There are a lot more details to come guys! Once we have a couple of other things finished up we'll be rolling out some new ARS stuff as well as announcements and information regarding all the changes.

ARS has always been committed to webmasters and with these changes will continue to show our committment. Any changes we make will have both our future and our webmasters' future in mind!

I can already feel the excitement. Outside of the ARS announcements we have a new staff member that I'm excited to have on board. We'll make that announcement at the same time! :)

lets pray :)

Marc, what's the ETA of the announcements?

Will this result in same level of income for someone who converts 1:60 with your program?

The answer would be probably "no, the changes will result in even more income for you, $5 submissions". :glugglug

Sounds good, looking forward to the announcement! :thumbsup

The changes have been developed to produce the same or more income. I can't guarantee anything. However, I can say in confidence that the changes will give ARS longevity and show we can make difficult decisions at difficult times (obviously ceasing our relationship with AskCS.com / GIM and their current portfolio of sites was HUGE) to be around and provide top notch service and commissions in an ever changing market.

The new products coming are AMAZING. The level of quality being provided to the consumers should result in a better overall market. Also a much more reasonable billing / pricing scheme.

More info to come... Announcement will happen sometime today. I don't have an exact time.

I just wanted to spend some of my reward points on a new Dell system and now I get a page saying the reward store will be closed untill may 1st. :(

This is also on that page:
"All points in the ARSRewards.com system will be valued at $0.10 each. All current points in the current system will be multiplied by 1.5 and then revalued at the $0.10 each. In order to get your points transferred, you must send a signup to a site in the ARS 4 Real portfolio within 30 days of 2/23/04. If you do not, you will lose your current points."

Sure if you promote them 1 sale won't be hard but if you are not activly promoting them at the moment and don't know about this you could lose all your points.

SR - that is all part of the official announcements coming today. We will be sending out a special newsletter to discuss all the exciting and PROACTIVE changes coming to ARS.

ARS RI - Adult Revenue Service ReInvented

Ars/silvercash is like the ccbill/epoch of sponsors in terms of reliability. The members areas may have sucked but you could always rely on a check from ARS with even a trickle of targeted traffic. Same with Silvercash.

I remember when Silvercash sent out that email discontinuing the .11 per click program a couple of years ago. They chose to discontinue the program rather than keep paying per click and then break out with your dough in the end like Smutcash/Wowcash did around that same time...I was a broke ass struggling muthafucka back then and when Smutcash stuck me for that $300 and change, I was screwed for a bill I needed to pay. I'll never forget them for that.

So if ARS is changing something, it must mean that they're making sure that the dollars keep rolling in....

If I likethe new stuff that ARS has, i might promote them again.

Let's hope it's gonna be good

Wow - let's just fuck all our affiliates over while they're not looking - stunning!

Didn't Coca-Cola say something along those lines about New Coke and Cherry Coke? ;)

Looking forward to see which inovations you've come up with.

Yep - take away our reward points and then tell us about it - that makes a lot of good business sense.

The Other Steve - can you explain to me how that is fucking over our affiliates? I'm having trouble seeing that?

Let me get this straight

You get to keep your points
You continue to get points
You are informed of the change
Its part of our overall plan and announcement...

I guess I just fail to see how anyone is getting fucked? We aren't taking away rewards points and we aren't shutting down the program.

The Other Steve - obviously you don't quite understand the moretorium of rewards orders. We are NOT taking points away, we are just not allowing orders for 66 days... Nothing too drastic.

Guess I've always had the wrong kind of traffic. Never earned a cent from them . . .

when is this 66 day thing starting?
I think i need to cash in all my points asap
:(

doober - already started today as of noon PST

" In order to get your points transferred, you must send a signup to a site in the ARS 4 Real portfolio within 30 days of 2/23/04. If you do not, you will lose your current points."

So if someone doesn't send a signup within 30 days, you WILL take points away, correct?

Remember FDR's "bank holidays" from History Class? LOL!

Translation, the ARS Rewards Store is CLOSED until May-1st.

Saw this coming last year and redeemed my points...I'm just surprised how ARS did it...I was thinking they'd likely just keep increase the reward stores prices until slowly the points became near worthless, not actually close the entire store like they did.

And it get's worse...some quotes from the ARS Reward Store:

Many folks will be caught by surprise...however, it appears ARS is likely running very tight on cash and is seeking ways of reducing costs - and the sudden shutdown is further indication, at least in my view, of how dire things may be...

Closing the ARS Reward Store is a VERY BAD PR move...but perhaps ARS figures, since few new webmasters are joining up these days, the PR hit doesn't matter overall...ARS will likely make sure the "big" folks (ie those doing over 50/SU per day) are still taken care of and likely feels the tradeoff of some PR for cash savings is worthwhile.

Ron

Looking forward to it.

It's always nice to see whats new or improved and what changes sponsors are making in the industry.

And what is wrong with that?
As long as they announce it ( in the news, in emails etc. ) everyone will be aware of this.
If someone is a serious webmasters and got lots of points, he should simply send 1 sale within a month.
If someone is a small webmaster he might not be able to send that 1 sale, but that also means that he doesn't have much points accumulated so he doesn't lose anything :2 cents:

( edited for spelling )

Thanks woj - you saved me the effort of finding that little bit of info.

