did for me in 2012 :(

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 19925805)

I was recently in attendance at a tech conference keynote where the speaker discussed that many mainstream companies are now struggling online. In the past most online companies relied on mailing, seo and banner advertising as their bread and butter. Those days are long gone. Mailing open rates continue to decline, seo has completely changed and banner click thru rates continue to decline as well. Each of these three areas not only yielded great results but were FAST results. They were easy results. You didn't have to work very hard for them relatively speaking. The companies doing well today are those companies that have invested time and money in developing relationships with their clients.

As I sat their listening to this it really hit home. This has happened in adult as well. A large majority of adult companies that had great success were very successful at banner advertising, seo and mailing. How many adult companies have develop relationships with their existing customers? I would say very few. How many of them spend time developing relationships with prospective clients? Even fewer. I know when I ran Twistys and GayTube I made sure the entire team knew the importance of the customer, the relationship we had with them and making sure they were happy. On Twistys I spent a lot of time on the Members Forum discussing everything from suggestions to complaints to ideas to site upgrades. It was very important to me that the members knew I cared and more importantly I appreciated them as a customer. We didn't always see eye to eye but I cared about them. I think that played a huge role in Twistys weathering the tube storm that hurt many pay sites. I didn't do near enough with non members but the mentality was there and I know if I ran it today I'd have a number of strategies in place to really connect with people and get a huge following for the brand/site.

I thought up of a few starting points for anybody who would wants to try to improve their business in 2014.

#1. If you don't respect your customer change your thinking NOW! He's not a dirty porn surfer. He's not a loser. He's your customer and if you are a pay site he's made the decision to share some of his hard earned money with you. If you were walking down the street and a stranger walked up to you and gave you $25 or the next time you go out to eat some stranger picks up the bill for you. Would you appreciate it? Of course. Would you thank them? Of course. Why not do the same with your members?

#2 Make sure you are close to whoever does your customer support. Don't outsource you customer support. Customer support holds the answer to many of your problems and can give you the pulse of your industry. Make sure you have control of it and full access at all times to all support tickets.

#3 Know when a certain segment of the market is growing and when it's declining. Mailing can still be profitable but it's not going to make a comeback. Know that you will most likely see decreasing returns on mailing from today moving forward. Also know that there are new areas that open up daily for you to explore. Is your brand on Twitter? On other adult friendly social media platforms? Are you working those platforms properly? Or are you applying the same tactics across all of them? Ie are you blasting the same content in the same way across Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and Facebook? or are you catering to each market and what works best on each?

#4 Do you have any way to communicate with your customers and do you know much about them? Ie Do you know who your best customers are? Where did you get them? What other sites do your customers like? etc etc

Those are just a few quickies. If any of you want to discuss this more by all means let's discuss it. If you'd like any direct feedback for your particular situation I'd be more than happy to try to drum up a couple of ideas for you.

I'd love to know what your thoughts are on this. Fire away :)

Happy Holidays and a Happy and Prosperous 2014 to you all :thumbsup

Originally Posted by xxxjay (Post 19975683)

So much misinformation on this thread.

Your attitude should be like a stripper: Make most amount of money from your customers as can and leave them with the familiar pangs of guilt associated with adult entertainment. You can still trick Google with inbound links, you can make money on tube traffic, and all of the old-school marketing tactics still work: They've just transmogrified some.

Check your morals at the door, do what makes you the most money, and remember that all of your peers filthy pornographers as well.
I
How do I know all this you might ask?

I got more sales today than I've seen in five years and I didn't need a big "holier than thou" dog-and-pony show to do it.

:2 cents:

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 19975791)

By all means please inform us all with the your wisdom and clear up all the misinformation here. I'd love to hear it

Originally Posted by Shap (Post 19975791)

By all means please inform us all with the your wisdom and clear up all the misinformation here. I'd love to hear it

Originally Posted by The Porn Nerd (Post 19975923)

Life Lesson #232: Never trust someone with 'XXX' in their name.

Originally Posted by bronco67 (Post 19975999)

Meaning, the people who make the best porn also love porn

Originally Posted by xxxjay (Post 19975947)

We have both been around this industry long enough to know neither one of us is newbies. However, my attitude would've been quite in line with yours if you had asked me even a year ago.

Look up to who the big people are in adult now I'm talking about the Manwin's / Think Geek (or whatever there calling themselves now), they are an empire built upon one simple premise: Theft of other people's content to create a huge traffic empire that would eventually control all of the traffic and much of the business in adult. I'm sure you are familiar with these guys. :winkwink:

For years, I have been one of the dissenting voices against their practices and encouraged people in the industry to organize to fight the obvious problem the tubes were causing legitimate program owners, content owners, and webmasters. You see where that all got us. Never underestimate our industries inability to organize or combat an obvious problem before it's too late.

Now rather than bitch about it, I've turned to the dark side and have been effectively buying their traffic and making money off it, I'm not saying that it's the best business model, but it converts and I make all lot more money than I was before, I'm just doing it quietly now.



Never trust a person with "porn" in their name either. The fact is, I've been around this industry since 1997 and I've built three successful businesses and sold them without ripping off one single solitary webmaster, other company or business partner...look me up. With all due respect, go fuck yourself you ass-kissing newb.:321GFY

Originally Posted by beaner (Post 20099962)

I am still waiting for shap... re: re: re: to email on next big thang

....oops, wrong thread. Carry on ladies

Originally Posted by The Porn Nerd (Post 19925852)

Mainstream is finding it difficult these days because they do not know how to 'soft sell' so their ad campaigns become ever-increasingly shrill and obnoxious until their customer base tunes them out.