Do webmasters even have to work anymore?
 

I spend most of my day networking, designing, programming, and helping others. And I keep getting asked why I do all this. The reasons people ask me this is:

Sponsors now do:

Free Hosting.
Gallery Design.
Submissions of galleries.
Free Hosted Galleries.

This has been topic of conversation of a few people and myself this week. If the sponsors are going to do all this then why do they even need affiliates?

Webmasters complain about sponsor shaving all the time but then expect all this out of their sponsors. I even heard of a sponsor designing galleries and submitting them to the affiliates tgp. I mean whats the sense?

To me this is whats causing a lot of problems in the industry. People have tgp's turned on auto pilot. Thery have no clue whats being submitted to their tgp's because the script is babysitting the tgp for them.

I know a lot of people in this industry that work hard every day. They make good money too. But they get frustrated also seeing people making money when the sponsors are footing all the bills and doing all the work for people.

I understand this is a highly competitive market. But if the sponsors are doing all the work and footing all the bills why have affiliates? Especially affiliates that call them out on the boards time after time and accuse them of cheating and shaving. Hell if I was doing all the work I would probably be shaving the hell out of my affiliates that are doing nothing also.

Discuss.

I work every day all day long



































































































yeah right

in fact... right you are...

There is more to this industry than just TGPs

I understand ... so you're saying all tgp's and galleries should be handled by sponsors now so webmasters can work on other things?

NO WAY! :eek7 :eek7

you are so right....sponsors do everything for affiliates anymore, it is crazy

I work all day every day, i make my own shit, use my own hosting and work for my money 100%...i don't feel comfortable using everyone else to make my money for me

Oh, if I had a dollar for every time I had this discussion. Affiliates want sponsor programs to do nearly everything. Next week I'm gonna be starting on launching a massive free hosted movie gallery project for Lightspeed Cash - because everyone else is doing it or already has it.

Truth is a lot of traffic pump these things.....

Fuck...Now you tell me. :1orglaugh

Good insight as always JFP. Affiliates have it very good now a days.

The webmaster who expects the least and does the most is usually the one that is rewarded.

TGP is just a small part of this biz.....

When did I say that?

I think it's a significant part

But I do think people dwell on TGPs as if they're the only method of getting traffic.

I work hard!

Or is it hardly work...

People are just stopping taking submissions.

Why waste time taking someone elses gallery sending THEM the traffic and worrying about expliots and virus when they can log in, get all the FHGs they need, use them and make money,

I work hard at trying to keep good people around me. I have not been too successful lately.

I've been on AIM and ICQ for a week trying to catch up with my "so called" program manager.

~Ray

Ok consider this. Most of us here are business minded enough to see trends. Here is the trend I see.

Say for example sponsor A is hosting with xyz hosting company. And say for example xyz hosting company is also a processor (a few fit this description)

sponsor a says ok we are going to host all our affiliates for free.

xyz hosting tells sponsor a well I'll host you and your affiliates for free if you use our processing. (this is what the sponsors are telling the affiliates in essence)

So now xyz hosting now is hosting the sponsor and affiliates for free. They have an in house design staff making whatever promotional materials are needed. And even funding all the big shabangs like internext for the sponsors.

Now .... where would that hosting company get any more paying customers? They have just set themselves up to host the sponsors and affiliates for free.

can you give a link to xyz hosting ?

for example adult.com owns jupiter hosting. They also provide free hosting to affiliates. Shouldn't there be a difference in what a free hosted affiliate by adult.com and a self hosted affiliate from adult.com makes?

I'm speaking hypothetically ... or am I ?

What's a TGP?

I was just kidding :winkwink:

Exactly .. so why do we need autosubmitters anymore for.. there goes that part of the industry.

No need for partner accounts anymore ... we can close them down now too.

no more links between tgp designers and tgp's anymore we'll just fill the search engines up with free hosted galleries.

no need for hosting if you can't build galleries anymore.

No need for content providers who provide the content for those galleries either


we can just do away with all of them.

Nobody sees the trend of the industry imploding itself?

Question is ... am I?

Sponsors are getting wise...the days of all these benefits are numbered.

You've got huge companies now hiring teams of workers out of the philippines etc building galleries..submitting galleries...avs etc...some day they won't be at all concerned with the small guys.

I hope it does.

More money for me.

So what do you suggest.

If comapny A cant keep up with company B which is offering everything but the traffic (and in some cases that too) Company A must either quit or offer the Free Hosted Galleries, Free Hosting, Free Design, etc

This is the growing concern. Do they care now?

Why not just add 3 dollars per signup and put it back where an affiliate program is an affiliate program and webmasters have to work for their money.

the thing is, even with all of these tools at their disposal, most affiliates don't even use them...

here's a little secret: building your own galleries will generally bring in more sales than just throwing a bunch of traffic at a freehosted gallery...but people can't even be bothered with trying to build their own galleries anymore...

