What Is The Most Damaging Thing In The Industry To Date?

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Originally Posted by maxpower

I will tell you a solution but your not going to like it :) if the 10 or so gay content providers would start getting stricter about the images they let people use in free and avs sites that would go a long way or at least start turning some of this around. How about only allowing 50 images a set “normally the first 50” and only really low quality images be used in free and AVS sites, adding more value to our members sites. Now I know you will not like that cuzz it might mean less sales for you guy at the start, but if you ask me its a good way to keep your stuff fresh for us.

Why do you think people have to make their own content? I will tell you its because most of this studio content is way over exposed now. Hell with in less than a year I will have to start creating all my own content just because there is not enough of what I need and what you guys do have is over exposed. I really do not want to have to create my own content that is not my job as I see it, but what can I do, you guys can not provide me with enough good twink content to even fill a few sites. Most of the studios don’t even know what a twink is they think its any frat guy under 30.

As I look at it the greedy studios created most of this problem, and in the end are going to pay the price for it to.

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We charge extra for people to use content on the free sites. Simple system if you want it for your paysite, or to submit yourself, and not saturated then the price is as seen. If you want to give it to 100 or what ever affiliates we want more money. The downside is few buy the extra license, the upside is those who do make more money because others are too tight.

But do you really think the content producers are so bad and greedy or that they are scraping to make a living?

Is there any shortage of Twink in the DVD market or magazine market? If the answer is no then you have your answer. The shooters are not making enough to tempt them over to the Internet.

Laws of supply and demand again.

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Sorry I am in a bad mood its just with the holiday BS my bank is dicking me around

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Don't worry about it. I'm thick skinned or am I just dense? :penny:

paul, don't get paranoid on me. i think you're one of the more involved photographers around and i've felt lucky to get to talk to you over the years about various things in our industry - truly. also i agree with a lot of what you are saying.

porn was bound to reach a new level. when i started on the web in 1996, there were probably less than 1/100th the number of webmasters. but there are also TONS more sponsor paysites, many with a twist you can sell. so why shouldn't marketing methods include free samples? heck, you can write to oil of olay or MANY other products for free stuff. TV shows on all non cable networks are free to watch just so you will watch the advertising. my daughter LOVES free stuff and the companies tell her they feel that even if she doesn't buy their products, the word about their products will still get out through her. why are so many people so sure this shouldn't apply to porn?

maybe the free porn samples aren't the problem - maybe the way they are used to market is the problem. there are zillions of guys i talk to on boards who can't make 1 sale every day using galleries - but all the time they were on all the boards saying tgp traffic is just plain bad, i was making money and sales every day. and i'm talking about through september 2005.

it's SO easy to say "well, there wasn't as much free porn around back in 1996 - that MUST be the problem". but it's sloppy thinking.

how many subscribers were unable to cancel their memberships back in the day, and learned not to trust paysites? how many even now discover that most of what they joined a site to see isn't really there, or is the smallest part of the site? how many have been upsold or mislead? come on, we're causing a lack of trust as an industry. many of the big programs have sites that don't even offer the core contant of their sites' niches. every time we get paid $30 for one of those sales, another member is being taught that paysites aren't going to give you what they promise.

we are taking guys with credit cards and teaching them that using them will lead to disappointment or worse. beyond those other issues, small blurry videos and small pic sets run rampant. sites pretending to be reality sites have regular old licensed porn.

i think our industry would be more successful if there were more sites like randy blue, corbin fisher and videobox/gayvideo box around. those are the sites teaching members not only to stay longer as members but also that it's worth pulling out their credit cards!

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Originally Posted by Paul Markham

We charge extra for people to use content on the free sites. Simple system if you want it for your paysite, or to submit yourself, and not saturated then the price is as seen. If you want to give it to 100 or what ever affiliates we want more money. The downside is few buy the extra license, the upside is those who do make more money because others are too tight.

But do you really think the content producers are so bad and greedy or that they are scraping to make a living?

Is there any shortage of Twink in the DVD market or magazine market? If the answer is no then you have your answer. The shooters are not making enough to tempt them over to the Internet.

Laws of supply and demand again.

Don't worry about it. I'm thick skinned or am I just dense? :penny:

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Ya man I am sure they are trying to do the best they can, but most studios do not have any restriction on the content at all. I am really not sure about the magazine stuff, but the DVD and videos of REAL twink content that is available to us is very limited. Its just when you start to talk about webmaster using exclusive amateur videos as a bad thing that got me, they too have not choice about it. Personally I really do not want to have to mess with creating content at all, but it is a must if you want your site to grow now days, and I am sure the first 10 or so I do will really suck too.

