What's making business so tough these days?

[blakkfrogg]

Everyone has an opinion and I think it's high time we sorted this mess out. I'm not saying we'll actually reach a solid conclusion or anything vaguely close to one, but maybe we'll all get a better understanding of ALL the forces currently working against us and rally as a team to diminish the power of those forces and in doing so, start making more money.

So far the majority of folks (and these are NOT necessarily my opinions) say that one of the following things is making life harder for us all:

1) Too many tgp's
2) Too much free stuff available
3) Too many newbies
4) Lack of cooperation between webmasters
5) Cheaters, cheaters, cheaters
6) Shaving... and not of body hair
7) Surfers are getting smarter
8) Too many sponsor choices for the surfer

Those are the ones I've heard. I think they could all possibly be valid, but I think it's more a combination of them all that is hurting a lot of us.

Let's hear some opinions, folks. AND let's all play nice. OR Uncle Froggy will take away your ice cream.

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[DarkJedi]

well, IMO we got too much free stuff - I think thats the major thing that gets in our way.

Why pay if you can get it for free ?

Plus the major TGP rules - only 2 banners, min 15 pics, etc. Its too easy to get free porn.

[Tam]

I think it is a combination of all of them...... I submit galleries and get them rejected because there is not enough nudity in them........ but why give it all away, my understanding when I first started this was that a gallery was meant as a teaser to get them interested in seeing more so I rarely ever submit a hardcore gallery, but it is getting harder and harder to get anything but hardcore listed.

This was my whole point in building Rude Bitch, so I could post my own "not so hardcore" galleries and everyone elses.... I will come closer to putting the softer ones closer to the top.... unless they have a link to me of course, that part is only fair. But I will list them even if there is no nudity at all...... ok well this isn't getting ME anywhere because everyone else is giving away so much more than me for free so they go there, which in turn hurts me........ and others like me... I say me as an in general term... not me in particular.

Ok, so I thought well ok..... this is not working so well so I am trying something totally different........ I started a links site that ONLY lists AVS sites, while it is still new, it will grow I hope and I think this will give the webmasters a better chance at a sale.... ok at least I am hoping. LOL

CHEATERS!!!! That is killing us all....... Of 139 links submitted to me 2 days ago, I deleted 80 for breaking the very few simple rules I have..... so I kinda get the feel of why so many tgps have such harsh rules.... the submitters see few rules so they see it as a field day and can get by with murder.. or just short of.

Then we have the surfers who are cheaters....... they signup and get in, download the entire damn sites and then cancel the membership... why keep it or pay for it? They have the entire site on their damn harddrives within minutes so why pay for it? And all the chargebacks start making problems with the billing companies causing them to be more strict........

It's a neverending chain of events and I could go on for days.... but we all know where it goes....... it is a snowball effect and we all as webmasters are hurting because of it, and I don't think it is any ONE thing, I honestly think it is a chain of events........

COMPETITION AND GREED play huge parts in this too, I honestly believe that... we see a little money, so we want more and more and more..... so we resort to things that aren't exactly in our own best interest just to make more and more money and in the long run it only hurts us. Oh sure we make more right now... but what about down the road?

Ok, I will quit for now. I probably don't know what I am talking about any damn way. lol

Tam

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May the Force Be With YOU!!
Gimmee your fucking galleries, NOW!!!
AND Your AVS Sites!!

[Gemini]

We agree with you Tam. So you aren't alone out there! It's a real bite to get rejected for not enough nudity. I personally find it funny with RR acting the 'gent' with his banned words etc and then say ya didn't show enuff T&A.

There *are* guys that would rather be teased more than the regular guy. We just have to round them up and herd em. They may be put off when your site comes up in a SE if they are looking for softcore. lol The URL doesn't exactly lead to that way of thinking even tho *we* know different. Maybe softcoreb*tch.com ?

I dunno. I shouldn't say alot since I'm not the brains of this outfit. lol He just keeps me around because I clean up nice. I wish he'd cut me loose to post alot more. We have TONS of softcore pages! And he will be doing more all this week.