TGP owners are nothing more than a traffic resource. Same as a SEO guy and so on. They are all nothing more than traffic resources for the program owners.

Exactly. But if they had to then wouldn't that mean less overhead for the sponsor program and give the program more resources to do what they do best and grow the program?

And leave the webmasters to do what they should be doing best... promoting the program?

So should they be called webmasters anymore?

Or would a better name be traffic cop?

or maybe just get rid of affiliates altogether?
if I could hire a room full of philippinos to build and submit AVS sites, free sites and galleries all day for a flat rate, wouldn't that be better financially as well as eliminate dealing with affiliate headaches like shaving accusations, false advertising, carding, breaking my back to build tools for affiliates they don't even use, etc.?

I understand my days and those of my fellow affiliate managers could be ended by a full bore outsourcing bananza....because there would be no more affiliates to take care of...

Let's be honest, a sponsor doesn't really care who sends the sales as long as they are legit...whether it's Affiliate Andy or a roomful of Bovarian peasants...sales are sales

(note: I'm talking about this figuratively and speculatively and am in no way implying it is the opinion or policy of EvilGeniusCash ;-))

Are sponsors far off from doing just that now?

sure...but the whole dynamic of the affiliate-sponsor relationship has changed in the last couple of years...

something else that has changed is the lower prices for bandwidth. Back in 97-98 when bandwidth was $4-5 per gig, you wouldn't see many sponsors even thinking of offering free hosted galleries or the like.

Outsourcing seems to be the way of the future

You raise some very good points re the comparative advantages of ready made materials vs. custom made/custom edited/hands on management.

Some thoughts

1) Webmasters who work hard on their TGPs/MGPs instead of putting everything on autopilot would, in my opinion, do better in the long term IF they divert some of that effort into closely studyingtheir traffic and user base. If they detect some sort of niche preference by their users, they should then change the composition of their offerings to meet that need. They should also investigate any subniches or layout/pic set/sponsor preferences and reorient their site to those. There's a difference between working hard and working hard and efficiently. So while's its important to work hard managing one's site. One should also work hard in finding efficiencies.

2) What do sponsors need affiliates for when they have all this ready made promo materials? Bottomline, affiliates are like traffic scouts and aggregators for sponsors. If Internet traffic was like a giant ocean of traffic, affiliates are the guys who pool water from many differing rivulets and streams and estuaries and aggregate these to sponsors who then have rivers of traffic going through their networks. By giving affiliates these ready made tools for their little streams of traffic, sponsors compete better against other sponsors who don't offer the tools. Sponsors cannot directly filter and aggregate all the small streams of traffic since this would take huge amounts of resources on their part. In essence, they are leveraging on affiliates' efforts using an efficient pay per performance model.

but how many employees would a company have to hire to get as much exposure as they would via affiliates? No matter how many monkeys you have submitting, it just can't compare to the branding level of when you have a zillion affiliates plastering your stuff all over. Even if they aren't necessarily bringing in tons of sales. Its branding.

good thread.

people (including) myself have noticed this beginning.

I have been giving design jobs that basically consisted of what you speak. I get hit up quite often for site specific promo, meaning - Sponsor XXX hits up Fletch to do galleries and then passes this on to agffiliate to use.

Has been happening for awhile.

I also have stated on this board as well that there would be a day when the TGP owners would be working more side by side with their best sponsors etc. As mentioned sponsors dont care who gives them traffic. Why wait on affiliate to submit when yuoui can buy listings?

I have been giving projects that basically were daily galleries for either affiliates or the TGP owenrs themselves (which in the end IS an affiliate) They buy me for 30 days at a time. And i just hand over the work.

ive seen this coming.

I know of a couple that are contemplating/will be doing just that

imagine if a sponsor could pay the equivelant of $5 per signup rather than $25-40...

Good point, JFP. perhaps another name would be Traffic aggregators or traffic scouts.

Me too ... thats why I am concerned.

What will it spin off. Will it all be in house and not be needing things such as the whole range of support people thats on these boards now.

I call it the downsizing of the adult web industry. It's happening all around us now.

there will always be room for creative people who can generate traffic from unique and untapped sources...it's the middle of the road types and automatons that will see their numbers decreased...

The point behind this is that... sponsors may give webmasters the tools but they can't hand to them the process above. And that is what separates the hands on guys and the autopilot crowd.

I can only assume it'll lead to downsizing as well as merger frenzy in the industry...

That has already started.

It sounds a lot like what Walmart has done to Ma and Pa retail stores in nearly every small town in the US..

Some of the good sponsors can. Those that built their businesses themselves and I can name quite a few really don't need affiliates at all because right now their affiliate costs vs profit is cutting into the profit from their own in house sales.

Exactly ...