Its just a bad situation and blaming member site owners for the problems is not the way I would go, they have about the least control of any of this

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Originally Posted by basschick

paul, don't get paranoid on me. i think you're one of the more involved photographers around and i've felt lucky to get to talk to you over the years about various things in our industry - truly. also i agree with a lot of what you are saying.

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No worries, not paranoid.

We agree on so many things. Any industry that treats it's "Buskers" better than it treats it's customer is going to struggle winning over the customers to spend money. This hurts the Industry and all within it.

Buskers = people who give out free samples.

Who's ruining the business... could be free porn that's out there... could be lousy content... or just sloppy webmasters...

personally I think that this is ruining the business...

1. Producers doing 20 sloppy sites in 19 niches... and overcharging for access instead of delivering good, neat and hot site in one niche

2. Web site owners who take everyone for an affiliate, regardless if he sells 1 membership a day or 10... so why should I be treated the same as someone who is just overusing the same content but making no sales?

3. Photographers, who are totally unwilling to cooperate (not all), but I've dealt with 15 photographers in last 8 months and many of them have no clue what they are doing, or just don't reply (from 48 I've sent an email, I got reply from 18), regardless if you offer crazy amount of cash for a set. Or are just too uncooperative and think that 15 pics represent the set

4. There is serious lack of photo content on content sale sites and most of it is just plain average... who says I'm not willing to pay 100-200$ for a non-exclusive set if it's done bloody great? Same content on different photo brokers....

5. Gay LinkLists with their rules that just make even more content available for free

6. Sites that fuck with surfer, telling them they can join for free and in the small print it says "If you don't cancel in 2 days you will get billed 39.95" or something like that... (and there are many sites like this)

7. Big sites that charge big bucks and deliver photos in flash with a watermark at 300x400 resolution (falcon), videos that nobody can save...

Anyway... I'm still amazed that anybody buys memberships... I mean... personally site has to deliver something unique, daily driven for me to join, otherwise if I want to jerk off, I'd go to TGPS, see some pics, see some clips and that's it. Why pay 39,95 for 2 and a half minutes of pleasure?

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Originally Posted by Lee

Was just wondering what everyone thought the single most damaging thing to the adult industry was to date?

Regulation? Laws? Processing? Content? Or something else?

Just curious to see what everyones opinion was on this after a conversation i just had.

Regards,

Lee

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so many good answers it would be hard to choose just one.

jim

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Originally Posted by maxpower

Ya man I am sure they are trying to do the best they can, but most studios do not have any restriction on the content at all. I am really not sure about the magazine stuff, but the DVD and videos of REAL twink content that is available to us is very limited. Its just when you start to talk about webmaster using exclusive amateur videos as a bad thing that got me, they too have not choice about it. Personally I really do not want to have to mess with creating content at all, but it is a must if you want your site to grow now days, and I am sure the first 10 or so I do will really suck too.

Its just a bad situation and blaming member site owners for the problems is not the way I would go, they have about the least control of any of this

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Not sure about your answer on the Twink in the DVD market. Are you saying it's not available to you on the Internet or not available in the shops?

The point I'm making is, is it available in the shops and you can't buy it for the Internet? And is the quality of what you get is lower than what's in the shops?

The answer could be you are not paying enough.

Is the level of supply in the Gay porn arena down to the returns the producers make from their product? Seems to me if they were making a fortune there would be a lot more of them supplying a better product and they could be a little more restrictive on their licenses.

If you ask me the best thing for all of us would be more resections on free content like only X content allowed for free “No Hard Cocks” and all XXX content must be password protected. This would still provide free stuff to make sales and not give away the farm too anyone with a internet connection.

But do I think this will happen NO, its just going to get worse and in 5 years if your not a photographer or have big bucks to pay your own you will be out of luck. :cry:

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Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Not sure about your answer on the Twink in the DVD market. Are you saying it's not available to you on the Internet or not available in the shops?

The point I'm making is, is it available in the shops and you can't buy it for the Internet? And is the quality of what you get is lower than what's in the shops?

The answer could be you are not paying enough.

Is the level of supply in the Gay porn arena down to the returns the producers make from their product? Seems to me if they were making a fortune there would be a lot more of them supplying a better product and they could be a little more restrictive on their licenses.

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Ya do not really know what goes on in the stores man, I really only know about what available online for use. To tell the truth I have never owned a gay DVD or what ever that did not have to do with my work. If their are so many good DVD’s and videos out their why not allow just to use at least some of the older ones? It would be cheap and pretty easy to do, but most of what we get is from Russia or something and kind of sucks. I don’t know at some point I was thinking their would be a whole world of content to chose from, but its not really how it is. Even the sites Bass talked about all have only exclusive content as far as I know.