As far as there is too much out there... nothing we can do to stop that. We can't get the tgp sites to chage since other grubbers would run in and try to take over.

We need to build an affiliation of webmasters from here that do clean non jerk sites and promote each other better. Get them in to OUR loop and pass them in a better way than link lists and the like. Maybe banners would be a better method. Open them in to a new page so we don't lose the traffic ourselves and it would let the surfer decide which site they would rather be looking at.

[shunga]

I think everyone would benefit from less free hardcore content - more sales and less governmental interference - and fewer webmasters fooling surfers with blind clicks and auto homepage setting, etc.

[blakkfrogg]

Auto Homepage Settings... GRRRRRRRR. I hate that damn trick. Here's why:

I was reviewing galleries one night before some friends, some NON-pornlovers I might add, came over to hang out. The doorbell rang and I saved my work, closed all the windows and had nothing but the bare desktop showing. I answered the door and everyone came in. One person asked if they could check ther Hotmail account and I, not knowing that some fuckhead had changed my startup page with a javascript while I was reviewing (and probably rejecting) their gallery. What an eye-opener she got. Imagine having to explain the whole javascript-popup-console-porn-so-large-you-can-taste-it thing that she saw to a room full of straight-edges. NOT fucking funny!

* pant pant pant *

* wheeze wheeze wheeze *


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[Lane]

we all want the biggest to give less free stuff to the visitors right? so they know that they have to pay some money to see some good shit.
no matter how many times you say this, the tgps wont change shit. becuz it is the way they get more and more bookmarkers. if a couple big tgps decide to make a big change, then there will be some smartasses who will open their tgps, offer shitload of free stuff and get all the visitors to their sites. so we will be back to the same position again... like a paradox, huh?

you gotta find a solution that those tgps HAVE TO change and give less free stuff. dont ever expect them to do that by themselves.

cheers,
Lane

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[This message has been edited by Lane (edited 06-20-2001).]

[TheFLY]

Quit whining and do something about it

[Lane]

Originally posted by TheFLY:
Quit whining and do something about it

if we knew what to do....

[DarkJedi]

ok, the idea with big sponsors restricting hardcore promotion seems good.

[Lane]

Originally posted by DarkJedi:
ok, the idea with big sponsors restricting hardcore promotion seems good.

so they will loose money
they won't do it

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[McSpike]

Lane,

Who says they will have more traffic simply just because they offer free hardcore content and you don't??!!

Only if you link to them, you screwed yourself, otherwise they have a problem. They won't get linked on other softcore sites anymore!... They will need to count on SEs more...

How many times do we need to hear this remark?? "someone else will pop up with his own free hardcore".... ya right!! I sure won't link to that asshole!! Will you?... I bet you won't, so where will those dubm asses get the traffic from?? Well they will have tough time to get it cuz no one will want to trade with them - they will be alone!!

So DUH!... Things WILL change as soon as majority agrees we need softcore!! Then the minority can come with all the free harcore they can find but all they will get is huge bandwidth bills and a lot less traffic cuz they won't get linked anymore!!...

The joke will be on them!

[shunga]

...Then they'll open softcore sites and send your traffic to their hardcore sites that way. Hardcore and movie site smust be the easiest way of generating traffic, but then how to convert when you're giving it away..? When I see a big TGP specialising in hardcore, I really wonder about their conversion ratios, as their links give you everything you need.

[UnseenWorld]

Hey, folks, this is just capitalism at work. Some will figure out how to make money in this market, some will fall by the wayside. You're like Montgomery Ward when all the discount stores started popping up. Sears figured out how to stay in business, Montgomery Ward didn't. It's your job to figure out how to be a Sears instead of a Montgomery Ward.

The way many of you are talking is like you have a right to be in business simply because you're here. And I really don't understand anyone complaining about newbies. They should be the easiest ones of all to beat. Just give them really bad advice. Tell 'em to build a pay site on a free host with images pirated from Alsscan and Playboy.

I know several successful operators of pay sites, and what most of them have in common is that they are pay sites with exclusive photo and video content which is updated frequently. Many of them are also working niches: cheerleaders, panties, preggers, etc.