Marc - there are some people who have posted in this thread who seem to think you walk on water.

But after that reward point crap you're going to have to fly with an umbrella before I take anything you or your organisation says at face value again

The Other Steve - I'm not sure what upsets you so much about it but I think its pretty simple and pretty straight forward. We're not doing ANYTHING besides not letting folks redeem their points for 66 days? How is that earth shattering?

Marc D,

Your company has been very good to me so best of luck on the new changes!

Slapass

slapass - thanks, we're trying hard! :)

Because they're worried that the same amount points that they could once get a Harley for 66 days previously, would now purchase a skateboard.

If people are that "excited" about the reward store closing for 60 days, its going to be hell-a-rific when they announce the "real" changes....


:1orglaugh

Marc. I think what some of the restless warriors are worried about the change in the point system and what the points buy later is going to more devaluatiion then they can handle with no real notice since the store has been shut down as of today and many may not realize this.

So the points are valued at .10 now what were they valued at before?

Not that it matters, I think they just want to talk about this area in more detail with you.

crazy!!!

BVF - its all set already. Rewards points will have a value of $0.10 in the new store.

Old points will convert to new 1=1.5 :) This is all above board, nothing shady or questionable.

But i need to send a sign up to the new program? Is this correct? Sorry but i dont feel like sending a sign up just to redeem my points.

"real" changes include kicking DrG in the nuts ;-).... then throwing him into one of the snowpiles lining his street to let him sleep it off :thumbsup

I can feel the love.

i know already that i dont like that


do you have AN IDEA about how many linking codes / pages we are talking about here?

if my programmer would not have thought about such stuff........

Hey Marc. Sounds like a great new direction for you and your company. Congrats :thumbsup

Nobody has mentioned this and I hate to be the one to bring it up, but does this have anything to do with Chargebacks, Fines and the AskCs / GIM sites being over the New Visa Limits? We've heard of the New Visa limits but no word on anybody getting hit hard by them. If you did, it may be a serve as a good example for others in the industry to shape up and take a new approach to treating members.

:1orglaugh I can almost imagine all the webmasters singing in a chore in front of ARS offices:

What's love?
It should be about us
It should be about trust babe
I don't know what it is
We just party & bullshit


:Graucho

A major change... I don't really promote ARS anymore, but they were the first sponsor I ever pushed hard. My first sale (off a free hosted page) was for Oral Lovers... it was that sale that inspired me to be an adult webmaster.

I made 1000's off ARS when i started out couple of years ago but suddenly it just stopped working for me and now i dont promote them anymore.

We made a pile of money with ARS and I'm sure they'll stay on top of the game for a while.

Good luck Marc!

I'm sure things will be fine and Marc once again will lead the way in changes that have to be made for his business to continue to grow and profit along with the webmasters that are sending to him. The old models of paying $40 per $1 join are gone and people will have to change.

Surfers are smarter. We looked up an account today and found that in the last two years we had a guy take our trial over 20 different times. They know how to cheat the system. Now imagine if he is using a link code each time. The affiliate program makes about $1 for each time he signed up and payed out $40 each time.... WOW.... killer loss

shap - chargebacks did NOTHING to influence this decision. Losing money with this model did! There are many reasons that the change we're making will be made by many. Chargebacks may be an influence to others to wake up and see that this model is grossly unprofitable (that model being cookie cutter, ultra niched sites with sub standard content, high priced, multiple cross sells).

I'm in the business of making money while paying out good commissions to get more business. Obviously our 'current' situation doesn't allow that!

Announcement coming very shortly in a new thread...

I agree 100% Marc. We've always found it odd that you've got a number of really kick ass paysites on the web and they are always independant companies. Most companies have either focused on the Quality of the Paysite or Making the Webmaster more money.

ie Quality Paysites
Karups
Atk
Twistys :thumbsup
1 By Day
Danni
Scoreland


And then you've got those geared towards $$$ for webmasters
CE Cash
ARS
CEN
Maxcash
etc etc


You never see a company like ARS or CEN with a really kick ass site like ATk as part of their program. They almost always have substandard cookie cutter backends. It would be interesting to see one that combines both.

MarcDe - I'd like to talk with you or a manage about the changes to come. It would have been nice to know about this before as well as I was about to start my initial marketing campaign for ARS paysites. Please contact me on ICQ and then we can exchange phone numbers. Thanks. ICQ 129060301

Cheers,
Matt

Now...
"All points in the ARSRewards.com system will be valued at $0.10 each. All current points in the current system will be multiplied by 1.5 and then revalued at the $0.10 each. In order to get your points transferred, you must send a signup to a site in the ARS 4 Real portfolio within 30 days of 2/23/04. If you do not, you will lose your current points."

I seem to remember one point used to be multiplied with .165
Correct?
That come down to 16.5 cents per point?
I am bad at math. Real bad.
So now one point is worth 15 cents in other words.(?)
Not to mention the discount Executive webmasters got. 10%?
That still going to be in effect?

Someone please correct me if my math is off.

Did you look at homegrownmovies(ce cas)? Damn like 3-4 updates a day!

Andre

Yeah it sounds like you need to make a sale in the new proggy to get your old rewards points...