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Originally Posted by Toni_Enzo

3. Photographers, who are totally unwilling to cooperate (not all), but I've dealt with 15 photographers in last 8 months and many of them have no clue what they are doing, or just don't reply (from 48 I've sent an email, I got reply from 18), regardless if you offer crazy amount of cash for a set. Or are just too uncooperative and think that 15 pics represent the set

4. There is serious lack of photo content on content sale sites and most of it is just plain average... who says I'm not willing to pay 100-200$ for a non-exclusive set if it's done bloody great? Same content on different photo brokers....

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No Clue = not professionals.

100-200$ = Work out the costs of production, and calculate the sales needed to return a profit at $150 a set. Now look at the other avenues open to a "bloody great professional" shooter. Will a set sell 20 times at $150 and return $3,000? Now take out the costs. Do you see why you are not getting the good product yet?

But you did make some very good points, now also look at what is being spent to get traffic? Not enough spent on product, too much spent on traffic and a lot of people conning surfers. All adds up to making it tough.

I think maxpower has answered the question.

I also find it amazing that someone selling a product is so unaware of the other methods of delivery for that product.

And why don't the DVD sellers let you have the old stuff? You don't offer them enough. Trust me they will sell if the price is right.

Credit card regulations, search engine consolidation would be up there on my list. Credti card regulations caused severe cosolidation in the collecting money part of the business... which was a bad thing for us and others because it severely choked our revenue streams and made making sales more difficult, however, that same action could be considered a good event because it forced many of those sites not willing to pony up and play fair to go out of business...

I think sites can still compete using free content. use old content as free content to market new exclusive content works well for us.

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Originally Posted by Toni_Enzo

Who's ruining the business... could be free porn that's out there... could be lousy content... or just sloppy webmasters...

personally I think that this is ruining the business...

1. Producers doing 20 sloppy sites in 19 niches... and overcharging for access instead of delivering good, neat and hot site in one niche

2. Web site owners who take everyone for an affiliate, regardless if he sells 1 membership a day or 10... so why should I be treated the same as someone who is just overusing the same content but making no sales?

3. Photographers, who are totally unwilling to cooperate (not all), but I've dealt with 15 photographers in last 8 months and many of them have no clue what they are doing, or just don't reply (from 48 I've sent an email, I got reply from 18), regardless if you offer crazy amount of cash for a set. Or are just too uncooperative and think that 15 pics represent the set

4. There is serious lack of photo content on content sale sites and most of it is just plain average... who says I'm not willing to pay 100-200$ for a non-exclusive set if it's done bloody great? Same content on different photo brokers....

5. Gay LinkLists with their rules that just make even more content available for free

6. Sites that fuck with surfer, telling them they can join for free and in the small print it says "If you don't cancel in 2 days you will get billed 39.95" or something like that... (and there are many sites like this)

7. Big sites that charge big bucks and deliver photos in flash with a watermark at 300x400 resolution (falcon), videos that nobody can save...

Anyway... I'm still amazed that anybody buys memberships... I mean... personally site has to deliver something unique, daily driven for me to join, otherwise if I want to jerk off, I'd go to TGPS, see some pics, see some clips and that's it. Why pay 39,95 for 2 and a half minutes of pleasure?

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Lets not forget affiliates who join paysites just to steal all the content out of the members area and use it as their own.

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Lee

Lets not forget affiliates who join paysites just to steal all the content out of the members area and use it as their own.

Regards,

Lee

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Yeah, I would too consider stolen content in general as the biggest damage one can do to the industry and in my opinion those are most inferiour people of your industry. Not only causing damage to the studios but also showing other not so bright people that stealing content is "ok". If a dumbass like this would steal my content I would hang him face down by his nutsack stapled against a wooden bar at the Taipeh 101's last floor.

Free (own or licenced) content out there is just a marketing thing - if you could produce something that costs nothing to reproduce why not give away a piece of it and see if they like the full deal? Microsoft does so with software when supplying schools - the kids get used to M$ products and later they buy a PC with M$ on the harddrive - this time paying for it.

0.02 €

DEVELISH

these days you can almost assemble a models complete photo shoot by visiting a couple of thumbnail galleries so what's the point of joining a site?
i agree there needs to be a tighter "reign" on content as well as restrictions on how the content is used ( first 20 pictures samples only/etc.) but that seems to be non-existent with some content providers interested in mass-sales.
i still believe "original/exclusive" photo/videography will "stand-out" , and regardless of how much "free-content" is out there will hold it's own in the adult marketplace.

sincerely ~ ..."you get what you pay for"...

As far as I am concerned, cheaters (webmasters, sponsors and members) are the most damaging - in essence, most of the changes forced upon us are the result of their actions.

(I can just hear the DUHs now.)

Free content is not enough of a threat, and I see it no differently from a movie trailer: the best parts are always given away, yet people still flock to the theatre or the video store.