It can be done, but it isn't done by whining and bitching about something that's unlikely to change. And BTW, if you want to remove a major irritant, figure out some way to to get rid of the newsgroups. If you got rid of all the give-away sites, there would after all still be the newsgroups.

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Producer of truly original teen/young woman-oriented adult content at Wonders of the Unseen World

[wolfshade]

Nah you're all wrong

The slowdown is caused by the season: SUMMER

TGP's and free stuf has nothing to do with it, I'll say it once again it all boils down to MARKETING SKILLS.

If you can get into Joe surfers head there is nothing he won't buy

Also quit pretending that TGP's are the only traffic sources they are not I get:

a steady 5 to 10k from SE's every day

Green Guy alone does 2k dialy to my sites

PK ads another k and a half to that

Toplists send me 5k a day

Picposts do 1k

Manual linktrades with other sites get me about 500 hits a day

Totalling 20k non TGP traffic daily.

and it converts nicely

Also I did a little ARS test lately and I sent 100k of TGP traffic to some FPA's of them 10% clicked through and my ratio is 1:150

Not bad at all with that traffic I could feed my TGP and get some good sign ups at the same time and then you say TGP traffic is bad?

C'mon quit ya wining start learning and increase ya $$$

Wolfshade



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[kloofyboy]

Can you post the URL of your TGP site(s)?

Originally posted by wolfshade:
Nah you're all wrong

The slowdown is caused by the season: SUMMER

TGP's and free stuf has nothing to do with it, I'll say it once again it all boils down to MARKETING SKILLS.

If you can get into Joe surfers head there is nothing he won't buy

Also quit pretending that TGP's are the only traffic sources they are not I get:

a steady 5 to 10k from SE's every day

Green Guy alone does 2k dialy to my sites

PK ads another k and a half to that

Toplists send me 5k a day

Picposts do 1k

Manual linktrades with other sites get me about 500 hits a day

Totalling 20k non TGP traffic daily.

and it converts nicely

Also I did a little ARS test lately and I sent 100k of TGP traffic to some FPA's of them 10% clicked through and my ratio is 1:150

Not bad at all with that traffic I could feed my TGP and get some good sign ups at the same time and then you say TGP traffic is bad?

C'mon quit ya wining start learning and increase ya $$$

Wolfshade

[deluxe]

good point wolfshade. But summer isn't the only thing to blame...

I think our main concern should be stolen content. My guess is that 75% of the pictures on tgp's are stolen. Most times you can tell if the content is stolen or not just by looking at the gallery and still (big)tgp owners post it.

If we could find some way to get the content stealers to take a step back: Tgp's would not have that much to post anymore, so the free stuff would dry up a little. Because everyone is buying the content now they can't afford to get the expensive pics anymore. Tgps and linklists would link to overused content, this will result in unhappy surfers that will move to a pay or avs site. Simply because they still want that high quality that there used of getting.

What do you guys think? Is there any way to pull this one of???

I would like to here your opions on this one!

regards,

Deluxe

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[MrBrian]

who said business is tough?

im having record numbers each of the last four months. this month looks to be about the same as last. but, im not complaining...

[loster]

Originally posted by blakkfrogg:
What's making business so tough these days?

There are obviously many, many different factors that affect individual business results...and all that are mentioned in this thread are major influences. But long term, everyone needs to be planning on real solutions to cover the slow times.


The big picture:
Technology is designed to increase communication between parties, increase efficiency, and increase access to various resources at all levels. This in turn supports heavier competition and lower margins, while at the same time increasing the options available to the consumer.

So, be default, those companies and individuals that are ahead of the curve will continue to pull in clients, followers, and copycats...and those that fall behind will notice exponentially increasing competition.

With limited resources, the best way to avoid falling behind the curve is to find your niche, master it, and then stay on top. No matter what you're doing, if you're the best value available, nature will take it's course, and traffic will come to you.

Hope this helps a little. There are still tons of money being made, you just have to work for it.

Have a great day,

Loster






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[pr0]

Anyone ever think of fucking with the tgp's? =) If they are causing so much destruction to your business, then take them the fuck out =)


word!