Well, It wasn't me who found the job, but the job who found me! Really!
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Well, It wasn't me who found the job, but the job who found me! Really!
Well, a friend who was unemployed at the time approached me about designing some sites and she'd do the promo end of it all ... after a couple months she went back to working a regular job and dropped the whole thing in my lap.
Since I need a job that lets me work from home, I just started reading anything and everything I could to learn more about the biz. While I'm not making any real money from affiliate sales just yet, my design skills have opened a door into the adult entertainment biz, and it's giving me the means to support myself at this point. :francais:
I want to hear this story, I've seen your work. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by bregot
Dzinerbear
I've always associated myself with online communications and porn since a very early age. I got my first computer in 1984 - an Atari 1200XL with a 300 baud modem. What did I use more then anything with it? The modem of course! I was up all night calling the BBS's around Dallas/Ft Worth. Now this led into a three year interlude with phone phreaking and computer hacking... imagine a gay Matthew Broderick from War Games, except I didn't have Ally Sheedy around...... my buddies were all guys and we went a lot father in bed the Matthew and Ally ever did in that flick.
In college I tried to move myself from technology, and explore other areas. I took classes in German, Economics and Philosophy. But the pull of geekdom prevailed, and soon I was working at Radio Shack. Then selling computers for Dell. In 1996 I sold my Dell stock to start something I always wanted to do --- run a multiline BBS. This idea tanked, but I was able to use O'Reilly books and software to run a web server and basic ISP. I used my dell employee discount to buy Windows NT 3.51 for a hundred bucks, and I taught myself how to run it.
So with my then boyfriend we hosted sites and did graphics / website design. In 1997 it occured to me that running my own content website would be interesting and potentially lucrative. So sitting with my family that Thanksgiving I pitched an idea to my mother - take all my grandma's recipes and put them online. Even if we didn't make a dime, it would be fun to promote a family legacy.
Well it took some time, but I cut my teeth on many of the basics of running your own website as a business. So how did I get into porn? Well my boyfriend and I broke up in 2000, and by 2001 I had been living like a pauper for years, taking all the money I got and pouring it all right back into my apartment rent and ISP bills (a T1 into my apt).
In 2002 everything began clicking. I noticed on Texas Cooking that if I discussed a certain cookbook or book about Texas, people would buy it through my Amazon links. So I started Frisky Fans and did the same thing with a subject I knew exteremly well --- gay porn movies.
Well in 2003 both sites finally started making some real money. I also have added several other sites on various subjects which happen to interest me. If I wasn't personally interested in the subject, I won't mess with it. So today of my eight sites, I just have one porn site.
I don't know about you guys, but I can say that none of it was easy. However after all this time, after two apartment evictions and living lean I actually have my own business. I work for myself, and I work pretty much when I want. Last year I was able to do things like buy a car, and travel to Phoenix, Hollywood and Vegas to meet so many nice people.
And I work with things that I enjoy talking about. Also it is interesting because almost everyone I know really now doesn't understand my job. It's funny. If I tell them I run a porn site, they think I film models or run a cam. If I tell them I run a cooking website, they think I sell recipes. Saying that I make money from affiliate programs is like speaking in Swahili. It takes a lot of explaining, and I can tell from the look on their face that even after trying they don't really follow.
I guess I first learned back in 1984 that it is fun being enigmatic.
Steve
Well, I was at work one day and overheard a customer telling another customer that he runs a porn site. Naturaly that got my attention. I start asking him questions, I had talked to him several times before and he seemed pretty cool. I learned a little about what he was doing, which, looking back is a bad idea. He was spamming AOL chat rooms. At this time, I had no idea how much you could make and he told me he was making about $150-200 a day. At first I thought that was how you do it. I really never talked anymore to him, and by this time I found out about YNOT, and other boards. Then after reading it seems like millions of posts, I realize there is a way to make money but it takes a well thought out plan and some experience. I lurked on many boards and one night I see "turnkey". I thought like everybody does when they dont know what it takes to make it. I thought this is perfect for me. I look around and I see somebody asking about Hammer's Porn site Pros. That ended up being Mamakty. I decide that is the route I am gonna go, cuz he's always on the boards, knows what he's talking about, and seems to be helping everybody. A site built by his company has got to be the way to go right? I'm not saying anything bad about Hammer and his company because I have read posts from people who have had a site up for a year and not made anything. I am making money at least but not to the extent that I can be. I know that I paid to much for my site, but that is ok. I see the work out there that you guys have to do to be succesful. I am just floating along, learning as I go, and trying to make a buck. Oh and by the way- GREAT BOARD!!!!!
When I got out of the service and moved back to the Middle East, I got a job at the US embassy where I lived. There was one computer in the records room of my agency's offices that had a satellite internet connection. That was the first time I ever got online, apart from using intranet e-mail and services on base while in the service.
I remember being fascinated by the net and sort of made it part of my job to fiddle about with it there at the embassy. In fact, I even remember using the GI computer on Uncle Sam's dime to peek at the Nifty Erotic Stories Archives a couple times hehe. *blush* But the realization of how unwise a thing that was to do on the GI machine at the embassy quickly made that a thing of the past.
I left my job at the embassy to work at the American University there, where I was really the only person who'd fiddled about with the internet and so convinced them to give me a job updating and modifying their library records (all hardcopy), develop an intranet database and records system, as well as cataloging system for all the books in the library. By that point I was hooked on the theory of the inter and intranet. When I moved to the US to attend college I spent more time fiddling about on the web than I did going to class. I was learning a great deal, though my grades didn't quite reflect it. I spent countless hours doing anything I could do online, from chatting with people and coming out of the closet to internet chatbuddies and looking at porn and having cybersex and making online friends and having e-boyfriends and having it be a huge part of my "sexual awakening", so to speak. But I also did geekier things like study Yahoo and Google. I was fascinated by how they chose to list the sites they did for certain search terms in the orders they did. I'd be up until the wee hours of the morning studying websites and trying to decipher why they ranked as they did.
The first time I got paid to do anything internet related is when a security firm I worked for asked me to use the internet to gather information on persons of interest for threat assessment purposes. Celebrity stalkers and what not. And I found that Google and Yahoo alone could grant me more information about these people than an army of PI background investigators. The company appreciated that as well, and this all thankfully paid for my AOL account (this was in the days before unlimited access, when you paid for AOL by the minute).
A short time later, I approached a web developer friend of mine asking if I could experiment with some of his sites to see if I could get them higher rankings in the search engines. He got his clients to agree to let me fiddle about with em, and I was extremely successful at it. By this point I'd decided a career online was where I wanted to be. I started up an SEO firm that did well and is still around today - in fact one of the top SEO firms in the world - in partnership with this web developer friend. Our client list included AT&T, Microsoft, Dell, and even Inktomi had us develop aspects of their search marketing business. As crazy as it sounds, the church of sc**ientol**ogy took over my partner's half of that company when he joined them and became all gungho about his newfound "religion", signing over his entire life to them just about. I got the hell out when that happened, going to work for various mainstream corporations and startups in their marketing depts. It all became an incredibly frustrating experience, though, as the bubble was bursting and the internet was full of poor business plans and ventures doomed to failure. I couldn't take working for these kinds of operations, so went back to doing stuff on my own. Not to mention I was extremely bitter and frustrated about what had happened to my old company and so was rather incompetent and ineffective as an employee by them. I wasn't able to deal with certain aspects of traditional, brick and mortar business imposed upon me by my employers.
A couple years ago a guy I was seeing at the time came home with a C*ybersocket magazine, pointing out a job ad he saw in the back that he thought I'd be interested in. "Web Marketing Expert" for Bionic Pixels. BP didn't have a marketing dept. yet and so I saw being able to start it from the ground up and run it myself with freedom and carte blanche as a great opportunity. I applied and got the job. Most of BPs clients were adult companies. And so after awhile focusing entirely on being an outsourced specialist for these clients through BP, I started up some original ventures through it. Figure why only be an outsourced expert when there's more money to be made runnin' your own stuff? Adult seemed the logical way to go as we had the connections and know-how in that arena already and had proven ourselves good at it.
And so, here I am. Able to continue to provide outsourced services to clients whose products I like (companies like Bel Ami and Eurocreme and BoyFunk and CorbinFisher that I think are insanely hot and enjoy working with a great deal) while at the same time running 6 of our own sites, both free and pay. And I'm havin a blast. There's still a "wild west" aspect of the industry and the job is both informal and intense - two things I like. Tried and true aspects of traditional business that I personally respect and appreciate apply to this industry and this kind of work, while likewise there is still a lot of new territory to be forged, experiments to be undertaken, and new things to do. I love that. And so see myself staying awhile :D
I'm taking photos for 20 years, I've got my digital camera for almost 5. Those days (in y2k) it was really something: Casio QV 3000 (3 Mpix). Now Canon G5.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzinerbear
I started doing some X-rated sessions with my friends, just for fun. I became popular among them. Then came the fame. One of my friends was very interested in digital photography and we shot ca. 2500 pics in just four days!
He was so pleased with the results, that he showed it to his friend, a guy who owned a gay site. He was at once proposed to sell the set to this gallery. As the boy wanted to have his naked photos, but hestitated to put it in the net, he refused. Then the owner of the website asked him to (at least) contact with me, and this is how it started.
I remember I could not sleep that night... I was so excited that I would do the thing more officially. And what's more I was to discuss it with the owner on the very next day.
I remember I could not sleep also the day after... Once again I was very excited! This time it was caused by the first commercial session on the following day.
And guess what?! The third night in a row was sleepless either! I shoot the set and it was published on the same night. It was the first time ever, when my material was in the internet! I can't recall how many times I pressed F5 to refresh the counters.
Wanna see the set? Clik here:
Januszek
(I would like to acknowledge BoyLantis, who let me keep this set)
Wanna see the site? Here it is:
Gejowo.pl
(Now it is probably one of the biggest gay service in my country. Sorry - it is in Polish)
And now - come and see my private website!
Bregot.com
(There are five subpages in the gallery)
Good story, bregot.
Have you ever gotten in front of the camera?
Dzinerbear
I was making chicken. It was dark. I met a stranger.
I started the next week.
HAHA! You are charming the HELL out of me today. :swoon:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jasun
I started out and continue to own/operate/produce mainstream type sites. One day I decided to do a dating info site....
I discovered that when you put the words "gay" and "dating" together you come up with "adult" in many peoples eyes. So...I've slowly been leaning that way ever since.
There's a proverb in PL, saying "shoemaker walks without shoes". For years I had very few occasions to have my own photo session, but happily my friends came to my city and made me some pics this December. Wanna see?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzinerbear
honestly.. i dont remember, i just know that my first check was sent by adultbouncer in january 2002.
Of course, I wanna see. I've been talking to you long enough, it'd be nice to see what you look like. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by bregot
Dzinerbear
My current Partner started me off,
I had just moved in next to him, I sort of knew him cause we went to same school, he needed help with submiting galleries and 4 years went by and Voila!